Mike Dennehy is the president of www.NextStepLiving.org, an organization with a mission to provide residential living to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

If you read or watch the news lately, you’ll see a bipartisan political agreement emerging around a crystal clear issue: the need to fix our state’s housing crisis.

In her inaugural address, Gov. Kelly Ayotte stated “we need to get serious about housing production, streamline state agency approvals and partner with our local communities.”The Legislature agrees. The New Hampshire House of Representatives has created a new committee on housing chaired by workhorse Rep. Joe Alexander of Goffstown. The State Senate is setting up a special subcommittee on housing to bring all policy options together to increase housing access for New Hampshire families.

This kind of consensus in government is rarely seen, especially in our current hyper-partisan political environment. Now, of course, come the details of these policy proposals.

Nearly every debate in the State House revolves around cutting regulations for housing developers so that affordable housing opportunities can be quickly identified. Another issue with apparent momentum is doubling the amount of money that goes to the affordable housing fund. However, an issue excluded from this debate is housing for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

For decades, people with IDD have been the forgotten population in the housing agenda.

When the Laconia School, the former state institution for people with disabilities, was shut down in 1991 due to the mistreatment of its residents, there was an apparent consensus that people with IDD would live at home with their families or find other housing in their town. The closure of the Laconia School was necessary, but the ensuing absence of a serious housing dialogue for these individuals has led to severe consequences.

People with IDD have been in a housing crisis for 35 years. According to the Disability Rights Center, there are approximately 27,000 people with IDD in the state and only a fraction live independently, while most live with a family member throughout their lives.

Last year, my nonprofit, Next Step Living, started a development that will house 11 residents with IDD. The project is not yet completed, and we already have a waitlist of people wanting to live there because the housing options for people with IDD are anemic.

Many people with IDD yearn to live independently, but they lack the resources. Many cannot work 40 hours per week to afford renting a market-rate apartment, and it’s difficult for them to get into affordable housing.

However, what we hear most from parents and guardians of people with IDD is their desire for community. The fact is that many people with IDD have difficulty establishing friendships and building community with others. Without that fellowship, people with IDD become lonely and even insular. This is the driving force behind our Next Step Living mission. By creating a small, independent living development for people with IDD, we are providing them with community. They can come and go as they please, but they can also eat dinners together, go to the YMCA, walk to the park or go to church. Many people with IDD cannot drive, and so this development being in downtown Concord gives them everything they need within walking distance.

The challenge is that both state and federal regulations offer no assistance. Instead, bureaucratic red tape throws up hurdles for projects like ours. My friend, attorney Bill Ardinger, led an effort to build housing for people with disabilities for over a decade before the regulatory roadblocks finally got the best of him. Don’t get me wrong: The City of Concord and the State of New Hampshire have been wildly supportive of our efforts, and we have amazing people and companies volunteering to help us get this project off the ground. For that, we are tremendously grateful. But very real barriers remain for these kinds of projects.

What people with IDD need is for Gov. Ayotte and the New Hampshire House and Senate to think of the needs of the IDD community as they take action to ease regulations on housing and development. A couple of simple, yet important, items to consider: For one, we should incentivize small developers to house people with IDD independently, an option the State House is currently debating for affordable housing developers. The state should also work to make Medicaid dollars usable for an individual’s housing payment.

There are many more answers to be found, but it will take a concerted effort from our elected leaders to address the housing needs of the disability community. People with IDD deserve to have the simple joys of life that those of us without disabilities sometimes take for granted.