Group Home Event Celebrates Residents' Independence

A 5-bedroom, $1.2 million home in Warren isn't that unusual, but the property at 115 Stirling Road has some specialized features—its extra-wide hallways and unenclosed kitchen and bath fixtures are designed to accomodate the needs of people with cerebral Palsy.

At a ribbon cutting ceremony for the house Thursday—which has been occupied since February—home manager Marie Julien said it's easy to tell how appreciative the residents are of those features.

"Even though they're non-verbal, they've adjusted well. hey're smiling more," she said.

Some of the smiles may also be from the new-found freedoms the residents are experiencing—as Julien noted, for many of the residents, it's the first time in their loves they've had their own bedroom, or been able to choose their clothing from their own wardrobes after living in institutions for most of their lives.

"They want to help with the food, and choose activities," Julien said, adding the residents socialize in ways often not possible, or even encouraged, in institutional living.

The Warren home is one of a growing number of such facilities, as New Jersey seeks to move 8,000 special needs residents out of the large, state-run institutions that were the norm for many years.

The home was built after Warren Township donated the land, and with active help from Township Committee members Carolann Garafola and Vic Sordillo, and Township Adminstrator Mark Krane, secure financing and permits. Warren Township also contributed $275,000 from its COAH fund to complete financing, which was also supported by Somerset County's HOME Investment Partnership Program, the New Jersey Division of Developmental Disabilities, the U.S. Deptartment of Housing and Urban Development, and the Federal Home Loan Bank of New York.

The home joins two other existing group homes for special needs adults in Warren, and a fourth one—a 42-unit project on Mt. Bethel Road for autistic adults—will soon be breaking ground.

Speaking to the assembled crowd at the ceremony, Deputy Mayor Carolann Garafola, who serves as principal of Cerebral Palsy NJ's Horizon High School in Livingston, noted Sordillo's quick endorsement of the project when it was first brought to the township when he was mayor in 2007.