About Us
The history of Harmony Christian Community may be traced to a 2006 at a Fathers Network meeting in central SC (FCSC). ( One father stated: “If you want your child to live in some form of assisted living facility before you retire, you had better start building it now. There simply aren’t enough places for these adult children with special needs to be housed once parents pass away.” After that meeting, a father came up to me and said, “WC, that’s a brilliant idea, let’s build a retirement community with assisted-living.” I replied, “That’s not what I said, Rob.” We’ve argued whose idea it was ever since. WC thinks it was Rob and Rob says it was WC.
In 2019 we began operating as a charitable organization in SC and received our 501(c)(3) status with the IRS. We have been researching and defining our model and have primarily been looking for the property for our community. In November 2022, the board decided to bring our executive director on as our first full-time employee.
All work up to that point had been volunteer and part-time employment. All efforts to that point had been focused on land acquisition and fundraising. Through the council of SOSCareSC we now see the need to develop the Academy. If individuals with I/DD are not prepared to live independently they will not have the skills to be successful.
(see: Oak Tree Farms, Conway SC (https://soscaresc.org/oak-tree-farm/))
History
If you had a child with physical and/or intellectual/developmental disabilities (P/I/DD) 50 to 60 years ago, you were strongly encouraged to institutionalize your child. It was believed that only professionals had the skill sets to care for your child properly.
It did not take long for families to realize this was not the solution; 40 years ago, we started deinstitutionalizing this population. Parents began to keep their children in their homes, pushing back against stigma and unhelpful ideologies.
Many children were denied access to education, with only one in five children with disabilities receiving public education in 1970. By 1975, parents advocated for public education for all students. Many of us remember when schools began “special education classes,” then when public schools began to include individuals with P/I/DD in all classrooms and later full inclusion for students with disabilities.
By the 2020-21 school year, more than 66% of children with disabilities were in general education classrooms for 80% of their school day. We began to watch our children grow into full inclusion within our communities. This process has not been without its challenges, but we continue to see movement in the right direction away from discrimination and towards equal rights.
Within state funding, there are no options for young people to move out and begin learning to be independent from their parents. Some colleges have initiated phenomenal programs, but those programs can be financially out of reach for most families. Affordable housing options may be a solution; however, these options are not designed for the A/I/DD population. States like Arizona have begun to create options that meet these needs (see Greater Charleston Housing Market Analysis), yet few parents know how and what options are available. This website is an excellent resource to look over if you want to learn more about the needs of individuals with P/I/DD and their barriers to housing in Charleston.