Independence Landing - Risky Benefits Podcast S5E8

In this episode of Risky Benefits, the team welcomes Denise Wilson, a dedicated board member at Independence Landing, a non-profit organization providing safe, affordable, and supportive housing for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Denise shares her personal journey, motivation for her involvement, and the impactful work being done at Independence Landing. Listeners will learn about the community's focus on fostering independence, supporting residents through service coordination, and upcoming projects like Phase Two aimed at more supported living. The discussion also covers how community members can contribute and support initiatives, including volunteer opportunities and funding needs. For more information or to make a donation, listeners are encouraged to visit the Independence Landing website.

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Transcript

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Hey everyone. Thank you for listening to Risky Benefits and welcome to this week's episode. Today we will be diving into an inspiring conversation with someone who's making a significant difference in the lives of individuals with intellectual and development disabilities. Our guest is Denise Wilson, a dedicated board member at Independence Landing. And for those of you who may not know, independence Landing is a not-for-profit organization that's focused on providing safe, affordable, and supportive housing for individuals with developmental disabilities. Their mission is to create opportunities for these individuals to lead independent, fulfilling lives. So thank you for coming on. I'm excited to be here. Yeah. One of my favorite topics. Yeah. We're looking forward to it, Denise. One of the ways we'd like to start is just to maybe have you tell our audience a little bit about yourself. Where are you from family, how you got to Tallahassee? All the good stuff. All right. I grew up in Huntsville, Alabama. Okay. And I moved here in 99. My husband and I dated for eight years. Long distance. Okay. Oh, wow. And we decided that if we were gonna get married, we should probably live in the same city. So I moved to Tallahassee. And I have loved being in Tallahassee. I'm a mom of two. My son Brady has intellectual and developmental disabilities. And my son Walker is 24 and I work for Capital City Bank and have the best job in the company. That's awesome. Now you and your husband met. And then you did long distance. Was that in school that you met or how did you guys meet? No, we actually met in the parking lot of a bar in Panama City Beach. Okay. I love it. On vacation. Very nice. No, I lived there and he lived here. Oh, at the time. Oh, okay. Alright. Oh, that's funny. That is cool. What a small world. I know, right? Very cool. Again, Denise, thanks for coming on. Go ahead Kyle. I know you had a question. So can you tell us a little bit about your role on the board and what motivated you to get involved? All right. I am the current chair. I just became the chair this month and I've been on the board for seven and a half years. We started this vision in 2017. And the reason I got involved, I don't know if any of Allison Tant Richards, she is our state representative here. She and I served on a number of different boards together throughout the years for children with disabilities, and she is a force to be reckoned with. And we were all. Talking and saying, we would love to have a place for our kids to live when they grow up. We wanna be empty nesters too, and we want them to have that supported environment to live in. So she got the right people in the room and we got the land donated from the city of Tallahassee while we pay a dollar a year. The land was donated. We found a community and we started raising money. We raised money for many years and then we also. Got some affordable housing dollars through the through the legislature and which allowed us to build Independence Landing. So we've been open about a year and a half now. That's awesome. So Denny, sorry, where, so where is the actual where's this actually located again? It is on Schoolhouse Road. We're right across the street from Florida State University School. Okay. And we're next door to a city park and that's. An interesting part of the story for me is we had tried to go to two other different locations and those community members did not want. Our young adults in their neighborhood. Okay. And Southwood welcomed us with open arms. Okay. And they've, our residents have integrated into Southwood. We have a great relationship with Florida State University School and they're just a part of the community now. So it's been good. That's awesome. That's wonderful. And are we talking, is it kinda like town homes? What does it look like? It's duplexes. Duplexes, okay. Is what it looks like. They're almost all one bedroom. Okay. And we do have a few, two bedroom. Units. That's awesome. It's funny how I live in this community and the things that you're