28 | JULY 11 • 2024 
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oming off May, 
National Older 
Americans Month, 
JARC honored its older 
adults by reaffirming its 
commitment to serving 
the older adults in their 
communities. 
Bloomfield Hills-based 
nonprofit JARC, which serves 
adults with developmental 
disabilities in Oakland 
County, strives to provide the 
highest quality of direct care 
services tailored to the needs 
of each individual they serve. 
This year, that service also 
includes adapting physical 
group living spaces to 
accommodate the changing 
needs of the people they 
serve to make aging in place 
possible as they experience 
changing mobility and medi-
cal needs.
While not a housing agency 
or a provider specifically for 

older adults, JARC’s mission 
includes helping to ensure the 
group homes they manage 
are safe, comfortable and 
accessible. 
Historically, people with 
developmental disabilities 
did not live long enough to 
have mobility needs for their 
senior years. For example, in 
1931, the life expectancy for 
people with developmental 
disabilities was just 22. By 
1993, it was age 66. 
Most of the older adults 
JARC serves came to JARC 
in their 20s and 30s, healthy 
and without mobility needs. 
Now, these individuals are 
age 60 or older. The average 
life expectancy continues to 
increase, and today JARC 
now serves people into their 
90s — an incredible success 
story that provides JARC an 
opportunity to assist them 
with their mobility challenges. 

As any senior would need 
modifications to age in place, 
these older adults are no 
exception.
In 2021 and 2022, 
JARC received generous 
contributions from an 
anonymous donor and the 
Robert Feldstein Aging-in-
Place Accessibility Initiative 
to fund the necessary changes 
within three group homes 

they manage, to ensure that 
the adults living in those 
homes can age-in-place. 
The accessibility updates 
will be made to three single- 
story homes complete with 
a step-free front entrance, 
doorways and hallways wide 
enough for wheelchairs, new 
and safer flooring materials, 
and secured handrails. 
The bathrooms will include 
roll-in showers, grab bars 
and a removable shower seat. 
Kitchen counter lengths were 

JARC is Adapting 
to Changing Needs

Accessibility updates to group homes 
will allow older residents to age in place.

PAT BASKIN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

OUR COMMUNITY

The kitchen in the Keller-
Walch Home now includes 
a wheelchair-friendly sink

LEFT: A new entry ramp at 
JARC’s Keller-Walch Home 
replaces stairs down from the 
front door. RIGHT: Renovated 
cabinets in the kitchen on the 
Collins Home have new low 
cabinets that are more easily 
accessible for wheelchair-
users and all residents.

