The Division of Disability, Aging, and Rehabilitative Services is excited to announce the DDARS Advisory Council is recruiting a new member to serve in the immediate or extended family member of an individual with an intellectual or other developmental disability role. Membership representation of this Advisory Council is established in Indiana Code.

General Overview of the Council’s Purpose 
The DDARS Advisory Council was established under Indiana Code Section 12-9-4 to advise and assist DDARS in its effort to develop and sustain a system of supports and services for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Council provides expertise, lived experiences, and advice on specific areas such as: technology; health; policy; law; marketing; public relations; provider services; and advocacy. The Council is individual and family-driven and helps carry out DDRS’ mission to support a wide variety of Hoosiers with disabilities to create a vision for their future that uses paid and natural supports to build on and enhance their personal strengths and assets.

General Membership Overview 
Membership is established through Indiana Code Section 12-9-4-3. This particular position is appointed by the DDARS Director and will serve a two-year term, beginning in February, 2026.

General Meeting Information
The DDARS Council meetings are held six months throughout the year on the third Wednesday of the month from 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. The majority of the meetings are held in-person at the Indiana Government Center, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Support for Participation
The Family Member appointed to the Council in this role is provided with reimbursement for parking expenses, as needed. Additionally, DDARS will provide reasonable accommodations in connection with the member’s duties as provided in state policies and procedures.

Application Link
Please use this LINK to complete the Family Member Application online. Please ensure that you click or tap the word “submit” at the end of the application. Additionally, you will have the option of saving your response. Instead of the online application, if you would like to request a different format, please email BDS.Help@fssa.in.gov or call 317-234-1147. The application will be open until January 13, 2026.

• By John Krull, TheStatehouseFile

  VIENNA, Austria—The crowd traipses into the old opera house as the orchestra continues warming up.

  Ladies of mature vintage cloaked in elegant gowns and shimmering jewels search for their seats alongside college students wearing jeans and scruffy sweaters. One elderly man a couple of boxes over from where my wife, our daughter and I sit sports an ascot—the first one I’ve ever seen worn by someone other than an actor in a movie or a play.

  We all have come to the venerable Vienna State Opera House, which in its earliest days when the Austro-Hungarian Empire still reigned was the Vienna Court Opera House, to touch a bit of history and embrace, in an ever-changing world, something that endures.

  We are here to see and hear Richard Strauss’ “Elektra,” an epic co-mingling of ancient Greek tragedy and modernist classical music. We have come to an opera house where Gustav Mahler once served as director at a time when kings, queens, emperors and empresses sat in thrones all over Europe … before World War I upended their world and ushered in a new one.

  Opera is about passion.

  In our 21^st-century world, when we use the word “passion,” it carries with it a positive connotation. It speaks of strong feelings that move or inspire us, that make our hearts beat faster and our spirits sing.

  Earlier generations, though, used the term more warily. To them, passion was a force that could overwhelm reason and restraint, a force that, left unchecked, could lead to ruin and tragedy.

  That’s why, so often in opera, passion is a power that destroys lives, breaks families—and even shakes the world. It is something as elemental as a flood or an earthquake, an entity that can shatter everything before it.

  “Elektra” is no exception.

  It tells the tale of Elektra, daughter of Agamemnon, who before the opera begins has been murdered by his wife (and Elektra’s mother) Clytemnestra and Clytemnestra’s lover. Elektra is consumed by rage regarding the murder and grief over her father’s death, so much so that the maids and everyone else in the house consider her mad.

  She rails for much of the first two-thirds of the one-act opera that justice must be done so her sorrows may be soothed. She bemoans the fact that her brother, Orestes, is not there to exact vengeance on their murderous mother and the man who shares her bed.

  Orestes, though, does return.

  Both vengeance and escalating violence ensue. Clytemnestra and her lover die at the hands of Orestes.

  And in the end, Elektra perishes, too, her passion burning away her life and spirit like a dry leaf in a flame.

  “Elektra” premiered in December 1909, less than five years before the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, Sophie, were murdered.

  And the world plunged into World War I.

  That sweeping and tragic conflict was, like “Elektra,” itself a tale of extended family dysfunction. Many of the crown heads of state on both sides of the fighting were cousins, family members who destroyed each other, themselves and much of the world because they could not redress—or in some cases, even acknowledge—wrongs.

  “Elektra” explores its ancient themes accompanied by the dissonant tones of Strauss’ score, as if in anticipation of the jittery ages to emerge following the global smash-up soon to commence.

  The opera is a marriage of the eternal and the ever shifting, a reminder that, no matter how much we humans may change over time, many of our struggles do not.

  When the performance ends, the crowd rewards cast and orchestra with an extended standing ovation. Operagoers in jewels and evening attire stand beside those in sneakers and sweatshirts and applaud lustily.

  When the applause dies, it is time to retire.

  We all traipse out as we came in.

  We leave the venerable building that has been home to so many tales of performed passion and we venture into the night.

  And we step into an old city that once, in days now lost, was home to an empire and out under a sky as vast and cloudy as the future itself.

  Just one more assortment of human beings paddling our way down the river of time.

  John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. The views expressed are those of the author only and should not be attributed to Franklin College.

SAM SNIDEMAN , indiana capital chroniclr

Affordability has become a national political watchword recently, but the challenges of making ends meet are all too real for many across Indiana.

For over a decade, more than a third of Hoosiers have been in or near poverty. The challenges of affording to live in a state that touts its low cost of living have long been clear to many Hoosier families.

Simply put, everything in Indiana continues to get more expensive, and wage growth in the state fails to keep up with household survival budgets.

Most of those in Indiana experiencing hunger earn too much to qualify for federal SNAP benefits. With rents rising and not enough rental units available, half of all Marion County renters are cost burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their monthly income on rent and utilities. The average age for first-time homebuyers is now 38 in Indiana, in part because of soaring prices and high interest rates. Utility rates are growing faster now than they have in two decades. Child care costs also continue to grow, and Hoosier families are spending on average 11% of their incomes on care that feels increasingly out-of-reach but never has been more essential. The number of Hoosier students going to college continues to decline, in part because of growing tuition and concerns about returns on investment.

These problems do more than just keep people stuck in place. They prevent Hoosiers from achieving some measure of the American dream.

Hoosiers need policy responses to these cost pressures if they are to thrive. Too many in our state are delaying — or foregoing — things once seen as central features of what it meant to be successful and stable in America: college education, marriage and children, financial savings, home ownership. This is happening because of a chronic affordability crisis in our state.

Nonprofits and philanthropies are doing their best to support those most in need. They raise money to alleviate hunger; they step up to help develop new housing; they are, despite waitlists and rate cuts, providing essential services like child care and health care to people with few other options. Americans have always supported one another by donating and volunteering through nonprofits. But today, fewer people have the means or the time to help.

Private philanthropy alone cannot solve these challenges. It needs partners in government to create conditions that allow all families to be economically stable.

As the General Assembly reconvenes in 2026, its members must make affordability its focus. Indiana needs its leaders to deliver policies that create economic opportunities, and that address the high costs of getting by for all Hoosiers.