High Point Forms Task Force to Improve Services for Residents With Special Needs

High Point claimed the title of first certified autism destination on the East Coast and called it a milestone. Residents with disabilities said it was a starting point.

"We have been hearing from residents who said, 'Mayor, City Council, can we go a little bit further? Can we look at where we might have gaps? Can we look at where there might be opportunities to better support special populations?'" Mayor Cyril Jefferson said last week.

The city council answered unanimously on Monday, voting to create the Special Populations Task Force, a time-limited body Jefferson himself will chair. The group is set to begin meeting this month, work through the rest of the year, and deliver formal recommendations to council by January 2027, with an official end date of Dec. 3, 2026.

The task force draws its membership from organizations already embedded in High Point's disability services landscape: the Arc of High Point, which has served people with intellectual and developmental disabilities since 1954; Q's Corner, an inclusive community space; Visit High Point, the tourism entity behind the city's autism destination certification; Extra Special People, a national nonprofit founded in Athens, Georgia in 1986 that launched High Point operations after four decades delivering programs in Atlanta, Rome, and Savannah; and the city's own Parks and Recreation ASPIRE program, which runs adaptive sports, therapeutic recreation, Special Olympics, and the Miracle League of High Point.

Jefferson and council members identified four areas the task force will scrutinize: program accessibility and improvements, workforce development and economic inclusion, the city's permitting and zoning processes, and broader policy changes intended to make public spaces and municipal services more navigable. The permitting and zoning component stands out. Most disability-focused review bodies limit their scope to parks access or recreational programming; High Point's task force will explicitly examine how construction permits and land-use decisions affect residents with special needs.

"There are opportunities around the way we set policy, the way we zone around the city, the permits that are required for construction and how they take into consideration special populations, how we encourage economic development, workforce development, education for special populations," Jefferson said.

High Point's autism destination certification, achieved through Visit High Point's work, made the city the first on the East Coast to earn that designation. Jefferson framed the task force as the next logical step beyond that recognition. "Over the past several years, the city has made real strides," he said, "and we're very proud of being the kind of city that makes space and is very accommodating to people with different abilities and special needs."

The ASPIRE program, which Parks and Recreation renamed in 2021 after growing beyond its original Special Populations identity, already includes therapeutic recreation components alongside Special Olympics and the Miracle League. How those programs intersect with the task force's forthcoming recommendations will be among the first questions Jefferson faces when the group convenes this month.

The December deadline and January deliverable give residents a concrete accountability window. Meeting notices will be posted on the city's website, and the task force's structure, a named end date tied to a formal recommendation package, removes the ambiguity that has allowed similar bodies in other municipalities to extend indefinitely without producing binding outcomes.