not aware of. I'm sure like for people even listening that live in Tallahassee, they'll probably be like, that's super cool. I didn't even know that was there. That's fantastic. You've obviously done a good job integrating it in to look like any other place because we probably drive by it all the time and didn't even realize it. But that goes back to kinda my next question, which is on just being self, self-sufficiency and independence being core parts of independent independence landings mission. Maybe can you tell us more about the impact that safe and Supportive Housing has on these individuals? How does this really impact their lives? Gosh, I could talk for an hour on just that. I think for me as a mom, it goes to that safety. I, my son doesn't live there. He's not quite independent enough yet, and I'll tell y'all a little bit more about that. But they have that support that helps'em, so they're independent in their own apartments. They can cook for themselves, they can clean for themselves, and this is. I'm gonna answer your question by going backwards. Yeah, sure. If that's okay. So in order to live in Independence Landing, each of our residents has to go through an assessment, and it's an independent living assessment. And that assessment. Makes the determination of whether or not they'll be successful because we want all of our residents to be successful at Independence Landing. So once you have that assessment and then you get into your apartment, you have a service coordinator and that service coordinator helps you continue. To live independently and to grow your independent living skills. So we have we have a young man that works at a movie theater. We have a young lady that works for a PD, so a lot of our residents have jobs and just the feeling when you're talking to them and they're, they wanna show you their apartment, come from Yeah. See mine. Yeah. Come see my apartment and their community that they've created together. We've got. The clubhouse to beat all clubhouses. We've got a pool, we have a movie theater, we have a workout room, we have a commercial kitchen. We've got what else? We've got an art studio. So all sorts of things. So there are planned activities, very regular, that makes the residents want to come in and spend time with one another. So not only can they go and have jobs, but they also have that sense of community. That's really cool. I, my wife's favorite show right now is Love on a Spectrum, so I, unless I, as I don't necessarily understand the challenges associated with having this deep desire for your child to, to take on this independence I think. That, that show opened my eyes to it. Okay. Because you start to see how these parents are just, they start, they break into tears when they even think about them being able to finally date. Much less live in their own house. And in that last episode I watched, the son was just so excited'cause they were planning on building a house behind their house where he could live. And he's just like out of this world, excited about it. So I can only imagine that for you guys to create a community. Takes that to the nth degree because now it's not like I have my space, it's I have this community that I can be a part of. Okay. Which is just a beautiful thing. I'm curious, if you don't mind me asking, I hadn't written it down, but. Is anyone else doing this? Is this happening outside of Tallahassee? It is. It's a new phenomenon. It's awesome. Yeah. We, there are several in the state. Okay. But part of the reason that these have even come to be most of'em were started with parents. Okay. That, that see the need because Makes sense. This is the first generation that our medical advances are allowing. These children, they're adults now, but these folks with developmental disabilities to outlive their parents. Prior to this, I was talking with a friend who had a child with significant disabilities, and he told me that his prayer was for his child to die before him. Because he wanted to know that his child was safe. And that just it gives me chills. As parents. Thinking about they're, they may out live me by 10 or 20 years, and are they gonna be safe? Are they gonna be happy and are they gonna thrive? Not just be in an institution but thrive and have a great life. Absolutely. That's pretty cool. That is. That's amazing. You think as a parent, like you. Would never think that would be your wish. But I can't imagine that, to have to worry about outside of just, the normal safety, but how can they actually get involved in the community and live on their own. That's incredible. And I know we hit on the next question, but you mentioned the support of the neighborhood and the staff and everything. Can you tell us a little bit about how. They get involved with. And I think you said that when we talked prior that it, the cooking and everything. Yes. The commercial kitchen that they can actually volunteer or work in the kitchen and get involved in some of that. Can you tell us about that? Yeah. So the commercial