A few posts back I mentioned that I retired from being a bus driver and an associate pastor in order to work full-time as the Executive Director of Home For Good (HFG), a non-profit organization. HFG’s mission was to develop and own accessible rental housing for disabled folks.

The agency actually began as a means of providing a long-term housing solution for Susan. The folks knew that as she became an adult and they got…you know…older, the prospect of them having to continue doing the heavy care would become less feasible. Susan would need to have her own place and hired help would probably be necessary.

Any parent who has a “special needs” child begins to think about these things fairly early in the game. What will happen when this child grows up? How long will we be able to meet all the needs? When we can’t, who will? How much will it all cost? The research and planning begins.

Adult children of aging parents do this kind of soul-searching as well. Or at least, they should. Sooner rather than later. It just gets a little trickier projecting the “When?” of taking care of your parents. Another subject.

So HFG was conceived and birthed by the end of 1991. The board was in place having been drawn from interested friends, community-minded professionals and people who just didn’t know how to say “No!” You know, the ol’ “sneak-up-on-them-when-they’re-least-expecting-it-and-rope-a-dope” trick. (Haven’t been to see the new “Get Smart” yet, but I’m certain it’ll bring back memories.)

And then there were family members.

Over the course of the next ten years, although there was really just one “job,” operating and being the face of Home For Good, I managed to eek out, by rights, several more careers: Director, Grant Writer, Project Manager and Property Manager. All of these were fascinating things in which to be involved and afforded me with a myriad of learning opportunities.

Among the chief things learned though, was the fact that I really didn’t have it in me to live…long-term…on a “non-profit” basis. Other small organizations with the IRS “501 (c) (3)” designation may be able to relate. It always intrigued me that I could write winning grants all day long for money to construct things (houses) that governments and private grantors could point at and say, “We did that!” But just try to get them to fund anything related to agency operations (i.e., the money to keep your doors open)! Hello?

This obviously could turn in to a rant, so let me just pull myself up short here and say this: I am positively delirious with joy to no longer be wagged by the whims of the governments, politicians and bureaucrats in spite of whom we were able to develop five homes in our county which, as far as I know, are still serving 18 developmentally disabled adults. Can you feel the Joy?

Oh, by the way, Sister Sue never ended up living in any of those five houses. But that’s a different story.

You’re in Boardman Country!

Make yourself at home,

Brad
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