Share the Spirit: Meet the Bay Area nonprofit creating housing for people with special needs

At the age of 38, Jennifer Thomas is living a life that is fuller than many.

When she’s not working at an East Bay grocery store, she’s tending the garden, honing her music skills, and learning recipes for cooking. She is an athlete who has won medals in track and field and javelin throwing. She helped her bocce team take bronze at the Special Olympics Summer Games in Northern California in 2024.

And when she’s not doing any of that, she’s kicking back with her friends Irby Ranchan affordable housing community in Pleasanton for people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (I/DD).

“I’ve lived at Irby Ranch for five years now – I was one of the first residents,” Thomas said. “I even lead some activities there, like a jam session where I bring my own guitar. That’s pretty cool.”

Irby Ranch is a 30-unit complex loosely modeled on senior housing, offering independent living to Tri-Valley residents with conditions such as autism, Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and epilepsy. It is run by the nonprofit Pleasanton Sunflower Hillwhose mission is to provide affordable apartments and social programs to people with I/DD.

There is a great need for these things. Just look at Sunflower Hill’s plans for the near future: The organization soon hopes to pilot two other similarly designed residential communities — one in Dublin and another in Lafayette, the latter of which recently received a $19.5 million award to cover about half of the construction costs.

“Our mission is to develop as many communities as possible in that way of working,” said Susan Houghton, chair of the nonprofit’s board of directors.

Chances are, unless you have a child or know someone with special needs, you don’t think about the population much, says Houghton, whose adult son was diagnosed with autism at age 2.

“There are 26,000 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the Greater East Bay, which means all of Alameda County and Contra Costa County. Of those, 80% live with their parents or relatives and only 20% are employed,” Houghton said, citing statistics from the East Bay Regional Center.

She and other parents founded Sunflower Hill in 2012 to answer a pressing question: How could they care for their children in the long term, when they may no longer be here or no longer able to?

People with I/DD are often unable to work and receive only a small amount of government benefits. It’s often not enough to cover base rent in one of the country’s most expensive real estate markets. Then, when you throw in a disability that makes it difficult to perform daily tasks—for example, doing laundry or grocery shopping—it can be extremely difficult to live independently.

“My son Robby is pretty innocent. He thinks Disney princesses are real,” Houghton says. “He can make his own waffles in the morning and a sandwich for lunch. But if someone knocked on his door and said, ‘Give me all your money,’ he would hand him his wallet. And he would want to make sure they were happy afterwards, because he’s so innocent.”