kitchen we actually bake a lot of the baked goods that are sold at Red Eye Coffee. Okay. Independence Landing owns Red Eye Coffee and our vision was to have our residents work there. We're not there yet, but our residents are. Employed in our bakery. So they're being paid, they're not just in there. Bacon for fun. They're getting paid to do this. And then they also, those who are employed by the bakery also cook the meals. So there's an optional meal every night in the clubhouse that are residents can pay for. And it is actually cooked by people who are. Live at Independence Landing and are employed there. And we've had you ask about community. We have had a number of community members come in and do things with our residents. We've had the Tallahassee Garden Club come in and do some horticulture type of activities. We've had folks come in and do, do art activities. We had a young lady come teach line dancing. So it's just lots and lots of different people in the community just coming in and being a part of it. And we might ask this later, but while we're on the topic, if you were in the community and wanted to do something, wanted to teach a class wanted, how would you get involved with that? You could go to independence landing.org. That's our website. And there's, there's, oh wait, I don't think it's independence landing.org. I'll have to look it up. Okay. We'll put a little plug on this one. Yeah. But our website has a way to contact our executive director and find out ways that you can help. People could probably Google Independence Landing Tallahassee and find it right. Absolutely. Yeah. So that's a reasonable way to find it. I think we, yeah. Yeah. We're all used to that. And I didn't answer your question fully before about are there others of these yeah, go ahead. So the, it's a new, it's a newer pheno phenomenon. They're all a little bit different. Okay. So before we built our independence landing, we went to Lakeland. We went to Jacksonville, and we went to Miami. Okay. Because they had some communities that were already established and we learned from them what worked for them and then what didn't work. So we wouldn't make any of the same mistakes that they had made, but we're getting closer. We've now had, it's an honor. We've now had other. Hopeful communities come to us and ask us how did you do it? What are you doing, et cetera. So hopefully this can be replicated so we can have more. Yeah. I it makes me think of, I have a friend who is a part of an Indian tribe, and within the Indian tribes, they're always, they were looking for ways to generate income or for the tribe, they built a casino and they figured out what the funding, how do you get funding for this? What are all the things you have to do? They created a template and she created a consulting firm, and now she goes from tribe to tribe and helps'em do it. And that was what I was thinking of as I was listening to you talk. I'm like, man, I wonder if somebody could just become a consultant that builds the blueprint. And then goes to communities and says, let me help you build these, because I've gotta think that there are so many parents that just would absolutely love this.'cause the next question I was gonna ask is can people move to Tallahassee for their kids to be a part of it? Yes. We've got at least two residents from out of state. One is from Colorado and I'm not sure where the other one is from. We have a wait list right now. Okay. I imagine so. Yeah. And but yeah, we don't discriminate. You don't have to live in Tallahassee. It's just a matter of getting on the wait list availability and being independent enough to live there. And, that goes to the. Question of replicating it. Yeah. Because we don't have an age limit. You have to be 18 to move in, you have to be an adult. Okay. But we don't make you move out when you turn 50. Okay. It's, so some of these residents may live here for the rest of their lives so we have not had a lot of turnover. Okay. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. It sounds like a thoughtful approach to addressing some of the key challenges that people. With disabilities face moving forward, what are some of the projects or initiatives happening at Independence Landing that you're particularly excited about? Phase two. Okay. We have not started yet. I'm equally thrilled, excited, and petrified about phase two, all the things. Yes, because it's a lot because getting it built in the first place, you have to apply for the funding and Right. There are a lot of political hoops to go through. That's phase one. Yeah. Phase one we did that, but we'll have to do a lot of the same hoops for phase two. Okay. And phase two, right now, our hope is to have it be a little bit more supported living. So someone like my son Brady, might be able to live there. He needs someone to help him shower. He needs, he wears a pull-up at night. So he needs a little bit more support, but he doesn't need 24 7 somebody's. Eyes on it. So our hope is, and we haven't seen this model yet, our