‘We work with the Bureau for Developmental Services through the Department of Health and Human Services in New Hampshire, and we support roughly 1,300 people over 24 communities, from birth all the way through the terms of our lives,’ explains Matt Cordaro, CEO of One Sky Community Services. (Photo by Allegra Boverman)
One Sky, founded in 1983, supports individuals diagnosed with developmental disabilities or acquired brain disorders, helping them to live as valued and participating members in their communities. The area agency helps nearly 1,000 people, from toddlers to seniors, across 24 Seacoast communities in Rockingham County.
Cordaro and his team work in partnership with the state Department of Health and Human Services and the Bureau of Developmental Services to provide access to care providers, funding for services, service coordination and other needs.
Farmsteads of New England was founded by Deborah DeScenza, a mother who was seeking how to best care for a son with significant special needs. She realized there were service gaps and needs to be filled. Since 2003, with the purchase of the Rosewald Farm in Hillsborough, Farmsteads of New England has been providing services to people with autism and other developmental disabilities.
In 2009, Farmsteads started providing services at a second leased site in Epping. In the fall of 2017, Farmsteads purchased the Redberry Farm property in Epping where it moved its day services program and has created new housing.
Q. What does One Sky offer to the individuals that you serve?
A. One Sky is an area agency. We work with the Bureau for Developmental Services through the Department of Health and Human Services in New Hampshire, and we support roughly 1,300 people over 24 communities, from birth all the way through the terms of our lives.
We provide service coordination for those entities as well as an area agency management function. Farmsteads is a beautiful organization that provides residential support and day support services to roughly 60 individuals throughout southern New Hampshire.
Q. Is Farmsteads a new endeavor for you?
A. It is. It was started by a parent named Deborah DeScenza, who is just one of the best people I’ve ever met in my life. She retired this year, which is sad in one breath, but it also provides opportunities for someone to take her vision and bring it to a new path forward.
We’ve been implementing some of the long-term strategies, which is housing, and it coalesces with what we’ve been doing at One Sky.
We have a new development that’s going up for Farmsteads in Epping. It’s a 32-bed, eight-building facility. They are beautiful individual apartments. Some of the buildings have common areas. They are all accessible, one-story buildings. It’s a nice place for people to be able to live and not have to worry about whether they’re going to have to change settings.
They can age in place, and that’s kind of unique for the services that we have in our state. We have a lot of great providers that do their best to make sure that people age in place.
But this is a way for people who have a higher degree of independence to be able to live as independently as they can for as long as they can.
Q. A few years ago in a NH Business Review story, you talked about the difficulty of finding housing for the people that want One Sky helps. We know the housing shortage has continued to be one of the state’s biggest challenges. How are you dealing with that?
A. There’s a lot more need for housing. But there’s also been some great things that the state Bureau of Developmental Services has done to help alleviate that crisis.
At the time, we were saying there was about 70 (New Hampshire) people or so out of state, with the bulk of them being located in Florida.
When we’re talking about the ability for us to service people in our state versus Florida, our budgets are anywhere between $100,000 to $300,000 more to service someone out of state. The Bureau for Developmental Services uses some of the ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds to provide some seed money for organizations to create more housing. We’re now down to about 40 to 45 people out of state. And we’re working to bring more people back. One Sky currently owns five homes. We have added two of those homes in the last three years.
There is still a need for a lot of housing.
There’s a lot of need for funding. We’re in the process of trying to sell tax credits to be able to fund some of our development. We’re working with the CDFA (Community Development Finance Authority) to be able to get some block grants to develop more housing.
We’re also working with HUD (U.S. Housing and Urban Development) and Senator (Jeanne) Shaheen.
Shaheen’s office, whom I can’t say enough good things about. She has procured for us a bounty of funds to be able to develop housing for our populations.
