For many parents raising a child on the autism spectrum, there is a question that becomes more pressing as the years pass: What will adulthood look like for our child?
For families whose children will continue to require some level of support throughout their lives, that question can be even more difficult. School programs eventually end. Children's services change or disappear at adulthood. Parents get older. Yet the need for safety, friendship, meaningful activity, independence and a sense of belonging doesn't suddenly end at age 18.
A new Calgary initiative called Spectral Life Village is trying to rethink what that future could look like.
The project recently received attention from an August 25th Global News Story, about a group of Calgarians working to create a community housing project specifically intended to help adults with mid-spectrum autism. The report highlighted a familiar challenge for many families: the significant gap in supports that can emerge once an autistic person reaches adulthood.
Spectral Life Village is proposing something much more ambitious than simply providing housing.
It is imagining a community.
More Than a Place to Live
Spectral Life Village describes its mission as providing safe, lifelong housing alongside comprehensive support programs for neurodiverse adults and active seniors.
The concept brings together housing, employment, education, technology, support services and community participation, with the goal of helping residents live with dignity, purpose and meaningful connections throughout their lives.
The model is organized around four primary pillars:
- Safe living
- Employment and volunteerism
- Education and skills development
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Community
The safe-living component includes plans for 24/7 care, smart technology to enhance safety and well-being, and long-term succession planning. Rather than families waiting until a crisis forces them to find somewhere for their loved one to live, the goal is to create stability and belonging well before that point.
That distinction is incredibly important.
A home should not simply be somewhere a person is placed because there are no other options. It should be somewhere they belong.
Purpose Is Just as Important as Housing
Another aspect of Spectral Life Village that stands out is its emphasis on meaningful participation.
The vision includes opportunities for residents to participate in paid employment or volunteer work, both within the Village and elsewhere in the community. Plans described on the organization's website include amenities such as a bakery, greenhouse and event spaces that could simultaneously serve the broader community while creating opportunities for social connection, vocational training and meaningful work for residents.
This recognizes something that can easily be overlooked when discussing supportive housing.
People need more than food, shelter and supervision.
We all want to feel useful. We want friendships. We want routines, responsibilities and opportunities to contribute. We want people to recognize what we can do rather than define us exclusively by the things with which we need help.
Spectral Life Village's mixed-tenancy approach also envisions neurodiverse adults and active seniors living within the same broader community. Its founders describe this as an "architecture of inclusion" designed to encourage interaction, understanding and connection rather than isolating people with disabilities from everyone else.
A Project Born From Lived Experience
Perhaps one of the most compelling aspects of Spectral Life Village is that its founders aren't approaching the issue from a purely theoretical perspective.
Co-founder Krista Reiach is the mother of an adult son with autism. According to Spectral Life Village, since his diagnosis in 2009 she has spent years researching programs and supports that could give him the best possible life. That experience ultimately helped inspire her to create the type of lifelong neurodiverse community she wanted to see available for individuals like her son.
Krista joined CBC's, 'Calgary Eyeopener', for a conversation about Spectral Life Village with Loren McGinnis. His questions dug right into what makes this project meaningful.
Her fellow co-founders have personal connections as well. Scott Hill has experience supporting a nephew with autism, while Dr. Ian Holloway is himself the parent of a young adult with autism.
That lived experience matters because families understand that the question isn't simply, "Who will take care of my child?"
It's also:
Will they be happy?
Will they have friends?
Will they have something to look forward to each morning?
Will someone understand their needs, their personality and the things that make them who they are?
Why This Hits Close to Home for Our Family
This story and project are particularly meaningful to us.
Watching Krista speak about her son and the future she wants for him hit very close to home. In many ways, her son seems remarkably similar to ours, and we recognize many of the same hopes and concerns that helped inspire Spectral Life Village.
Like so many parents, we want our son to have as much independence as he is capable of having. But independence doesn't have to mean doing everything alone.
It can mean having the right supports around you so that you are able to live your own life.
As parents, there is tremendous comfort in imagining a future where our son could have his own home, his own routines, meaningful activities and responsibilities, friendships, familiar people around him and the support he needs — all within a community where he is genuinely known and valued.
And perhaps most importantly, somewhere he could continue to belong long after we are no longer here to provide that support ourselves.
Building a Better Version of Adulthood
Spectral Life Village is still an emerging project, and turning a vision of this scale into reality will undoubtedly require partnerships, funding, service providers and significant community support.
But the idea behind it deserves attention.
For too long, conversations about autism have focused heavily on childhood — early intervention, schools, therapies and children's programming. Those things matter enormously, but autistic children become autistic adults.
Their need for opportunity, dignity, friendship, safety and belonging continues throughout their lives.
Spectral Life Village is asking us to imagine something better than simply finding a place for those adults to live.
It's asking:
What if we built a place for them to have a life?
For families like ours, that's a future worth supporting and we look forward to supporting Spectral Life Village!
