SPEAKER – Sylvia Dow, Visions Residential Housing
Bruce Bergeron introductory remarks:
Some years ago, Lebanon-Riverside Rotary started a relationship with SPARK! Today, Sylvia will talk today about a multi-year project to provide housing for adults with special needs: Visions for Creative Housing Solutions.
Sylvia had two children with special needs. From their birth, she started working in special education. She began to think, “What will happen to our children if something happens to me and my husband? Where would they live? How would they maintain their friendships? How could they stay known and loved within their community?”
Sylvia grew up in Enfield at her parents Kluge Inn. With her brother, John, Sylvia ran the inn after her parents passed, but it was too tough with her working and caring for two children with special needs. Before she knew it, she had more and more persons with special needs living with her, so she thought: How could we make this into a non-profit? Sylvia showed a video explaining this transition. Click here to see video
Sylvia wanted her children’s lives to continue with the same support she gives them as their mother: transportation to doctor and dentist appointments, maintaining friendships, keeping a healthy physical appearance, and being engaged productively while being happy. She focused on what’s most important and sustaining: friendships.
Visions works on people supporting each other. Residents may attend the evening’s common dinner, or dinner back to their apartment, or make their own dinner in their own apartment. Typically, said Sylvia, folks like to eat together.
Each individual has his/her own schedule, hopes and dreams. Visions provides wraparound support as a family would do. An individual’s family can be a part of their life at Visions. They can be the icing on the cake instead of the 24/7 support. Parents can have confidence to retire or move out of the area knowing their children will be cared for.
Visions’ capital campaign for the facility at 12 Green Street, Lebanon raised $820,000. Sylvia thanked Lebanon Rotary for its contributions. Estes & Gallup were contractors. They received a deferred loan through NH Housing. Mascoma Bank helped obtain funds through the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston. And all of this was accomplished during the height of the Covid epidemic. Visions was able to provide each of the families displaced from 12 Green Street with a $5,000 stipend to help find new quarters. The buildings had to be stripped down to the frame and renovated completely.
PLEASE VISIT THEIR WEB SITE FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.visionsnh.org
Sylvia had long worried about her children’s adult lives, but it wasn’t until she experienced a brain tumor in 2011, during which time she had an infection and almost died. As she said, “This was the serious kick in the ass to realize my dream. I decided, ‘I’m not going to wait any more.’”
Sylvia’s younger daughter, Emma, recently endured a couple of strokes, so she now uses a wheel chair. One of Emma’s support persons has work with her since kindergarten – more than 25 years now!
Sylvia’s next project will be created a home in Hanover. Visions was gifted the building formerly used as “Outreach House,” which closed about two years ago. Their mission was to support older adults.
After establishing Visions in Enfield, Sylvia was deluged with calls from people needing to find living situations for their adult children. Families are facing a crisis today because they don’t have many options.
When the state closed Laconia State School, living situations had to be found for everyone. Many began to live with “home providers,” individual families providing care for an individual. It was a good model for the time.
Sylvia’s daughters belong to a younger generation, a generation which attended public school with peers. Her daughters wanted to live independently, with friends. Her older daughter wanted to get married “like everyone else”; she wanted a life she could control. She now works at Dartmouth’s dining hall and has been there for 14 years, working 5 days a week and taking Advance Transit independently back and forth.
Some folks who come to Visions don’t have family around them and don’t have jobs. They may have lost some of their independence. One of Visions’ new residents, Trevor, works at the Enfield Jake’s and belongs to the Enfield Lions Club. Bruce Bergeron invited everyone to some meet Trevor on his days of work – Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday (I think).
Visions residents in 2019 provided $20,000+ (valuing at $25/hour) in volunteer service. Sylvia would like Rotary to invite residents (and staff) to join in service projects where person-power is needed.
Sylvia told us an anecdote about the first dinner at Visions. They have a custom called “Positives” where each person mentions something positive that happened to them during the day, and everyone reinforces that positive event. At this first dinner, they all spoke of how happy they were to have fulfilled their dream of having a home of their own, a home among friends. Everyone was in tears. After dinner, staff and residents went for a walk. Many Green and Elm Street residents came out of their homes to say, “Welcome!”
Visions used a $50,000 grant it received to create a “tool kit”—a manual of procedure that others anywhere could follow to be successful in re-creating such housing in their own community. New Hampshire Housing Authority funded the Tool Kit; you may see it on Visions’ web site. Sylvia mentioned groups in Dover, the Lakes Region, and Nashua, NH who are using the kit. She said there were other groups using it in Vermont, Wisconsin, and Nevada!
There’s still a lot of work to be done, said Sylvia, as she again voiced her appreciation for Rotary’s support.