Autistic Roommates.

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The first example, stimming is autistic. That one wouldn't even be debatable IMHO. Stimming would be 100% allowed. The roommate with the sensitivities would be encouraged to avoid it by going to their room, or looking for housing elsewhere.

The second example. Obviously a rule for reasonable standards of cleanliness would have to be enforced. Thats a health and safety issue for everybody.

I'd love to live with other aspies in like a block of flats with a shared common room for chilling out watching movies and doing social stuff.
everyone would still have their own space but also and ASD friendly hangout

I know some places do it for old people so they don't get lonely.

OK, but were your roommates ASD or NTs? I can appreciate the roommate horror stories, but unless the roommates were autistic, it's not really relevant to this thread. Maybe if they had been autistic, you would have been more compatible with them.

I love the idea and we are working on it right now in a city right outside of Denver, Colorado. We are looking for a large home in a nice part of Thornton. Though a crappy part of town might be less expensive, safety is a major issue. So many autistics [myself included] do not drive, but walk, even if just to a bus stop. We also want a nicer part of town because we want rec and community centers to be safer.

We are figuring about $600 a month per person for room, utilities, and most meals. Bedrooms will not be shared and we hope to have a number of bathrooms and both a living room and a family room so that one could be a quiet room and the other for socializing.

We are looking for people who, though respecting their own and others privacy, also would like the socialization and feel of family. We are looking for people with at least a splash of activism in their hearts who feel a responsibility to the entire autistic culture. We are looking for people who realize we can help each other in our respective strengths and weaknesses, people who can work synergisticly with other autistics.

Before you say it cannot work, maybe it would not..for you. Or maybe you have been surrounded by such negative feedback for so many years that you cannot see that this might be something incredible for you.

Yes, that would probably be a better alternative. Especially here in the US with Section 8 housing. It would probably be cheaper too. The easiest way would be to just do it informally. Find a decent apartment complex somewhere that accepts government housing vouchers. Then encourage as many ASD people as possible to move there. Basically, just take it over.

Of course the better way would be to have an organization to build the complex, specifically to the needs of the autistic community. Too bad an organization like Autism Speaks isn't doing something like building housing. Rather then wasting millions of dollars trying to find a cure for a neurological condition.

That sounds really nice. But I think Denver would be a bit expensive. At least for people on SSDI/SSI. Maybe it could be good for people with jobs.

I'm kind of thinking that some of the smaller towns in Oregon would be a really good location. When I first started thinking about this last year, I looked on Craigslist. I found a beautiful seven bedroom victorian mansion in a central Oregon town, for rent for $900 a month. The listing seemed legitimate. It had lots of good pictures of the house. For seven people that would be about $150 a person per month for rent and utilities. Almost anybody could afford that.

Anyway good luck with your plans. I really think that these type of living arrangements could help a lot of autistic people.

the last one was an adult undiagnosed with a diagnosed child :p

and it was the one I had the worst experience with

This I would gladly get behind & live in. ^^^

Especially if it was built with autistics in mind, like with something in the walls, floors, ceilings, windows, & doors to damp down vibrations & noises, and blackout curtains standard for every room.
Could do it as an intentional community, pool resources with everyone contributing based on ability to do so.
Do it with 100% autistic people as much as possible, especially in the design & planning of it.

That's is the kind of thing I could really get behind.
I think it's feasible because it's the kind of grand idea that tends to be able to attract the kind of serious financial backing it would need to succeed.

I mean, I guess it's less practical in that it would take years to bring something like that to fruition, but I think it would be worth it in the long run to have a real community made for & by autistic adults.

The first step, I think, would be to start raising funds.
Could do it with kickstarter or something like that, start a non-profit foundation & set up a trust to handle the money.
Use said money to pay future community members skilled in the particular professions needed to plan it out & work on getting grants & larger donations.
Once it's all planned & enough money has been raised, buy some land on the outskirts of a nice, laid-back town, build our own little autistic-customized apartment/condo complex around a central mini-town area with community run businesses.
Maybe include some farmland, grow some of our own food, keep chickens & cows for fresh eggs & milk.
if done properly, the whole thing could become self-perpetuating after a few years.

I dunno, maybe it's just a pipe dream, but I think it could really be something amazing if enough people were seriously interested in going all the way with it.

Trying to do it ourselves like the OP and vickgleitz are trying to do is noble and wonderful, but maybe we should think bigger and look outside of ourselves for the backing we need to achieve the bigger dreams.

This is like the difference between Plato's ideal forms and reality.

What should be is one thing, what actually is is another. Autistic people aren't automatically compatible just because they're autistic.

Another way it could be accomplished, would be to find a developer who has some land and is willing to build it, if they get enough occupants signed up in advance.

Last edited by Max000 on 06 Apr 2014, 9:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It can work. My post was not to say that it couldn't, but rather to not assume that it automatically would.

There, that's an idea to get started. I'm just saying, it could be done big.

I think this would be awesome. If anyone in Los Angeles were willing to start this I would so be on board.

Unable to know if I would reach something like that.