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By All People of Color Developmental Disability Association, Inc.

The California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) oversees 21 regional centers across the state, contracting with each center to provide services to children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The Regional Center East Bay (RCEB), which serves Alameda and Contra Costa counties, is facing mounting scrutiny for their long-standing practices regarding disparate treatment of its African American service providers and consumers.

African American providers house the intellectually and developmentally disabled persons in homes licensed by the State of California. The state has confirmed that there is also disparate treatment of the adult and minor clients who are not granted equal access to services – RCEB funds.

Despite the RCEB’s repeated commitments to reform their service delivery, community testimony and internal reports reveal their continued patterns of unfair practices and unfulfilled promises.  This has caused a deepening mistrust of RCEB’s staff and management among service providers, client families and the general public.

Similar complaints have come from Latino and Asian consumers and their communities: Families report that RCEB prepares incomplete and inaccurate consumer profiles. Consequently, the families do not receive a timely placement or appropriate services. There are also delays in the interpretation and translation of key documents that impact the timing of the placement.

Such delays have led to underutilization of Latino and Asian-operated homes even though the providers also have available capacity and cultural competency.

The disparities in RCEB’s treatment of Black and Brown providers and consumers have been raised at RCEB Board Provider/Vendor Advisory Committee (PVAC) meetings, board sessions, and community forums from 2008 to 2025.

In 2023, after years of informal complaints, RCEB commissioned Mason Tillman Associates to conduct a racial equity study. The comprehensive report, delivered in January 2025, confirmed the systematic disparities of empty beds in African American homes, incomplete consumer profiles, payment inequities, and disproportionate corrective action reports (CAPs) targeting minority providers.

In March 2025, the newly appointed executive director publicly acknowledged the validity of many provider concerns, stating: “We recognize that these issues are real and must be addressed transparently.”

However, providers noted that this promise was only the latest in a series of assurances dating back to the late ’90s with no follow-through.

The promises to improve transparency in the CAP issuance, commitments to publish referral and payment equity data, and the pledge to present and deliver the Mason Tillman Associates report remain unfulfilled, fueling frustration among families, providers, and the general public.

Testimonies of African American and Latino providers at RCEB Executive Board of Directors meetings illustrate the communities’ longstanding concerns with the services RCEB delivers.

An African-American home operator said, “We have beds sitting empty while families are desperate for placement. It feels like we’re being sidelined for reasons that have nothing to do with quality of care.”

Another minority provider’s testimony pointed to additional complaints, “CAPs land on us disproportionately.  It’s like we’re being targeted for paperwork instead of supported for the work we do.”

At a RCEB-PVAC meeting held in 2023, a Latino parent testified, “We can’t understand our child’s Individual Program Plan (IPP). The interpreter isn’t there, or the documents aren’t translated. How can we participate?” (IPP is the report prepared by RCEB describing for the consumer/family the services it plans to provide.)

At a 2024 RCEB-PVAC meeting, an Asian family complained, saying, “My son’s profile (IPP) wasn’t complete for months. By the time we got a referral, we had already lost critical support.”

The persistence of these disparities, despite the RCEB’s repeated acknowledgments, has triggered erosion of community trust, legal exposure under Title VI and §1983, and risks of federal oversight or state corrective action. Advocates argue that without immediate, transparent reforms, including independent monitoring, public reporting, and culturally competent service expansion, RCEB will continue to repeat the cycle of making promises without fulfillment.

The impartial record shows that RCEB’s leadership is fully aware of these systemic inequities. Still, their administrative follow-through is severely lagging because the public, providers and families across African American, Latino, and Asian communities have continued to file complaints that echo one another for many years.

The question is no longer whether racial disparities exist. Disparities and inequitable treatment have been documented and RCEB has received a comprehensive report of the conditions.

The pressing question now is whether the RCEB Executive Board, under the DDS’s oversight, is going to release the study that it commissioned and invite Dr. Eleanor Mason Ramsey to present the study findings.

The Mason Tillman Associates Report can convert RCEB’s promises into a definitive, manageable, and measurable action plan, and the implementation of the action items could be monitored and measured.

Angeleter Pringle is president and CEO of All People of Color Developmental Disability Association, Inc. Her email address is apocdda@gmail.com.

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