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A Community Life

• August 24th, 2007

When I began my employment at Hope House Foundation many years ago I remember how exciting it was to help people leave large state institutions and move in to 8 and 10 bed group homes in the community. In those days we were so focused on getting people out of terrible places that we never thought too very much what the community would be like, we just knew it would be better….and it was. Living with 8 or 10 people was better than living with a thousand, sharing a bedroom was better than living in a dorm with a 100 others and walking to the local neighborhood store was better than being segregated on a large campus. In those days I believed being in the community was better than being excluded from it and I still do. But it’s not good enough, being in the community is vastly different than being part of the community. That’s why we decided to close all our group homes and start community involvement with living in your own home versus a facility and it worked in so many positive ways but is still was not good enough. People we support wanted friendships and opportunities to work in real jobs and not sheltered workshops. They wanted to go to school, join clubs and pursue sports activities. They wanted to travel, go to dinner and a movie, and just goof around at the beach. What people wanted that we supported boiled down to what people tend to have when they are “part” of a community.

Last year a group of us came up with the idea to focus one position within each team at Hope House on that idea, people becoming part of the community and not just living in the community. We wanted the individuals within these roles to be creative, spontaneous and with a huge capacity to help individuals form networks of friends. We call this position the Community Support Coordinator but I think most folks that we support call them their dream champions. We at Hope House have been so pleased and quite frankly humbled by the incredible success of this effort as I think you can see from the stories in this newsletter.

I believe there is a place between excluded and included that many people with disabilities live within, I also believe Hope House is not one of them because we understand our work here is not just about good services and supports but finding your dreams and having them light up who you were always meant to be.