hope is to have just a step. Step up of care in phase two, but we're still really early. So we haven't gotten there quite yet. It's interesting it's making me think of when my mom and dad's parents got to a certain age, right? It was like they lived in St. Cloud, Florida, but they needed what you're describing at the age that they were at. They needed this kind of step up, let's call it step up here. Yeah. Which would be a great name for a company, for anyone who's listening. But. You think about that step like this concept of step up care and it's okay, there's two grandparents, right? And if you were to put both of them, just as an example, in a nursing home that's 30 grand per person. That's six. That's easily 60 grand. It's probably more than that. But at the time, and this was years back, right? So it's probably call it a hundred grand, right? And then you think about, or okay, I could pay somebody a salary of 70. Grand or 80 grand and they could just come live with them and take care of both of them in their own space and still maintain that independence. So that's like where my brain went when I heard you say that.'cause it's almost as if to say really what you're looking for are like a few good people who are willing to invest themselves in the lives of these people. And be almost a live-in life coach helper. Steward of their lives in certain ways, whether it be from a healthcare perspective or just basic stuff. Yeah. A friend, really. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Our support coordinators are so invested in our residents. I shake my head because I don't think there is a time that I've gone out to independents landing that the support coordinators weren't there. Like early in the morning, late in the afternoon. I'm like, do you ever go home? And they. They just enjoy. I bet they become very invested. Yeah. Being with the residents it's a family and, you mentioned the the nursing home and whatnot, and it is. A good analogy, right? Because Independence landing as it is right now, is very much like someone who's going into oh gosh, I'm gonna forget the name of it. The Villages is what I thought of. Yeah. It's more like a, it's more like a place for a category of people Exactly. Where they can have a community and have things that are necessary. For that community. And having that person come and live in your home. I learned first firsthand that isn't necessarily the best thing to do. For a couple of reasons. One, you have to really trust that person. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of issues come up. Yeah. And when my parents moved from their home into an independent living, older person's community. I'm gonna call it the wrong thing. Yeah, that's okay. They blossomed. It was like my dad was like the biggest introvert and he loved going down to dinner. And they made these great friends that if they had lived at home they wouldn't have. And that's what our residents have. And there are, so it's assisted living? Is that what we is it assisted, is that what it's called? I'm not sure, honestly. Okay. Thank you. Proper terminology, assisted living. I don't know all the steps but that's what it is for our residents, is they have that sense of community. They have those people around them. That's so cool. It's a very similar concept. Different demographic. Yes. Yeah. Very neat. And how many people live there right now? 58. Okay. And that's the max. Yes. You're on the wait list right now? It's the max. Okay. Yeah, we struggled, we had one apartment for someone to be there 24 7. And now we're gonna have to have two apartments and it's oh, that means one list residence. So we wanna build more. That's what I was, yeah, I was wondering about that. Now, how much additional space, if you wanted to build more, do you actually have, or are you maxed out? We, once we do phase two, we'll be maxed out on the land that we're on right now. Okay. And phase two will be smaller than phase one. Okay. I should know how many acres we have, but I don't, that's fine. But we have land in the same property. Okay. Okay. That we're on We farming yet. Okay. Got agriculture. It's funny that you say that we have some board members who are wanting to do some of that. We just have to make sure. When we do those kinds of things, that we have enough residents interested in it. Oh yeah. Because we've learned from some of the other communities that have actually put in some like raised beds and things. Unless the residents are really interested in it, the staff winds up having to keep them up. Okay? So we're pretty particular That's good about what we do. Yeah. So we make sure it's sustainable. These are the, all the things that you guys have thought of because you lived it versus like people on the outside looking in, it's this sounds cool and you guys here's how that plays out. