Friendship House Fayetteville Cottages: How community is helping special need adults
Editor's note: This is an updated version of the original.
More than five years ago, Michael Brown moved into an apartment-like home between Broadfoot and Highland avenues known as Friendship House Fayetteville.
The residential community pairs college students and young professionals to live with special needs adults who are known as “friends.”
Brown, who is a “friend,” told a group gathered Wednesday at a groundbreaking ceremony for a new housing project that the Friendship House Fayetteville has “had a tremendous impact” on his life.
“Upon my arrival, I struggled with social discomfort and lacked meaningful connections,” Brown said. “Today, I am grateful to have lifelong friends and feel simply more at ease in social settings.”
Brown said he’s gained skills to manage his time better and work toward his goals and is currently attending Fayetteville Technical Community College to pursue a degree in culinary arts.
“My specialty is baking,” he said. “I am the Friendship House resident baker.”
Some organizers described the second location, Friendship House Fayetteville Cottages, as “Friendship House 2.0.”
The site is in the 300 block of Broadfoot Avenue near the corner of Branson Street, just a few houses down from the Friendship House Fayetteville.
More: Friendship House Fayetteville marks first year
Model
The concept for a Fayetteville-based Friendship House started with Scott Cameron, a local neonatal intensive care doctor who attended Duke University Divinity School and was part of a similar program when he lived with a roommate with Down syndrome.
He brought the program to Fayetteville with hopes that the experience would give those in the healthcare field and other professions a better understanding when working with special needs patients and adults.
The young professionals who are roommates with a special needs adult are not their caregivers but rather friends who encourage their roommates to develop skills for independent living.
At Wednesday’s ceremony, Cameron spoke about how Friendship House Fayetteville has become part of the community.
In Fayetteville’s Haymount neighborhood, it is near Highland Presbyterian Church. Cameron said many Friendship House residents worship at the church on Sundays and fellowship on Wednesday nights.
Chip Stapleton, senior pastor of Highland Presbyterian Church, said members of the church consider themselves “fortunate to be in a neighborhood with such great neighbors,” like Friendship House.
Miller’s Brew Coffee is two blocks away, within walking distance, and provides more than half of the friends with employment, Cameron said.
Friends have also joined Cape Fear Regional Theater for acting lessons one semester a year and join the cast on stage for one of their sensory-friendly performances, he said.
Cameron credited the Friendship House idea as coming from founder Matt Floding, who started the first Friendship House in Holland, Michigan, in 2007.
The nonprofit ServiceSource used Floding’s model to pair special needs adults with professionals while using ServiceSource's employment model for the friends overseen by Employment Source Assistant Program Manager Diana Drews, who helps organize activities and daily living and “really pushed this timeline to where we are today,” Cameron said.
Employment Source, an affiliate of ServiceSource, provides vocational training, employment programs and services for people with disabilities and owns Friendship House Fayetteville.
Friendship House Fayetteville Cottages
The goal of building Fayetteville Friendship House Cottages is “to provide permanent housing opportunities for young adults with disabilities,” said Andy Rind, senior vice president and executive director of Service Source.
The next phase will consist of two cottages with two bedrooms each, and the long-term goal is to build eight cottages, Rind said.
The Friendship House Fayetteville location can house 24 people in three two-story Colonial-style homes, Each floor has four bedrooms and 2,000 square feet with common areas for the living room and kitchen.
“These facilities will be more than structures,” Rind said. “They’ll be anchors for belonging, a place where independence thrives, where barriers dissolve and where every friend finds their voice.”
More: Fayetteville Friendship House pairs young professionals with special needs adults
Fundraising
Tara Brisson Hinton, director of regional philanthropy and fundraising for Service Source, said Friendship House Fayetteville’s $1.3 million capital campaign more than six years ago was met because of community members, ServiceSource and its foundation.
“Today, we stand here excited for the next phase that we were not able to even dream about six years ago. An opportunity for our friends to live long term as neighbors in our community,” Hinton said, with emotion.
Hinton said that for the construction of Friendship House Cottages, the ServiceSource Foundation will provide a dollar-per-dollar match of donations, up to $80,000 to support the $160,000 development of the first two cottages.
There will also be fundraising events in the community, including an Aug. 17 golf fundraiser at Gates Four Golf & Country Club on Irongate Drive in Fayetteville.
Friendship House Fayetteville impacts
Attending Wednesday’s ceremony were Steve and Fran Branch, whose son Wesley has been a resident at Friendship House Fayetteville for several years.
Fran Branch said Wesley still keeps in touch with his former roommates, including Master Sgt. Ignacio Jimenez, an Army recruiter who has since moved back to his home state of California.
Wesley loves Jiminez, and they’ve been able to visit him in California where another one of their sons lives, she said.
Steve Branch said Wesley, who has special needs, is living in an apartment known as “Friendship House 1.5” at the original location, which consists of four friends living on the first floor.
“It’s an intermediate step to have them not completely launch out until they know they’re ready, but it is taking another step of less supervision,” he said.
Steve Branch said the program helped his son develop life skills.
Brown, the friend who spoke at the ceremony, described the groundbreaking as a “milestone.”
“It’s a commencement of the journey toward independence, a dream of not just for me but also for my parents,” he said. “They’re happy to see me at a point where I can take greater steps to take care of myself.”
Following the ceremony, Hinton said the cottages will be open to all adults with disabilities to apply to live in, but a lot of friends at the Friendship House ready to transition and live independently will likely live there, too.
Those interested in supporting the Friendship House Fayetteville Cottages can visit servicesource.org/support-servicesource/donate-now and select the Friendship House Cottages in the drop-down menu.
Staff writer Rachael Riley can be reached at [email protected] or 910-486-3528.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: How community is helping special needs adults in Fayetteville
