Douglas Acres

 

Douglas Acres is a concept at this point—a planning vehicle that in the end will result in the purchase and construction of a residential, life-long facility for autistic and retarded adults. A unique feature will be the establishment of an “intentional community,” that is, a community of families of autistics, who will live on or near the grounds of the facility. The intention is to keep the family directly involved with the handicapped individual’s life, while offering professional support where needed. That direct involvement will also help serve as a check on the many abuses that handicapped people are subject to in more impersonal placements.

 

To be kept informed of developments, please join our news group at 

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/DouglasAcres

 

If you have a problem signing up, or don't want to register with Yahoo, then send an e-mail to Liane.Krajewski@douglasacres.com and she will send you an invitation to join the list. Joining by that means does not require you to register with Yahoo. All you have to do is click the accept button.

 

So far, we've checked New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Nebraska, Florida, and South Dakota as locations for the first Douglas Acres.  We'll be checking Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio soon.  Among the things we're looking out for:

 

* Acceptance by the local community (we don't want to hear "it will ruin property values" or "will this raise our taxes?" because Douglas Acres will bring jobs and prosperity wherever it is placed, but we're not trying to sell that--the autistics are the ones we're taking care of, not the local population).

* Healthy environment (people with severe autism may have other health problems--they don't need to add more poisons to their systems by living near cesspools!).

* High levels of local morality (yes, you can measure that, which is why we gather information "on the ground" with these site visits--the result should be a lower level of crime and abuse). 

* Insulation from disasters (many disaster agencies have not taken into account the special needs of these helpless populations, and we're not going to let our children be sacrificed==again==because of someone else's lack of care).

 

We're also working with "green" builders to design housing and other buildings on the campus.

 

Campus sizes we've looked at have ranged from 100 to 640 acres.  This sounds large, but it's not, really, when you take into consideration that we want to make room for at least 50 families on the first campus, and that we want to be able to maintain as much privacy and self sufficiency as we can. Plus we need institutional buildings for treatment.  It's hard to even find let alone attract specialists in autism (who know what they are talking about!).  We'll need enough families to be able to support visits to the campus by a specialist physician.

 

We'll be drawing up more detailed plans and posting them here and on the Yahoo! group.  By the way, we're planning to have a joint fund-raiser with Pocono Armchair Review, possibly later this year.