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Developers are calling it a first in the United States, and possibly the world.
A development named Luna Azul (Blue Moon) in Phoenix, AZ is under construction and is the first neighborhood built specifically for adults with developmental disabilities.
That’s right, an entire neighborhood of brand-new homes just for those of us with developmental disabilities. The cool thing about this is that the residents will own their own homes, giving them much needed stability to a group that often knows anything but stability.
As someone on the autism spectrum, I can tell you how much stability means to me and if it means that much to me, I know it means that much to the rest of us.
Luna Azul is a true community with activities for the residents and is situated around a courtyard so that residents can get to know one another and develop friendships and relationships with their neighbors who are like them. They can live their life not worrying about what the neighbors will think when they get a bit quirky or deal with problems that many of us with developmental disabilities deal with such as anxiety, depression and low self-esteem.
Personally, I think having a neighborhood full of people who are similar to me would be awesome and it would make me feel much more comfortable. There are times that I can’t sleep and I want to go out back and build a fire in my firepit, but don’t because it’s 2 am and I don’t want to disturb my neighbors and have them wonder what’s wrong with me.
Six of the homes in the community of 1,100-1,900 square foot homes are already under contract and the homes are priced in the 300,000-500,000 range. The homes are also located near many urban amenities, near plenty of public transportation and is gated to help the residents feel more secure in their safe environment.
If the person with the disability doesn’t feel comfortable holding the title to the home, a parent can hold the title or it can be put into a special needs trust. The residents are allowed to choose other developmentally disabled roommates and can charge rent to those roommates in order to defray their housing cost.
Though the neighborhood was built for and is geared towards the developmental disability community, but anyone who wants to live in a fully inclusive neighborhood where differences are expected and welcomed can purchase a home.
Hopefully we’ll soon see this experiment become a huge success and there will be similar communities popping up all around the country.
Come back next week to hear why this may NOT be a good idea.
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Photo courtesy Unsplash.