An Apartment of His Own
21-year-old Devon Carmans has autism. He lives independently, in the federally subsidized ABC Apartments on Corte Arango in El Sobrante, California, and is studying reading and math at the California Autism Foundation’s A Better Chance school at Richmond’s Hilltop Office Park. He hopes to attend Contra Costa College to study computers, the October 21st Oroville Mercury Register notes. ABC Apartments is a “supported living” residence, in which individuals like Carmans can live with the help of a service provider of their own choosing.
On weekdays, an East Bay Paratransit van takes Carmans from his home to the school, which enrolls 45 students across the street from a former produce center where the foundation has its offices and runs an industrial vocational program, whichincludes packaging merchandise for stores such as Costco. The vocational program enrolls 70.
Carmans is one of 14 developmentally disabled adultswho live in the 10-unit El Sobrante complex, which held an open house in September. The place is “very good, very friendly,” he says, but compared with the school, which is “fine, very good, very friendly and very educated,” the apartment complex is “just OK.”
“It’s different,” he says. “There are many different people.”
Carmans lives with a roommate who he says he gets along with, adding “‘I don’t have friends. I keep to myself.’”
The thought of Charlie living in an apartment of his own, with a roommate, and taking the bus to work—I think I can imagine it: Real goals to work towards.
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POSTED IN: Adulthood, Living Arrangements, Work
7 opinions for An Apartment of His Own
Cliff
Oct 21, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Hey, I’m alone, sixteen, autistic, in college. It can happen.
Cliff
chrisd
Oct 22, 2007 at 12:16 am
I’m teaching my 11 year old how to do laundry. He’s trying to teach himself how to cook with his little T-Fal pan. He can make scrambled eggs.
That’s my prayer. That one day he’ll be able to be on his own.
MomtoJBG
Oct 22, 2007 at 6:29 pm
My guys are just turning three, but I wonder a lot about what programs will be there for them when they get older. I’d love to think they could have apartments, jobs, and even be interviewed about their lives!
Kristina Chew, PhD
Oct 22, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Charlie could shop on his own, though he hasn’t much of a sense of budgeting—in time! But loading up the car and unloading and putting everything away: He does it all with me barely asking.
Karen
Oct 22, 2007 at 11:07 pm
This is wonderful. And actually a stone’s throw from where I live. Thanks for sharing it!
The Specialists
Oct 24, 2007 at 11:51 am
[…] of 10 years old and some months; others have been noting how they are, indeed, thinking ahead about life for our kids on their own. Charlie likes the routine of going to school and coming home, and doing home things, and then off […]
MFA
Nov 16, 2007 at 3:35 am
[…] a day off. Charlie can do a lot and I’ve hopes of him getting a job when is older, having a place of his own to live, and (who knows) a little […]
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