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And those are sometimes tough conversations to have because people wanna do a good thing for us. And it's my wife tells me that all the time. Like I think that's a reasonable, I get it. I get it. That's so nice. But how is that Makes sense. This next one we touched on, but it's about if people wanna get involved, how to get involved. And I know I mentioned that, if they wanted to teach a class or come, but is there anything else that, our listeners might be interested to hear on ways to help support? Yeah, absolutely. One of, they love. A good pizza night with Bingo. Are you serious? Pizza night? Yeah. Pizza night And bingo is That's awesome. Is a great thing. Our board, we host a game night with pizza and Bingo and other games. Once a year and par the parents host something. So if any like community group wanted to come and host a Friday night. Get together. Okay. We would love that. They love to eat just like everybody else. I, you have to like, bring some pizza. So I have a solo stove. It's not big right? But it's for pizza. It's a pizza maker. Yeah. Anyway, you put wood in the back. Yeah. You get the the little stones hot and you make your own pizzas. Oh, fine. And like with the kids, it's a big thing.'cause you can go to Publix buy pre-made. There's a couple different ways you can do this. Now, I don't know if you know this, but at Publix they have little dough balls. I uhhuh. You can do that Uhhuh, but there's an easier way. If you go to fresh market, they have this, it looks like a yogurt. Pack that our kids eat. You know the long ones? Yeah. Like a yogurt. Yeah. You pull the, you pull a tab on the side and then it's literally a a pizza dough roll that you just unfold. Oh. And you just set it on the stuff, put your tomato sauce and whatever, and stick it in that thing. And it is done in three minutes. That's one of the reasons I've never done the dough balls. I know.'cause I didn't think I could roll that out. It's hard out. Yeah. Listen, if you go to fresh market check in the fridge section, Uhhuh, they've got'em. You just unroll it. Like you would, like one of those Auntie Anne things. Yeah it is. And they taste great. So let me ask you this. When you talk about the pizza night. I was just picturing like dominoes, but, and that's what we usually do, but easier. But actually having an activity though, that might be fun like a way. So would that be something that somebody could do? Absolutely. As a matter of fact, when Brady was still in school, he was in the extended program and his homework one night was to make pizza for the family and we did french bread pizza. So that was, even easier. You just cut up the French. Bread, but he was so excited. I love it. To have cooked that for us. Yeah. It was just, that's like our kids. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. I and know when we have friends over, our friends are always what you do is everybody gets to make their own kind of pizza. Yeah. And so it's funny, we've got a couple friends that are more bougie than some of the other ones, right? So they're like, they bring these really fancy Wagyu steaks and they make these little. Slim cuts and they put it on and it's like, all right, you get that and or the fig and pr. Yeah, exactly. You can get super creative with it. This is, this conversation makes me feel good. I, look, there's so much. Negativity all over the world, just on the news, everywhere. And what's unfortunate is like stories like this, you don't hear about it. Yeah. And this actually makes you feel good. You're like, wow, people are actually doing pretty cool things. Yep. Denise, this is awesome. I, I. I, we always save an extra question. It's for you really. It's, it is. Is there anything else you'd like the listeners to know? Oh gosh. For you guys, I'm gonna send you the video that we had made Okay. For our for our fundraiser recently. Okay. Yeah. Which is, it's really short. But it just captures the independence and what people are doing with their lives at Independence Landing. I feel like we've said it all. That's fine. Just I have a question. It's great place. I'm just, I have so many questions. Sorry, I have, this is fascinating to me. Funding, talk to us about funding. What do you need? How does this work? Do, do people donate? What does this look like for you guys? Funding is complicated. Okay. We our, the apartments themselves we have a partner and they're called ram. Okay. And they handle the leases, they handle the rent, they handle all of that. And we are a low income housing provider. Okay. There are expenses though, that go beyond that. For example, I mentioned to you that we do the dinners. Okay. They pay a fee for the dinners, but that's subsidized. We pay for a good bit of that. Okay. The service providers are paid for through two different things. We've got an activity fee and then we also, a lot of our residents are. Have a PD funding. I think it's Association of Persons with Disabilities, so they get some money through that, and that helps with the service provider. So in that sense, each family that's living on location, and when I say family, the individual, but I'm assuming they're backed by their