A Quiet Win for Virginia DD Waiver Families: The 2026 Legislative Updates You Need to Know
If you’ve been bracing for bad news about disability services, take a breath.
Something good actually happened in Richmond this year.
Several disability-related bills quietly moved through the 2026 Virginia General Assembly session and have now been signed into law.
One of them protects something thousands of Virginia DD Waiver families didn’t even know was at risk – a quirk in the rules that could have stripped your loved one’s eligibility for reasons that have nothing to do with their support needs.
Most families haven’t heard about it yet. That’s why we’re writing today.
The Big Win: SSDI Income No Longer Endangers DD Waiver Eligibility
Here’s the problem the law solved.
A lot of adults with developmental disabilities receive Social Security Disability Insurance – SSDI – based on a parent’s work record.
It’s a benefit known as Disabled Adult Child, or DAC, benefits.
As long as your loved one’s disability began before age 22 and a parent is retired, disabled, or deceased, they can draw a monthly check from that parent’s Social Security earnings.
That’s a good thing. Until it isn’t.
When a parent retires or passes away, the SSDI amount your adult child receives can jump.
Sometimes by hundreds of dollars a month.
That extra money pushes them over the income cap for Virginia’s DD Waivers, which is set at 300% of the federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) standard.
The result?
Your loved one could lose their Family and Individual Support Waiver, Community Living Waiver, or Building Independence Waiver…
And the personal care, respite, residential support, and behavioral services that come with it – because their dad turned 67.
Not because their needs changed. Not because their disability got better. Because a Social Security check got bigger.
It’s the kind of bureaucratic trap families never see coming until it’s too late.
In 2024, Virginia created a temporary fix — HB 908 and SB 676 – that told the Department of Medical Assistance Services to disregard any SSDI income above the SSI standard when deciding whether someone financially qualifies for DD Waiver services.
But that fix was set to sunset on July 1, 2026.
The 2026 General Assembly made it permanent.
Legislation passed this spring permanently protects DD Waiver eligibility for SSDI recipients in this situation.
That extra income is no longer counted when determining whether your loved one financially qualifies for the waiver.
Their eligibility is no longer hostage to a parent’s work history.
What This Means for Your Family
If your adult child receives DAC SSDI benefits – or might in the future when you retire – this is a meaningful piece of stability.
Before HB 37 became permanent, families across Hampton Roads were quietly making decisions to protect waiver eligibility.
Parents were delaying retirement. Adults with disabilities were limiting their own work hours to stay under income caps.
Families were burning energy on math that should never have been their problem in the first place.
That pressure is now off the table for this specific scenario.
A few things to keep in mind:
- The income is still counted for “patient pay” purposes. The disregard applies only to financial eligibility – whether your loved one qualifies for the waiver in the first place. Patient pay is the share of waiver costs your loved one is expected to contribute from their own income, and SSDI is still counted there.
- You still need to report income changes to your local Community Services Board or Cover Virginia. The disregard is automatic at the eligibility-determination stage, but DMAS still needs accurate information on file.
- Your support coordinator can confirm whether the disregard applies to your case. If it’s been a while since you reviewed your loved one’s eligibility paperwork, this is a good time to ask.
Other 2026 Wins Worth Knowing About
The SSDI fix wasn’t the only thing that passed. A handful of other bills moved through the 2026 session that affect Virginia families like yours.
A new task force on Marcus Alert. Marcus Alert is the system designed to change how Virginia responds when someone is having a mental health crisis – to prioritize trained crisis professionals over law enforcement when possible. The 2026 General Assembly created a task force to evaluate how the system is actually working, particularly for people with developmental disabilities who may behave in ways first responders misread. If your loved one has ever had a crisis encounter you wished had gone differently, this is a step toward making that better.
Broader crisis response improvements. Related legislation and budget actions from the 2026 session address Virginia’s overall crisis response system, including the 988 mental health crisis line, mobile crisis teams, crisis stabilization, and supports specifically for people with developmental disabilities. They also require public input before certain changes are made to the state’s crisis response plan — meaning families like yours have a formal seat at the table.
More school flexibility for student health. A new law lets school divisions use state “at-risk” funding to support student physical and mental health, including hiring school nurses. For families whose loved ones rely on health supports during the school day, this opens up resources that weren’t available before.
Voting protections for people under guardianship. A new law clarifies that being under guardianship does not automatically take away someone’s right to vote. If your loved one is under guardianship and wants to participate in elections, that right is now more clearly protected in Virginia code.
Not everything passed. HB 246 and SB 335 — which would have allowed some defendants to argue that a disability-related condition should affect whether they’re convicted or how they’re sentenced in certain assault cases — were vetoed by the Governor in May 2026. Advocates have said they’ll keep pushing on this issue.
For a full breakdown of what passed and what didn’t, the Endependence Center of Northern Virginia’s 2026 Legislative Update is the clearest, most plain-language summary we’ve seen.
What to Do This Week
If you’re a Hampton Roads family with a loved one on a DD Waiver – or on the waiting list – here are three quick things worth doing while these wins are fresh:
- Check whether SSDI is in your family’s picture. If a parent is approaching retirement, or if your loved one currently receives DAC SSDI, talk to your support coordinator about how HB 37 applies. You shouldn’t have to find out the hard way.
- Update your contact information with your CSB. When laws change, your CSB is the one that explains how it affects you. If they can’t reach you, you can’t get the information.
- Bookmark advocacy resources. The Arc of Virginia, the disAbility Law Center of Virginia, and ECNV are three of the strongest voices working on bills like these. They’re how this win happened. They’re how the next one will happen too.
How We’re Thinking About This at CDS
We’ve spent almost two decades walking Hampton Roads families through the DD Waiver system.
We’ve seen the heartbreak when a family loses services over a technicality.
We’ve also seen what advocacy can do when families, providers, and disability organizations show up consistently – at hearings, in emails, in conversations with legislators who didn’t know what they didn’t know.
This year, that showing-up worked.
It doesn’t fix everything.
The waiver waitlist in Virginia is still over 14,000 people.
Direct support professional pay still doesn’t reflect the work. Federal Medicaid funding pressure is still real, and we’ll keep writing about it.
But HB 37 is a clean, honest win, and we wanted you to know about it before it quietly took effect and you missed it.
If you have questions about how any of these 2026 changes affect your family – whether it’s the SSDI disregard, crisis response, or anything else – we’re here.
Our team handles Virginia DD Waiver services every day, and we’ll always tell you what we know and where to get a second opinion when we don’t.
Community Direct Services, Inc. 📞 (757) 965-4899 📧 info@cdsva.com 🌐 communitydirectservices.com 📍 5705 Thurston Ave., Virginia Beach, VA 23455
Sources & Resources
- ECNV — 2026 Virginia Legislative Update on Disability-Related Bills: https://www.ecnv.org/news/2026-virginia-legislative-update-on-disability-related-bills
- Virginia DMAS — Developmental Disability Waivers: https://www.dmas.virginia.gov/for-members/benefits-and-services/waivers/developmental-disability-dd-waivers/
- Virginia DBHDS — Waiver Services: https://dbhds.virginia.gov/developmental-services/waiver-services/
- Virginia HB 908 / SB 676 (2024 origin of SSDI disregard): https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?241+sum+HB908=
- DMAS — Report on SSDI Disregard for DD Waiver Eligibility: https://rga.lis.virginia.gov/Published/2024/RD904/PDF
- The Arc of Virginia — DD Waiver resources: https://www.thearcofva.org/developmental-disabilities-waiver
- My Life My Community Virginia — DD Waiver Info: https://mylifemycommunityvirginia.org/dd-waiver-info
