Carma's Place is building safe, affordable, supportive housing and a structured path to employment, community, and independence for adults with autism and developmental disabilities — starting in the Phoenix metro area, and designed from day one to be repeated in city after city.
The shortage of appropriate housing for adults with developmental disabilities isn't a policy footnote — it's a structural failure that shapes the daily lives of millions of families, and it is getting worse every year.
Every resident enters at the stage that fits them and advances at their own pace through measurable milestones. No one is pushed faster than they're ready to go — and no one is held back from going as far as they can.
The Pathway is not a one-way escalator. Some residents move through every stage; others find their fullest, happiest life at an earlier one — and that is a success too. The model bends to the person, not the person to the model.
Carma's Place is built on integrated, apartment-style housing rather than congregate group homes or institutions. People with developmental disabilities live healthier, more connected, more self-determined lives when they're part of a community rather than walled off from it — and it keeps the model eligible for the housing and Medicaid funding streams sustainability depends on.
Read about the model →From its first location, Carma's Place runs on a unified platform for case management, individualized goal tracking, employment outcomes, and donor and grant compliance — rather than the patchwork of spreadsheets most nonprofits accumulate over years. Because every future location runs on the same platform, the organization can compare outcomes across communities and improve continuously.
Arizona's Division of Developmental Disabilities serves more than 59,000 Arizonans with developmental disabilities each year and openly cautions that residential placement is not guaranteed. Arizona has also been an Employment First state since 2017, and existing federal and state mechanisms — HUD Section 811, housing choice vouchers, and AHCCCS's H2O program — provide a funding scaffold Carma's Place is built to assemble into a complete model, beginning in the Phoenix metropolitan area.
Florida combines one of the nation's largest populations of adults with developmental disabilities, a severe affordable-housing shortage, and long-term employment-partnership potential in its hospitality and tourism economy.
Carma's Place began with a specific family and a question that keeps thousands of parents awake at night. The full story is being prepared by the founders — read what we can share so far.
Read our story →Carma's Place is early — pre-incorporation, building its founding board, and preparing its first capital campaign. That's exactly the stage where the right partners, board members, and early supporters make the difference.
See how to help