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THE HUMAN SIDE OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING
HAND honors the winners behind its winners
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| (right to left) Wesley Housing President/CEO Al Smuzynski, Board Chairman Erik Hoffman, and Director of Supportive Housing Services Susan Parrott are joined by Robert Trent, Chief of Staff D.C. DHCD, and Susan Dewey, Executive Director, VHDA, to accept the HAND award for the 2007 Project of the Year in Northern Virginia for Coppermine Place I. |
Excerpted with permission from the Housing Association of Nonprofit Developers (HAND) June 5, 2007 press release.
Arlington, VA – What do seniors, homeless, and the profoundly disabled have in common? They are among the targeted populations in the most recent award winning affordable housing development projects and community life programs in the Washington, DC metropolitan area
Twenty-five percent of people on waiting lists for affordable housing are disabled, individuals who themselves are twice as likely to have very low-incomes. Yet, existing affordable housing stock has an abysmally small number of accessible units, with fewer still created to fit the unique needs of the profoundly disabled, such as those with severe physical disabilities, traumatic brain injuries, and mobility impairments. In 1999, Wesley Housing Development Corporation (Wesley Housing) set out to create Virginia’s first barrier-free community for just such a population. The result was Coppermine Place I which won , the Housing Association of Nonprofit Developers (HAND) Project of the Year Northern Virginia on June 4, 2007.
The annual award (www.handhousing.org) honors developers, community life programs, agencies, and a local government for their extraordinary contributions to affordable housing in the Washington DC/Baltimore Metropolitan Region. However, it is the residents of these communities who are the true winners of the work completed on their behalf, residents such as Francis (Kit) Callahan, 37, whose life took an abrupt turn in 1993.
A graduate of Virginia Tech, one minute he was riding the high life in Chicago as a runner in the pit of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and the next he was battling for his life following a horrific mugging. He survived, but the ensuing coma and traumatic brain injury left him a fragile shell of what he once was.
“I’m 37 physically, but 13 ½ mentally,” Callahan casually jokes. “Yeah, that was my dream job. My life was destroyed that day—no doubt about it. But don’t get me wrong. It’s great to be alive!” He finishes with a broad smile.
Callahan lives at Coppermine Place 1 (Coppermine), an affordable housing community for the profoundly disabled developed by Wesley Housing Development Corporation (Wesley Housing) after a seven year struggle to complete this much needed community. Walk into the lobby there, and you will feel as if you have walked into someone’s home, with a lounge that looks more like a living room and computer rooms that could double as a study or home office. The sconces lining the halls are ones you might pick out for yourself, as are the paint colors, carpeting, furnishings, and decorations. The place shouts, “Welcome to our home!”
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| Kit Callahan and Patricia Hillsman, both residents of Coppermine PIace I, were present at the HAND luncheon to help celebrate Wesley Housing’s receipt of the Best Project award. |
And home it is. Given a chance, Callahan talks freely of the family he has found in both his fellow residents and the staff of Coppermine. “We all look out for each other and spend time together. Gee, if you had been here last night, you could have played Bingo. Maybe won some money. Besides hanging out on game nights and movie nights, we also make sure everyone’s okay or gets what he or she needs.”
As the first resident of Coppermine, he will wax poetically about the freedom he has been given being able to live independently in a place designed especially for the needs of those who are profoundly disabled. After years of physical and speech therapy, he is able to work two jobs, 40 hours a week. Granted, the work he does now is a pale comparison to that which he did before the accident. However, he is quite proud to be able to pay his rent. Something he could not do if affordable housing communities like Coppermine did not exist.
Fellow resident Pat Hillsman, 52, agrees. “Put it this way. Without Coppermine, I’d be stuck in a nursing home. Instead, I have my own place, with a kitchen where I can cook up a storm if I want, where the stores you need are nearby, and where staff spend their time trying to sort out your problems. Coppermine helps people deal with their lives, even as it provides a place to live.”
“Coppermine was our second community for the disabled. Going into it, we knew it would probably be another seven year battle. But when you think about the needs of these folks and their desire to have a place to call home, how could we not do it?” stated Al Smuzynski, Wesley Housing President.