About ILO and the Crossings Move-In
Four families along with four self-advocates (young adults with developmental disability) have worked together to establish an intentional community in a new apartment complex, The Crossings at Old Towne Gaithersburg in November 2016. The Gaithersburg families are members of the new non-profit Integrated Living Opportunities (ILO). ILO is providing the training and the organizational infrastructure to assist the families in the Gaithersburg/ Germantown group create this unique opportunity for these four self-advocates. With the ILO Board and family commitment, including a lot of hard work and even fun, the four Gaithersburg families made a commitment to ILO and to each other to have our self-advocates live independently in the community. To make this possible, ILO hired a part-time staff person to build a strong community with the four self-advocates. Each self-advocate will have personal supports as needed thru a combination of family, hired support thru private and government funding and other support in the Community.
We are extremely excited to reach the milestone of all 4 ILO self-advocates moving in to Crossings At Olde Towne Gaithersburg as of Nov 19, 2016. Our son, Robert, was the first to move-in to the Crossings on Nov 2nd. The move-in was the culmination of many months of work starting in Feb 2016 until they moved in. Robert’s move in date, November 2nd, was very hectic and wonderful all at the same time after multiple delays in construction and slipped move-in dates. Our move-in started at 830am when Robert and Marc, his Dad, got to the Crossings and unloaded boxes and suit cases into one of the carts provided by the Crossings. Bargain Movers ably and swiftly moved all his furniture to his apartment.
With the exception of a bit of confusion when we all reached the Crossings loading dock and the restriction of one elevator because half of the building was still under construction, the move went very well, movers were done before 10 am and we were soon unpacking at Robert’s new apartment as below.
By noonish we were ready to break and walk over the Bridge in back of the parking garage connected to the Crossings, enjoy the view of Olde Towne Gaithersburg and head to lunch.
Across the bridge, we headed to our favorite restaurant, Growlers, and treated Robert and Sherita, ILO’s first employee, our community builder, to lunch after an early morning and lots of work by family, Sherita, and especially Robert. Below are Sherita and Robert at lunch after the move-in.
Since Robert moved in on Nov 2nd, the other 3 self-advocates, Matt, Shaun and Andrew followed and they will continue to work with Sherita and all the families to settle-in and have many more successes individually and together.
The ILO Gaithersburg community is the start of many more intentional communities in Washington, DC and Montgomery County, MD. Learn more about Integrated Living Opportunities and how you can join us or help us grow at our site.
