The housing crisis makes Bay Area life more difficult for just about everyone, and that’s doubly true for adults with developmental disabilities and their families.
But one Half Moon Bay community group has been working toward a solution.
For over 20 years now, the Big Wave Project has been working to create an affordable housing development for adults with developmental disabilities such as autism on a parcel of land near the Half Moon Bay Airport.
The plan was held up for years by a combination of red tape and local push back.
Construction is just now getting underway.
Supporters and some soon-to-be residents gathered there on a recent weekend afternoon to get their hands dirty at a part of the project that is up and running: the group’s on-site farm.
"Because it was such a challenge to get this built, it really helped us create this community," said Jeff Peck, Big Wave’s CEO and one of its co-founders.
He told KCBS Radio it’s a community that’s become an invaluable support network over the course of the coronavirus pandemic.
Holding that community together for all these years, he said, is the question that weighs on the minds of so many parents and caregivers for special needs people. Who will take care of my child when I’m no longer here?
"Seventy-six percent of all people with developmental disabilities live with their parents or families or some caregiver that’s getting old," Peck explained. "When the parents get sick or they die, these guys are left out in the cold. It’s a huge problem. We’re doing what we can to help."
Back at the farm, Peck’s adult daughter and inspiration for the project, Elizabeth, said she’s looking forward to the day when she’ll be able to move into the development.
"(Having) my own bedroom and working," she said.
That’s the Big Wave vision in a nutshell, more than just housing.
It’s going to be a home with a tight-knit community where peer support will always be close at hand and, as we just heard, where residents will have access to work opportunities thanks to a number of commercial businesses also setting up shop at the development.
It’s been a long slog getting here. But now, Peck is hoping that all this could serve as a source of inspiration for other special needs families who are also struggling through the housing crisis.
"Hopefully, people can do it even better than we did," he said. "I’m sure we made a lot of mistakes and we will. Hopefully they learn from our mistakes."
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