We invite you to actively participate in our facilitated Discussion Forums. Please also share your success stories in establishing community housing options and also share your false start stories, since we all want to learn about what works and what does not work. Please also make recommendations of group homes and service providers that provide great housing and programs for people with autism. Also add information to our "not recommended" page.

What is ARCHway

ARCHway offers a roadmap for lifelong person-centered planning for adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Our primary focus is to offer leadership and guidance to families, service providers, and other key stake holders on how to establish a broad menu of quality-level, community housing options for people across the entire autism spectrum. We provide consultation on how to navigate through the complex and confusing issues of housing and supports and offer specific concrete steps that families can take to tackle the challenges of establishing a real home and a good, long-term quality of life for our loved ones with ASD.

The members of ARCHway’s consortium (go to www.myarchway.org and click on ARCHway) are disability housing pioneers with seasoned expertise in the autism field. They have proven experience designing and building a wide menu of adaptive housing options that utilize leading edge assistive technology to foster independence. Our experts also know how to properly train support staff to work appropriately with people with ASD so that they may continue to learn, grow and reach their full potentials.

ARCHway also brings families together who are eager to share both their successes and their false starts in this quest, so that we may all learn and join together to solve the housing crisis for people with ASD.

The values expressed in ARCHway’s new disability paradigm assert that people with ASD and other disabilities are not broken, and therefore do not need to be “fixed.” Rather, our loved ones are to be valued and loved for their personal qualities and contributions, and it is the built and social environment that must be fixed, modified, adapted or structured properly so that our fellow citizens with ASD can take their rightful place among us as friends, neighbors, co-workers and employers.

ARCHway is an approach that “re-orients” or shifts us away from a passive perspective, in which a parent of a transitioning teen or adult with autism may believe that “a government system will step in to provide quality care and look after the needs of my loved one.” Instead, we hold a more active, realistic and empowering perspective that asserts, “If I wish to see my loved one with autism have a great place to live, and participate in fulfilling activities and enjoy a quality life, I have to play a significant role in that life planning process, well in advance of the time my loved one needs residential services, staff supports and job training.”