Season 1, Episode 9 — 26 May 2016

About this episode

A discussion with Alicia DeLashmutt about Our Home — Inclusive Community Collaborative, a community she founded to foster greater involvement in one another’s lives among neighbors in order to provide the sorts of supports that people with disabilities and older people need to live independently in the community.

This conversation is based on her article, “Homes, Not Housing” in the current issue of Connections.

About the presenters

Alicia DeLashmutt is the proud mother of a beautiful teenage girl whose diverse interests include basketball, Fritos and opera. Her daughter experiences Mowat-Wilson, a rare genetic syndrome whose effects are widespread and significant.

Alicia has a professional background in landscape and interior design (both commercial and residential). She was the Director of Interior Design for Sienna Architecture, and founded Grasshopper Garden Design, an independent landscape design firm.

A 2007 graduate of Oregon Partners in Policy Making, she is the founder of Our Home — Inclusive Community Collaborative, and is actively creating a mutually supportive inclusive community for diverse populations in Portland, Oregon. She is a member of the Oregon Developmental Disabilities Coalition and currently acts as an advisor to the Portland Public Schools Special Education Advisory Council and to the OHSU LEND and Oregon Pediatric Improvement programs. Alicia has served as the Program Coordinator for the Northwest Down Syndrome Association Kindergarten Inclusion Cohort, and has made numerous national presentations as a strong advocate for inclusive community, education and life.

Alicia is an active advocate and parent mentor who believes that the inclusion of ALL, regardless of race, color, national origin, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability or gender identity is necessary for a vibrant and healthy community.

Donald Taylor is the Membership Manager at TASH and the producer of Amplified.

Transcript

Announcer: You’re listening to TASH Amplified, a podcast that seeks to transform research and experience concerning inclusion and equity for people with disabilities into solutions people can use in their everyday lives.

Today we’re talking to Alicia DeLashmutt about co-housing and urban design and what they mean for diversity, community living for people with disabilities and how we might all better share our gifts. Alicia is a founding neighbor of Our Home — Inclusive Community Collaborative, located in Portland, Oregon. Our discussion originates with her article from the current issue of Connections, titled, “Homes, Not Housing“.

Donald Taylor: Alicia DeLashmutt, please introduce yourself for our listeners.

Alicia DeLashmutt:Absolutely. Hi. I’m Alicia DeLashmutt. I’m the founding neighbor of Our Home — Inclusive Community Collaborative.

Donald Taylor: And tell us about the Inclusive Community Collaborative.

Alicia DeLashmutt: It is a group of folks that have come together that are looking at what neighborhood and community is made up of. Are we homogenous groups of folks? Are we an inclusive, intentional group of people that rely on each other’s values and gifts? Or are we wanting to bring together people based on deficits and needs in a more segregated community. So it’s a group of people that has chosen the values of a diverse, inclusive community.

Donald Taylor: So, I understand that one part of your vision for Inclusive Community Collaborative is that it’s a co-housing community (Wikipedia article | Cohousing Association of the United States). Would you tell us about the co-housing movement and how you’re adapting this model to community living for people with disabilities.

Alicia DeLashmutt: I mean, we are definitely taking the co-housing model and moving it into its next phase. And co-housing — I believe that there are 150 in the United States right now and there is over 100 that are on the boards, being designed as we speak, and in the next 10 to 20 years that is going to be blossoming into a much larger number as well. We’ve seen senior co-housing, we’ve seen artist co-housing, we’ve seen, you know — I think a lot of it started out being folks that come together around a vision of sustainability and more interdependence-independence — so you are a self-contained neighborhood where all of your needs are are supplied in the neighborhood. So they take care of their own maintenance and cooking and child care and gardening needs.

This is — we’re looking at it as a — we term at a co-housing light model where we don’t have quite as many committees but we are still there to have each other’s backs and it’s based on this value statement that we all have value that we bring to the table and it’s a matter of mining for that value and then sharing it freely amongst your neighbors.

Donald Taylor: You’ve got a broad array of initiatives concerning community living, people with disabilities, and bringing together diverse communities in a larger sense. Inclusive Community Collaborative is part of a coalition of other organizations that you also work with. And you have spoken at the TASH conference on a range of topics such as diversity, inclusive education and personal stories. Would you tell us about how you see all your different initiatives working together.

Alicia DeLashmutt: The first time I spoke at a TASH conference was with the Kindergarten Inclusion Cohort which is with Northwest Down Syndrome Association and they’re All Born (In), kind of, umbrella piece. And we’ve formed — I think it was eight years ago — a series of educational opportunities for parents to come together and learn about advocacy, the law, how to build consensus in schools, how to work as a team member, how to dream big for your kids, the importance of an inclusive placement in kindergarten. It’s all focused around four-year-olds going into kindergarten and gaining inclusive placements, so that their education is with non-disabled peers as peer models and friends and forming communities from the very beginning in childhood.

And that’s something that has really, sort of, been the stepping-off point for me into into this world of disability is, do we want to have children that are segregated and educated in rooms that are down the hall, around the corner, and behind a closed door, or do we feel that our individuals are part of the community at large and bring as many gifts to the community as they take services and supports from the community. That educational piece is something that I’ve been working on for — you know, well my daughter’s in ninth grade this year — so for the last probably 11 years, since she started in early education.

It dawned on me about three years ago that my daughter will not always be in school — that school eventually ends. And when