The Silo Tax: What Fragmented Systems Cost Autistic and Neurodivergent People in Greater Baton Rouge
CAAN's first annual data report — a systematic look at healthcare, education, workforce, and housing outcomes for autistic and neurodivergent individuals across the Capital Area, and the first public accounting of where a decade-old community commitment actually stands.
In 2016, a coalition across this community published a 303-page study and 25 specific recommendations for building a coordinated system of care here in the Capital Area. That was ten years ago. Until now, no one had gone back and asked, systematically: where do those 25 recommendations actually stand today?
This report answers that question. It's built on Louisiana Department of Education data, an independent state-commissioned actuarial study, federal workforce data, and CAAN's own research — not impressions, not anecdotes. Where the data doesn't exist, we say so plainly rather than filling the gap with a guess.
We call the problem underneath all of it the Silo Tax: the cumulative cost, paid in time, money, and opportunity, when the systems meant to support autistic and neurodivergent people — healthcare, education, workforce, housing — are built, funded, and operated in isolation from one another. Every section of this report puts a number on some part of that cost.
What's inside
A ten-year accountability audit of the 2016 report's 25 recommendations — including which ones moved, which ones stalled, and why.
Healthcare: why Louisiana can't currently answer "how many autistic people live here," and what's closed that used to exist.
Education: district-by-district outcomes that show a child's path depends more on which parish they live in than on their actual needs.
Workforce: an independent, state-commissioned study documenting a $165 million annual funding gap — and what it costs the direct support workforce that makes community living possible.
Housing: what happens to adults who age out of school and services, and what it costs the state to wait for a crisis instead of preventing one.
A closing look at two other states that built lasting infrastructure for exactly the coordination problem this report documents — and what Louisiana would need to build the same.
Why it matters right now
Louisiana's legislature is heading into a session that will include real debate over whether to act on this year's HCBS Rate Study findings — against a federal backdrop that's less certain than it's been in a generation. This report exists so that debate happens with real numbers on the table, not just impressions.