The spirit of Christmas never fades at Hope House
Every day is Christmas at the most hopeful house in Liberty Hill.
December 24, 2009
Source: Radio Free Liberty Hill
While the Christmas tree and holiday decorations find their way back into boxes soon after the official celebration, the spirit of love and giving are present year-round.
Every day, the residents of Hope House wake up in a new world full of excitement and love. They live their lives in the moment, and their joy is a testament to the selfless devotion of caregivers who look past the things that make many of us uncomfortable and see the souls of beautiful people.
“Everyone here is excited to come to work every day. Imagine working in a place where everyone is happy to be there. It’s like getting a paycheck every day,” says Dave Gould, executive director of Hope House of Austin.
Hope House, situated on 15 acres on CR 285 near Liberty Hill, is home to 30 children and adults with severe to profound mental retardation. Each one must have help with basic living skills — eating, dressing, bathing and toileting — and most are uncommunicative. Compounded by blindness, deafness and with many confined to a wheelchair, the daily physical challenges are tremendous. Add to that the problems shared by non-disabled people, such as depression, bi-polar disorders, diabetes and other diseases, and surviving from one day to another can be an overwhelming struggle.
“It seems unfair, but when God created special people, He gave them a little bit of everything,” said Gould. “They don’t come in here with just one thing wrong.”
However, from the moment new residents first arrive at Hope House it seems as though they know they have finally made it home.
“This is their home and we (the staff) just come to visit them every day,” Gould said.
More than half of the 38 employees of Hope House have worked there more than 15 years, he said. In a field that requires extraordinary patience, unconditional love and physical strength, it’s evident that those who stay year after year view their work as a calling.
Every victory is celebrated at Hope House, and every day is an opportunity for new hope.
“There are always setbacks, but we see these as opportunities to make progress,” he said, adding that individual progress is slow. “Progress here is measured at the rate a tree grows, not how a flower grows.”
Although some people with mental retardation are unable to communicate, they make connections with those who care for them. He said one resident who is completely non-verbal has learned to say the name of his caregiver — an accomplishment that may sound simple to most, but may be the achievement of a lifetime for some.
Residents come to Hope House from across Texas, from other states and other countries, and they come to stay. Barring some unusual circumstance, most will spend the rest of their lives here, which makes the decision to place a loved one very difficult.
“These are not thrown-away children,” Gould said. “They are handed over with much grieving. They (the families) want to make it work at home, but they eventually exhaust their resources.”
He said most families bring in nurses or sitters, until at some point everything breaks down.
“When the rest of the family starts to erode, they realize they can’t do it anymore,” he said. Usually, that happens when the child reaches age 10.
Some families that placed their loved one as a child have been with Hope House for 20 years or more. The oldest resident is a 53-year-old male who has been there 30 years. Shannon, 47, has been with Hope House the longest and was one of the original residents of the 35-year-old Liberty Hill facility.
Hope House was founded in Austin in 1966 by Rose McGarrigle who started out caring for special needs children in her home. As the demand for quality care grew, Hope House outgrew her home and another donated home in Austin. The residence moved to the Liberty Hill area 35 years ago when land on CR 285 was donated.
While Mrs. McGarrigle’s original mission was to care for children, as the children grew it seemed unreasonable to turn them out simply because they reached age 21, Gould said.
Although his personal career experience had been only with children, he believed it was important that residents, regardless of their age, continue to receive quality care in the environment to which they had grown accustomed.
Today, Hope House serves both children and adults in separate living quarters. A large contribution from the Halsell Foundation paid for the renovation of an adult wing, and the facility earned its license from the Texas Department of Aging and Disabled Services as an Assisted Living Facility for adults.
Also licensed by the Texas Department of Family and Protective services as a General Residential Operation, the residence is dependant on state and federal funding. However, public funds cover only 85 percent of the costs per resident, which requires Hope House to seek additional support from private sources to make up the difference.
In the past, residential facilities like Hope House have relied on additional support generated by donations of vehicles, which are then sold at auction. But recently, IRS changed the rules effectively reducing the amount the charity receives from the sale. Now, Gould is looking for other fundraising options.
“The fundamental challenge is that we don’t have truckloads of beautiful children to look at,” he said. “We are something people prefer not to think about. But I believe that as a society, we will be judged by how we treat the least of us.”
Although he has served only 18 months as Executive Director of Hope House, Gould has spent a career working to break down the barriers that isolate special needs populations. In fact, he started working with mentally retarded children in the seventh grade.
“I had my head down on my desk during the announcements. Then I head volunteers were needed to help with the special needs students. I picked my head up. I knew this was something I wanted to do,” he said.
“I think I was supposed to be a lawyer and make lots of money, but this got into my blood,” he laughs.
Before coming to Hope House, he worked 12 years with juvenile gang members and sex offenders at a wilderness camp in Smithville. He also worked with autistic children at a facility in Flatonia.
Some months after joining the Hope House staff, he moved his wife and two children from Bastrop to a small cabin adjacent to Hope House. His wife, who is a Master Social Worker, works with him.
Today, he looks for every opportunity to involve the Liberty Hill community in the Hope House family. It starts every day at 5 a.m. when the children get ready for school. Nine students from Hope House attend Liberty Hill High School, and others attend Liberty Hill Elementary and Bill Burden Elementary. In the public schools, they have some interaction with mainstream children.
“My hope is that of every 10 kids exposed to them, maybe one will pick their head up off the desk and consider this as a career,” he said.
Gould also invites church groups, scouts, school and civic organizations to come to Hope House and spend time with residents.
“We want them to see that there is a human story behind the body that doesn’t look like you and me,” he said.
Just as he does before introducing all newcomers to the residents, he told Radio Free Liberty Hill student reporters about Jenny.
“Jenny can’t see, so she has to put her face right up next to you,” he said. “If you didn’t know that about her, it would be scary or very uncomfortable. These people aren’t like you and me — they have no social inhibitors that dictate how much space there should be between us. And if they feel like hugging you, they’re just going to do it.”
Gould says for some visitors, the experience is uncomfortable at first, but most have a very positive experience. Organizations generally want to come back and do more to help.
In March 2010, Hope House will open its first small group home in Liberty Hill where four adults will reside under the care of professional staff. A second group home is also planned for 2010. Funded by a state contract for Home and Community Services, a grant will make it possible for Hope House to build or purchase existing property. The group homes will create 15-18 new jobs in Liberty Hill. In addition to administrative and social work jobs, the facility will require support services, such as cleaning, cooking and laundry.
“The goal is to keep them in the (Hope House) family,” he said. “Kids make connections to the people who take care of them and it is important to give them a permanent home as they age out of this complex (between the ages of 18 and 22).”
On Friday, as Liberty Hill celebrates Christmas, the Hope House family will celebrate in much the same way as it celebrates life every day.
To some, it may seem sad that Santa, his reindeer and even the true reason for the day may hold no meaning to the children, men and women who live here. But it’s those who spend their lives caring for the least among us that give the rest of us reason to hope.
