East Suburban Resources' New Oakdale Location is Up and Running, Open House Planned

East Suburban Resources opened a new location in Oakdale in The Oaks Business Park in early December. The organization, established in 1964, offers work programs for adults with disabilities onsite, and out in the community. Other locations are in Stillwater, Forest Lake and Cottage Grove. The design of the new facility was tailored to meet the needs of adults with autism. Here are a few questions and answers about the new facility:

How many people will use the new facility?

There are currently about 60 adults with disabilities (referred to as consumers by the organization) and 18 staff members based at the facility, said Ed Boeve, executive director of ESR. About 20-30 of those consumers work out in the community and just use the office as a hub, he said.

What are some of the features of the building specially designed for adults with autism?

The facility's walls are painted in soft color tones like greens and grays, and there’s no fluorescent lighting in the parts of the building where adults with autism spend most of their time, Boeve said. The room devoted to adults on the autism spectrum has low lighting and individualized work stations. Staff members there know which words might cause overstimulation for certain individuals, he said. They plan to start using iPads, which has proven successful in other places for people with autism. The building also has a smaller sensory room that contains squeeze balls, massagers, a body roller, textures like sand to touch and even different smells, he said, which can be calming to people with autism.

Overall, “it feels like a pretty calm environment here,” he said.

What are some examples of work done by the adults with disabilities who use the facility?

Onsite, consumers do things like shredding pulltabs for businesses that contract with ESR and assembling bird seed mixes. ESR also sends a crew to work as the shipping department for Medical Concepts Development, a surgical supply company that has a warehouse very close to the Oakdale location, Boeve said.

Is there room for more people at the Oakdale location?

Yes, they’re licensed to have up to 74 people at the site, and right now at any given time there are no more than 45 people there, Boeve said.

“There’s plenty of room,” he said, “although we don’t want to crowd people.”

The facility isn’t limited in how many people can be working offsite at any given time, he said.

Is the demand for ESR’s services growing?

In the last couple of years, the number of consumers they serve has grown by about 10 to 12 percent each year, Boeve said, to about 350 people. There are two other providers of similar services in Washington County, and families can choose which one they want to use, so they never know for sure what’s going to happen in terms of demand, he said.

Can members of the public see the facility?

There will be an open house at the new Oakdale facility—located at 7800 Third Street N., Suite 800, from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 24. See more information on the ESR website.