1,000 Families Strong.
A residential community where adults with profound autism and their aging parents live together, with professional support filling in around the family.
Three families choosing each other. Choosing not to face this alone.
A residential community where adults with profound autism and their aging parents live together, with professional support filling in around the family.
Three families choosing each other. Choosing not to face this alone.
Watch the full film, with sound.
Every parent of a child with profound autism lives with the same fear: what happens to my child when I am gone?
We are three founding families. Our adult children live with profound autism. We know the exhaustion, the love, and the constant background calculation of what happens next?
For more than a year we have studied the communities that exist, L'Arche, Camphill, Marbridge, Bittersweet Farms, First Place in Arizona, SpeciallyAble in California, and others. Many beautiful places. Almost all started by parents like us. Many did not survive their founders.
We started 1000 Villagers because the answer we wanted was not yet out there. We want to live with our adult children for as long as we are able. We want continuity of care that does not depend on us alone. We want a community of families that watches out for one another. And we want to leave a model that other families can use, because the need is enormous, and one community will not be enough.
It takes a village to raise a child, and even more so to keep that child safe, known, and held into adulthood.
Every decision we make is tested against these. They are the radical idea that interdependence is strength, written down.
A small village of paired homes around a common heart.
Each family has two connected homes, one for the parent, one for the adult child, sharing a garden and a threshold. The homes cluster around a central commons on a rural site that is walkable, sensory-considered, and open to its surrounding hamlet.
Parents and adult children live in adjacent homes within one community. Together, but with each household's own dignity.
Families bring their resources together. Professional support fills in around the family rather than replacing it. The community as a whole is the safety net.
Governance and ownership are structured so the community can outlast any single founder, designed to be replicated.
The numbers behind the model, and why we believe it works.
The community is funded through three streams: public funding (OPWDD, Medicaid waivers, Special Needs Trusts, rental subsidies) for the adult children's care; philanthropy covering capital, construction, accessible transport, respite, and staffing enhancements; and modest earned revenue from respite services that double as a staffing buffer.
To be clear about the wall between them: public funding pays only for the adult children's own services. The parents' homes, and the parents' own care, are entirely private and separate, never touched by public dollars.
See the full financial picture →If you are reading this because you have a child with profound autism, you are not alone, and you are why we are building this.
Membership is a slow, mutual decision. We will not rush it, and you should not. You do not have to be ready to be in the conversation. Families come to us at very different stages, some with adult children already, some with teenagers, some still grieving a recent diagnosis. We welcome you wherever you are.
New here? Start with our free guide: When You're Gone, a planning guide for parents of adults with profound autism.
Read more for prospective families →Three ways to be part of what we are building. Only one of them involves money, and not yet.
1. Join the conversation. Add your name to our list. Your perspective will shape what we do. No money, no obligation. Join the family & interest list → or email hello@1000villagers.org.
2. Spread the word. Tell families, professionals, foundations, architects. Every connection moves us closer.
3. Donate, when we are ready. We are in active conversation with the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism about fiscal sponsorship, the path that lets us receive tax-deductible donations responsibly while we build.
Payments will come online when our fiscal sponsorship is finalized. Until then, please join the conversation, your name on our list matters more than dollars right now.
Three ways to help, in detail →Two community traditions we are starting now, ahead of the buildings.
A permanent recognition, physical when the village is built, online beforehand, for the families, friends, professionals, and partners who were with us from the start. If you are in the conversation today, you are eligible.
An annual event for everyone in the extended community, member families, supporters, advisors, peer projects. The first one will be modest. The hundredth, we hope, will not.
Our name reflects the longer aim. If we can build one community that works, and document how, we intend to make it a template other parents can take to their own communities. The goal is not exclusivity. The goal is to make the answer to "what after us?" available to more families than just our own.
If you are a parent considering this for your own region, please reach out. We will share what we have learned.