Leadership & Vision

Welcome to Mainstream Living!

Mainstream was started in 1975 by a group of parents of persons with disabilities in Story County who believed that their sons and daughters deserved to live in the community and become useful and productive citizens and good neighbors. At that time, there were no community residential programs for persons with disabilities.

To that end, Mainstream Living began providing residential settings and options for persons with intellectual disabilities, as well as programming in Day Habilitation and work services programs. In the late 70’s, Mainstream expanded to Polk County and began to serve not only persons with intellectual disabilities, but persons with mental illness as well.

Now providing services to nearly 500 people daily, Mainstream provides services in four counties in Central Iowa; Story, Polk, Dallas and Boone and employs a staff of 520 (as of June 1 2021). We are particularly proud that our staff have unprecedented longevity of service for the human service industry.  25% of our employees have a tenure of 10 years with Mainstream Living while 1 out of 11 employees have worked for the organization for 20 years.  Our Executive Management Team (EMT) has a combined 155 years of service to the company and three of them got their start as Direct Support Professionals.  Mainstream Living has an experienced, caring and tenured workforce who do their very best each day to make the lives of those we serve better in every way.

Please let us know how we can assist you or a family member in fulfilling their dreams!

Bill Vaughn

President/CEO