loved ones. Hopefully, they're getting funding from the government and they take that and use that to pay rent, so to speak. Yes. And so that's one aspect of it. Then the other aspect of it is some form of grant or something that the, I'm assuming it's a not-for-profit. It is a not for not-for-profit. We fund raise for our staff. Okay. Like our executive director. Okay. And our so's like partially funded. Yes. Yeah. And then you have to go get the rest. Exactly. Alright. Exactly. And there was something else I was gonna tell y'all. Brain freeze. Oh. I think that a lot of people think that because some of the folks are on a PD or have that funding, that independence landing doesn't need additional money. We can't do all of the extra things Sure. That we do. Sure. If we didn't have it, there was something else. And it was important. And I'm looking at you because I was looking at you when I thought of it on the funding piece. Yeah. It's about the funding. I know we start, go ahead. Sorry. So when we did our budget before we built in Independence Landing, we looked at the other properties and how they did theirs, and we budgeted with a certain percentage of our residents being private pay and a certain percentage of our residents on the a PD waiver. Okay. Who would get get the funding? The revenue that Independence landing gets from private pay is slightly more. Than the a PD. And that's how we did our budget. Our our support coordinators did the right thing to do is they see an adult with disabilities who is not getting funded through a. A PD that should Okay. They help them through that process To get the funding. To get the funding so what it looks like today is many more of our residents have the funding than we anticipated. So that gives us a bigger shortfall in our operating revenue. Yeah. Okay. Because now you're making less per ed. Yes. So to speak. Yeah. That's, that's what I wanted to know, but they did the right thing. Now they did the right. Yeah. Yeah. No, not one person on the board said anything negative. Everyone was like, no, that's the right thing to do. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Companies contribute. Hundreds of millions of dollars to campaigns and this and that. You'd think that programs like this could get funding from those same financial institutions? I think part of it's just letting people know that it's there. Because I, I don't assume I, people like to do good things. Like I don't assume that people don't want to fund stuff like this. I just think. Maybe we just need to help get the word out. Get the word out. Yeah. Get the word out. Our fundraiser was two weeks ago. It's, we have it every year. And I'll invite you guys next year. It's the B three Bash and we had a very successful fundraiser. We always wanna raise more money. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll have, we're gonna have another fundraiser this year. We're not sure what it is yet. But the B three Bash was a lot of fun. And we raised some good money. Good. So now Denise, are you on the, is this yours or are you on the board? What is, what's the I'm on the board. Okay. Yes. I'm on the board. I'm our fourth board chair. Okay. Allison Tant was our first board chair, but then when she ran for public office, she could no longer serve on the board. So we still consider her hours even though she's not officially on the board. And then Gil Zipper was the chair after her, Bryce Barnes, and now I'm the awesome, the fourth board chair. But we have a number. We have at least five or six people on our board today who were on the board from the very, very beginning. Okay. Oh, good. And we're, I'm really excited. I've been meeting with potential board members lately, so we're looking for, now that we're built and we've gone through that process, like we had a land use attorney on our board. We had, people who specialize in Florida housing tax credits and how that works. And now we're adding some people who are grant writers and who are fundraising experts and also lobbyists and just, just people who care and people that have a skillset that can help us do what we want. I love it. Absolutely. This is awesome. Denise, thank you so much for coming. Thank you to the listeners out there listening if you have any questions. Please contact us or look for information on our homepage@www.fbmc.com. Remember you can find us and subscribe on any podcast app and just one final plug here. Obviously Denise and the individuals at Independence Landing could definitely utilize some funding. So if you guys are looking to donate and or contribute and, or it's just a personal tie or whatever it is maybe look in this direction. Let's just remind you, just go back and Google Tallahassee Independence Landing. You'll find the webpage and can they, the, and there's a big donate button right there. Big donate. And so yeah, there it is. Listeners, thank you so much. As I said, you can find us and subscribe on any podcast app. Thank you, Denise, and thank you everyone. Have a great day.