Nicky's Gardens of Hope: Homes for the Disabled

There is a massive shortage of low-income homes and an even greater shortage of quality homes for the disabled. 

in 2018, Adriana Piltz was a Wall Street executive who had a secret. The secret was that her son, Nicky, was severely autistic, and would never be able to feed himself or even use the bathroom without help. He sone would soon be 21, and his "childhood" services would be terminated. Adult services are harder to come by, and it can take a decade or more to find housing.

Adriana knew that as she was getting older, and the day would soon come when she could no longer physically care for her son, who was no longer a little boy she could care for herself. But when she looked for a place for Nicky, the institutions that were available made her cry. She decided to leave her Wall Street position and instead dedicate her life to finding a home for her Nicky and all of the other Nickys of the world.  

Adriana found the perfect location for the residency she wanted to build, Nicky's Gardens of Hope, in New York State's beautiful Hudson Valley. This pilot site will allow Nicky's Gardens to test a unique model that will enrich the residency, create jobs for the residents, and provide additional revenue to maintain high-quality housing while being less dependent on government funding.

Nicky's Gardens of Hope has been working for four years to find the right spot and the right backers for this project. We have already paid for a third-party feasibility study and preliminary environmental studies.  If we can complete our architectural plans and get approval by the town council, we will be ready to move ahead with incentives and loans that will allow us to start the process.  

If we can raise the funding, we will present the architectural plans and an environmental study to the town council. They will examine our plan and make recommendations, we will then agree on a plan, and recieve preliminary approval, following which we will be able to initiate government-supported loans & incentives to purchase the land, and begin the development process to build homes on the property.

Every year, 50,000 autistic adults plus another 50,000 Intellectually Disabled adults (brain trauma, cerebral palsy, etc.) transition from childhood to adulthood every year. At the age of 21, children age out of entitlements for childhood services. Parents call this the "Cliff". They must re-apply for all services, as adults. Yet there are far fewer services for adults than children.

The most important and fundamental service for these ID adults is housing. Across the U.S., the waiting list for A/IDD housing is 10 to 15 years long. Even before COVID, there just were not enough services for these adults. Now the service gap is even greater, and still fewer beds are available. In New York state there is one possible "permanent home" for every 10 applictions.

And, the number of new A/IDD adults is growing. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2000, one in every 150  children was diagnosed with autism; today it is 1 in every 44... and still growing.

Nicky's Gardens of Hope is dedicated to elevating the quality of adult IDD services by providing an open, village-like environment that provides education, employment, & life activities while reducing and removing the barrier between the disabled and the community... reducing the stigma of disability and providing a dignified and purposeful life.