Our Home, ICC

Creating homes for everyone is a solution for All of Us.

Housing and care for people with disabilities is in crisis in this country, and with our aging population, demand for services has never been higher. In the United States, over a million in-family caregivers are over 60, rapidly reaching ages where they can no longer care for loved ones who experience disability in their homes. Our systems are not accommodating the current demand.

In a time when terms like inclusion and diversity are dropped into so many of our collective conversations and so many entities are working to tackle affordable, accessible housing solutions, Our Home, Inclusive Community Collaborative is founded on building thriving neighborhoods that embrace the diversity of our elders, our community members with disabilities, and singles and families with a variety of incomes. 

What your financial assistance will do:

· Help us build communities with an array of voices at the table, creating a model we can replicate— communities where everyone can thrive and contribute.

· Support us in creating permanently affordable home ownership opportunities for income qualifying households.

· Help us stabilize individuals and families who haven’t experienced generational wealth or had the opportunity to previously own a home bridge the down-payment gap in an ongoing, recycling financial structure.

· Help with architectural features on our first inclusive and diverse cohousing community, Our Home - Cathedral Park that support accessibility and promote the opportunity to bring more people together in accessible housing.

· Help with the costs of bringing more inclusive and diverse communities together.

· Help ensure that Our Home, Inclusive Community Collaborative can continue to share our mission at conferences and other speaking engagements and assist with bringing more of these communities into being!

 

Our Home, Inclusive Community Collaborative, as nonprofit partner, is charged with ensuring that our mission to promote, support, and develop inclusive and diverse communities is woven through the fabric of each community that we help build, beginning with the first inclusive and diverse cohousing community, Our Home – Cathedral Park (OHCP). Using the established model of cohousing as a template and the solidity and security of homeownership, we set out to create diverse communities where people who are aging or experience disability can still have the assistance they need from paid providers, but are also surrounded by a system of natural supports—an established community of neighbors and friends. 

We need your help to make this happen!

 

Traditional cohousing relies on community members who pool their financial resources to carry the full weight of developing their projects as they come together in community. This financial structure is prohibitive to people who could most benefit from living in an intentional community, where support is literally just outside the front door. We realized early in our research that if Our Home communities were going to be truly inclusive and diverse, we needed to create an ongoing and sustainable financial structure that would continue to help people of varying means and abilities come together as a part of these stable, diverse and inclusive communities of homeowners.

Please consider a financial gift to help us with the solution.

 

People who experience disability are not the only group who have been pushed into segregated housing built around their needs. Our senior populations and many people who experience economic marginalization are often grouped together in “housing solutions” championed by well-intentioned government programs and nonprofit organizations. Many of the same issues that the disability population faces are also faced by the members of any vulnerable group forced into a living situation that groups them apart.

 

Removing our more vulnerable populations from the natural interactions and support of family, friends, and community increases the risk of isolation, abuse, and neglect. This removal from community is costly—not just for our at-risk populations, but for the health and well-being of our society as a whole. Equity is lost when we deny diversity in our neighborhoods.

 

When elders and people with disabilities live in isolation, the impacts on their health can be devastating, either due to direct trauma, or the detrimental effects of loneliness and isolation. Bringing people together to live in community is a vital way to tackle the ill-effects of isolation.

Together we can make a difference!

 

Imagine, because of your contribution, a community intentionally made up of people who have a wide range of incomes, ages, and abilities—not just ‘housing,’ but HOME.

 

 

 

 

THANK YOU!

The Our Home, Inclusive Community Collaborative Team
https://www.ourhomeicc.org/