As more than one Sweetwater parent has wondered aloud, what does “friendship” or “community” mean to someone with autism?Īshley Pease, 25, was giggling and hopping to the Xbox game “Dance Central.” Her party outfit included a black bridle helmet and a stuffed elephant. Perhaps Sweetwater will prove that an oversize kitchen counter can encourage autistic adults to cook and dine together, forming friendships and community. Will nontoxic building materials improve the daily experience for a population that often reacts strongly to sensory irritants? Will the residents of a more responsive building require less expensive care? Sweetwater, by intention, will be a kind of laboratory to work out ideas that range from the mundane to the profound. Normally, a big part of supportive living is we have to manage behaviors within certain settings. “We have a pool here that’s just outside. “But the real difference is the resources,” he said. George Uberti, a 28-year-old personal attendant, likes the idea of helping clients in a community that belongs to them.
And attendants (who are not Sweetwater employees) should be offered incentives to encourage stable, long-term care relationships. The community should “accommodate a broad financial spectrum,” subsidizing residency for a quarter of its tenants. Sheerin said, Sweetwater is a glorified landlord: each tenant signs a 12-month lease and pays rent ($650) and an association fee ($2,600) every month.Īt the same time, Sweetwater’s mission statement lays out some ambitious principles. Similarly, families contract for their own care, be it round-the-clock support or drop-in help. To start, residents have chosen to move here they have chosen their housemates, too. Picture someone “sitting on a Barcalounger with a video game, eating weird foods.” By contrast, everything about Sweetwater exists to inspire a “life with purpose.” The public image of living with autism is one of lethargy and social isolation, she said. These amenities are central to the enterprise, said Sweetwater’s chief executive and executive director, Deirdre Sheerin, 53.
Steele said, with its 3,250-square-foot, four-bedroom, five-bathroom houses near a picturesque downtown. Ahrentzen said, is Airmount Woods, in Ramsey, N.J., which will welcome tenants in November.īut it would be hard for any of these campuses to look as “visually stunning as Sweetwater on the outside,” Ms. The pair ran off a list of new and prospective housing projects on Cape Cod and in the Catskills, Phoenix and suburban Minnesota. Steele said: “Did it become fashionable? All of a sudden there are a lot more.” But “it takes time to get all these different funding sources in place.” Ahrentzen, a professor in the Shimberg Center for Housing Studies at the University of Florida, in Gainesville. “You hear about different organizations planning to do these things,” said Dr. The innovative $10.4 million project opened in January in the heart of California wine country, and its founding families and board hope to make Sweetwater a model for like-minded experiments across the country.
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Perhaps the first development to closely follow their template is Sweetwater Spectrum, a residence for 16 adults whose abilities and disabilities span the full range of autism.
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