By Mary Jo Frank
Opening your door with a key for the first time. Getting mail from a mailbox. Baking chocolate chip cookies or cooking grits. For many adults, it’s hard to remember when they acquired these skills.
Roommates Meegan McKenzie and Geneva Clark vividly recall the day they first turned the key to their own front door and future. February 15. It was the day they moved out of a group home for developmentally disabled adults into their own apartment.
The move was made possible through Consumer Choice, a new program sponsored by the Washtenaw Association for Community Advocacy (WACA), in cooperation with Washtenaw County Community Mental Health. WACA, formerly called the Washtenaw Association for Retarded Citizens, recently moved to the Non-profit Enterprise at Work Center Building, Suite 205, 1100 N. Main St.
A goal of Consumer Choice is to help people who are developmentally disabled find the living arrangements they want, whether it be a group home, an apartment with a roommate or their own place, explains Debi Paquette, Consumer Choice facilitator.
WACA is one of 60 United Way-funded agencies that U-M employees help when they give to United Way. Donors also can designate gifts to any of the 60 agencies, 39 non-funded agencies or 17 Combined Health Appeal of Michigan agencies that are part of the Washtenaw United Way’s campaign this year.
As of Oct. 1, University employees and retirees had donated or pledged $187,631 toward the U-M’s $950,000 goal.
Clark and McKenzie decided to venture out on their own, partly because of the noise and lack of privacy in the group home they shared with four other adults.
McKenzie, who uses crutches and sometimes a wheelchair to get around, works at a sheltered workshop, assembling auto parts. Her next goal is to find a job in the community. She would like to work in an office as a secretary.
McKenzie says moving to an apartment has resulted in more personal choice, including buying and cooking meals that she wants to eat, and more social contacts with relatives and friends.
Her cousins and other family members visit her more often now than they did when she lived at the group home, Mc-Kenzie says, because it is quieter.
Clark and McKenzie enjoy using the swimming pool and hot tub at their apartment complex and have met some friendly neighbors.
For Clark, who cares for plants at a greenhouse, the major advantage of apartment living is the “peace and quiet.” She also is learning to cook a variety of foods, including one of her favorites, grits.
Clark and McKenzie receive the help they need with daily tasks, including cooking, cleaning and paying bills, from personal assistants they interviewed and hired through Saints Inc.
They also meet monthly with their Community Mental Health caseworker and regularly with Paquette, who helped them find and furnish their apartment and move.
A number of U-M faculty and staff are involved with WACA, including four who serve on the 14-member board: Daniel N. Edmonds, U-M Hospitals senior hospital planner; Charles G. Jenkins, senior horticulturist, Grounds and Waste Management Services; Joanne L. Lound, assistant to the vice provost for medical affairs; and Jack Novodoff, administrative manager in the Department of Chemistry.
Lound, who has been on the board for several years, says she is impressed with the dedication of the staff and its ability to stretch agency dollars. “Having watched the agency’s financial statement over the years, I’ve seen that as the resources have been cut, it has adapted.”
WACA also is “on the cutting edge” in terms of recognizing problems and finding solutions, Lound notes.
The agency was in the forefront of obtaining educational services for the developmentally disabled. “Now we’re making sure that they are living and working in the community,” she adds.
WACA focuses on outcomes for people, not on rules, Lound notes. The philosophy appears to work well for people like Clark and McKenzie. A cross-stitched sampler hanging in their apartment reads: “Welcome my friend. You will find joy and love within.”
Listing the many things she has learned since moving into her apartment, McKenzie says, “I’ve learned to be happy, to enjoy life.”
