Where We Stand: A Letter from Our President

For more than 45 years, McClendon Center has quietly served as a safety net for neighbors in need across DC. I want to start keeping you closer to that work.

We’re working to be more proactive about staying connected with the people who care about us, and about advocating for the people we serve. This is one of the first steps in that effort.

From time to time, members of our team and I will share, directly and candidly, how we’re doing, the challenges we face, and the work that usually stays behind the scenes. My aim is to pull back the veil and be candid about what’s weighing on us right now, and how we’re responding.

We have long prided ourselves on never shutting our doors to anyone who comes to us in need. That is core to who we are. In this environment, however, that ability has been increasingly in peril, and we are wrestling with difficult decisions about how we can continue serving those who count on us.

Where we stand

This has been a year of significant challenges to the work we do, and it comes on the heels of several that have already tested us. We began 2026 still adapting to a late-2025 Department of Behavioral Health emergency ruling that capped Day Rehabilitation Program hours and restricted Community Support, which has reduced the care our participants can access.

The work we do in the community, reaching residents who would never find their way to a clinic on their own, continues to be curtailed. Community Support complements the clinical care our clients receive. Our staff meet people where they are, help them stay connected to treatment, maintain benefits, address housing needs, and build skills to live more independently. Working alongside our clinical team, they step in before concerns become a crisis.

When I first started at McClendon Center in 2008, residents in need could receive up to 150 hours of Community Support within 180 days, with the ability to request more when they needed it. This remained steady until 2024, when the District cut that to 50 hours. Now, as of October 9, the District is proposing to cut it in half again, to 25 hours, a reduction that could leave as many as 95 of our current clients with less support to maintain their stability.

If it is enacted, more and more individuals will fall between the cracks. For an organization built on reaching people others miss, each of these cuts feels like a stomach punch.

Where we go from here

I don’t want to leave you only with the hard news, because it is not the whole story.

We are not meeting this moment quietly. We recently launched a medical-legal partnership with American University’s Washington College of Law, where law students help our clients resolve the Medicaid and SNAP problems that can cut them off from care, and train our case managers to catch those issues early.

We are speaking up, too. Earlier this year, I joined the board of the DC Behavioral Health Association, and alongside other providers we are carrying our clients’ stories into the rooms where these decisions get made. In the days ahead, members of our team will share more about those efforts.

Ways you can help

There are real ways to help. The simplest is to stay connected and reach out when something here resonates, whether with a question, an idea, or someone who should know about this work. When we call on our community to lend its voice to advocacy, and we will soon, I hope you’ll add yours.

If you are able, a gift of any size helps us keep reaching the people who need us most. You can give at mcclendoncenter.org/donate.

And if you’d like a hands-on way to help right now, our winter drive is collecting coats, warm essentials, and small comforts for the people we serve.

With gratitude,

Sheandinta Dyson
President & CEO, McClendon Center