The Highwire with Del Bigtree - DR. JERRY AND JENNY MCCARTHY WAHLBERG INTRODUCE HOMELIFE COMMUNITY FOR ADULTS WITH AUTISM

Episode Date: April 9, 2023

It’s among the greatest worry of every Autism Parent: “What happens to my child when I am gone?” One specialist believes he has the answer. Pediatrician Dr. Jerry Kartzinel is joined by Celebrity Warrior Mom Jenny McCarthy Wahlberg to introduce the Home Life Community for Adults with Autism and other Special Needs. For more information, or to donate to this effort, go to www.homelifecommunity.org.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

So home life is, you know, something that you're working on, a place, you know, to really start developing ways we're going to handle. I mean, those numbers you share in there, over 5 million adults or people with autism that will all be moving adulthood as a parent. And, you know, Jenny, you can probably share this. That is the biggest concern. When I talk to parents of autistic children, they're like, if I. I die. If anything happens to me, who's going to take care of them? Or my child's aging out. I'm in a real problem now of being able to be in control of their lives. I don't want them to just go into a home where they're going to tie them to a bed. They've got no concern for them. Number one fear, I know it, for parents, is I can't die. My next book was going to be like, I can't die. Because it's the only you know how to care for your child. But then I also thought about like, God, what about? those people that don't have extended family after they pass away. Does their child have to be,

you know, put in an institution run by the state? You know, and we have the most vulnerable group. They're so sensitive to so many things and people that I couldn't even imagine it. And I thought to myself, well, I have to serve in some way and figure out how to create a community where they're safe, where these vulnerable kids won't be, will be protected. And then Dr. Jerry came to me talking about this idea and I said, well, this is what I want to do. And this is what he wants to do. And I'm like, we were meant to be together. So here we are. So we've got this phenomenal community idea, because as you look around, what do individuals with autism want? Now, remember, we're not talking about those young men and women who can work, who can live independently. We're talking about

the severe and the moderate ones. They deserve homes too. Yeah. And, and, and, and, you know, and, And they also are going to need round-the-clock care. You know, my son, he's 27. He needs his insulin measured out for him and administer to him three times a day with meals. He can't figure out his own numbers. He doesn't even do clean his own glasses or his ears. So these young men and women need a much greater amount of care. And the idea that we're going to put them at a car dealership to wash cars or push shopping carts around.

When somebody's diaper changes at the age of 20, that's not realistic. Right. How are you going to do a diaper change on a young female who's 22? I mean, we've got to have a different level of care. And yet they do want to belong. They love being with each other. They love swimming. They love playing basketball, dancing, singing, arts and crafts.

Of course, the computer, movies, Legos, they love to be involved with others at a certain, at their pace, not at what we think their pace should be. So we have to come up with the community. Now the homes out there are wonderful ideas where they build a home in a community and say they're part of the community. What happens with those guys and gals is they can't just go out and walk because they'll continue to walk and they won't come back. So they tend to be reclusive and they tend not to get involved because they can't go out.

We want to have a master plan community resort style that's just absolutely gorgeous as you can see from the pictures. That will involve them and help them grow mentally. physically, spiritually, develop social connections and friends and, well, why not? And then we need to show that this can happen as well as, you know, basically clone it all over the country. Because there are a million people, 1.3 million, who need a place like this right now. Yeah, we want to build it and teach how we built it. We're desperate, desperate for donations.

I mean, I told you, I'm like, I'm going to do this until we're. the day I die. This is the charity that I will be focusing on. I have to make happen in this lifetime. And the sooner, the better, because we so need it. The parents need it. So people are listening, please, even if it's a dollar, if everyone's just running it's a dollar. Let's just bring up the website right now. If you're watching, this is such an important cause. Folks, this is going to be our cost, whether we get involved now or wait till later when this starts hitting all of our systems, our hospital systems, our care home systems are going to be flooded, or we can start preempting and getting involved and taking care.

This is a brilliant idea, home life community. This is how you get involved. We have one of the most active audiences out there. I'm so proud of all of you out there because when we discuss things like this, your world changers. We really have to do something here. These are folks that deserve beauty

and to be taken care of, whether their parents have passed away or they're getting that point where they can't handle it anymore. This is so important and we've got to get on this because these millions and they're at one in 45. It's just more and more every single day. We've got to start figuring out, you know, how we are going to handle this in our society and absorb this into our communities. This is such a brilliant cause. It is. It is.

And I'm willing to, Donnie and I are willing to host charity events. So you've got some big donors. Please contact us because we were happy to do big events to raise funds. for this. Fantastic. Let's look at just some of the plans here. We've got some images of just what you're working on. You have just over 40 acres, I understand it. So we have, we have a contract on 42 acres. And it's already been approved by the city council and the mayor. So everything is like just green lighted. We want these are your renderings of what this property is going to look like. What you're looking at there is the main lodge. This is the

stables and writing area. Some of the young men and women really enjoy taking care of of the horses or riding the horses, or just being involved with animal husbandry. I'd love to get some alpacas in there, some other gentle animals in there. But again, to stimulate their minds, their bodies, get them back to the roots of just being out in the wilderness

to being involved. And yet, this particular facility in Jackson, Tennessee, it's tree-lined, it's got walking trails, hiking trails, yet we have five colleges and universities nearby by to supply us speech therapists physical therapists occupational therapists all the because they're all the training right all these universities around there are working at being able to serve this community in their future you can you know get a

lot of that work done and is it I mean you know I would think that there's some self-sustainability there in that you've got universities that can come in help say we'd like to use this facility to train in right there's obviously some funding that comes to these individuals that that can help with it but There's really a heavy lift here to get this thing started. There is, especially because a lot of kids age out of the school services. Right. So then parents are finding themselves with a 22-year-old that they don't know what to quite

do with even. So there's going to be, you know... The day program that they'll be able to come and say they're not ready to have their young daughter or son move in, but they sure would love to have a place where they can go from say nine to four and again have all the enrichment programs that are there to stimulate their minds and their bodies and their health. and have a great time. And they pick them up, and that's a great way to start.

And then, so back in the old days in camp, we had the resident camps and the day camps and they shared facilities. So we have our residential, and we have our day campers, if you will, coming in and sharing the facilities. Wow. And we want to do this debt-free, and we're going to try to avoid all government involvement,

as you can imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, we can do it right. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Just saw what they do in our banking system.

We can't have that happen to this process. project.