Home Community Life

In today's episode, Dr. Jerry Kartzinel tells us more about the work he and his family are doing at Home Life Community and their goal of establishing a forever home for persons with disabilities to address the increasing housing crisis. Look what they have planned right here in NortWest Tennessee.

Edited Transcript

Marsh Naidoo (00:12):

Welcome to this episode of the Raising Kellan Podcast. My name is Marsh Naidoo and I blog at www.raisingkellan.org where we curate resources for parents raising children with developmental delay and disabilities. As always, remember, the content on this podcast is purely informational, and if you seek advice for your specific situation to contact a trained professional. Today's episode is brought to you by Move Up Physical Therapy, a private practice in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, owned and operated by Rebecca Renfro. Rebecca, thank you so much for believing in the work we do and your sponsorship. As I reflect back to the beginning of the year on the podcast, the main goal that was set was to investigate the infrastructure and supports that I am placed to support our adults with disabilities with regard to housing, transportation, employment, and medical care. As you recall at the beginning of this year, I had a conversation with Pete Hickson from Woodstock, Georgia on episode 77 when we discussed the work that they were doing at Beyond Communities, where they were setting up housing communities or apartments for young adults with disabilities. In today's episode, we are gonna focus closer to home here in Northwest Tennessee, where I have a conversation with Dr. Jerry Kartzinel who will be telling us more about the work he and his family are doing at Home Life Community and their goal of establishing a forever home for persons with disabilities in our region. So grab that cup of coffee, put your feet up, and get ready for some awesome conversation. Dr. Jerry Kartzinel, welcome to the Raising Kellan Podcast. We are so honored to have you here with us today.

Dr Jerry Kartzinel (02:40):

Well, thank you very much for having me.

Marsh Naidoo (02:42):

Alrighty guys. Dr. Jerry Kartzinel received his Doctorate of Medicine from St. Louis University School of Medicine and completed his pediatric training at Kessler Air Force Base. Dr. Kartzinel practice traditional pediatric medicine until the birth of his fourth son, Joshua, who is diagnosed with autism and all its related chronic diseases. The challenge of treating multiple medical conditions requires the integration of the very latest medical interventions that included both traditional and complementary approaches. They now remain another great challenge, the provision of a forever home and family for our adults with special needs. Jerry, first off tell us a little more about you. Tell us something about where you grew up and where you were raised?

Dr Jerry Kartzinel (03:54):

Well, that's going way back now. I grew up in Los Angeles, California in a little suburb called Sherman Oaks, and I was raised there and at that time there were chicken farms and a lot of open spaces. Of course, you wouldn't see that now. And I always wanted to fix things and go into medicine. In fact whenever I got a present, whether it be a Christmas or a birthday, I had a promise that I wouldn't take it apart for two weeks. And so cuz I always wanted to take things apart, see how they work, put them back together again. That evolved into taking apart old cars and putting back engines together. And then having a love for science, biology, and always medicine. That kind of pushed me into that field, went into medicine and that was a great way to take those gifts and talents of finding out what's broken and putting it together again.

(04:48):

I was able to utilize those gifts in medicine. But you know, sometimes in medicine, some more harm can be done than we think it can be. And my son was harmed and my wife said you broke him, now you fix him because, well, that's what I do. Josh developed autism following some vaccines that I gave him. And that put me on this road of more of a naturalistic approach of raising children as well as repairing them as best I can, as a physician, I can use both natural medicine and pharmaceuticals. We can't throw those away too. My son's a diabetic, insulin-dependent diabetic. I, I can't throw away pharmaceuticals, insulin. He also has Hashimoto's thyroiditis. I gotta use thyroid medicine. But the treatment of these kids is what I've been doing for over 35 years now as I'm getting older and my son's doing great, but he'll never be able to live on his own.

(05:51):

I have to start thinking, start thinking about the future and what, what his home life would be like after mom and dad and the other kids that I take care of are not able to take care of them, are no longer here. And if you look around, not too many choices for our kids with neurodevelopmental disabilities. It doesn't have to just be autism. It could be obviously cerebral palsy, but things that would require them to have assistance and manage their activities of daily living, whether it be cleaning their glasses, giving insulin, taking their seizure meds, getting in and out of wheelchairs to use the potty. They're gonna need assistance and there's just not a great model for that currently available.

Marsh Naidoo (06:35):

So Jerry, you guys now currently reside in Jackson, Tennessee. Tell me a little bit more about Home Life Community. And from my understanding, you guys are almost on your way to actually creating this community.

Dr Jerry Kartzinel (06:56):

Oh, absolutely. So if you want to go to www.homelifecommunity.org, you can see what we're up to. But we were just approved by the city council and the mayor to develop 42 acres of property that we already have a contract on to do exactly what we want to do. It was unanimously voted on Tuesday and approved. And that's really exciting for us. We have a track of 42 acres that is undeveloped and all wooded right now. It's got deer on it and birds and all kinds of beautiful things. Got a creek running through it, 42 acres. If you do four houses to an acre, which they normally do we're doing 20 homes, 20 homes that hold four residents each with full-time staff during the day and night.

(07:52):

So they'll always be a house parent of some sort there with kitchens. And adjacent to that, we're going to have a recreation learning center, which is gonna have an indoor pool, a gymnasium, weight room, and multiple types of classrooms for whatever our young women and men are interested in, such as arts and crafts, computer lab, home theater, brought to you by Best Buy, of course. But whatever we have, we're gonna have multiple areas of learning. Cause our guys and gals are lifelong learners, right. Some can actually manage things at age 30 that we had no idea they can manage when they were only 20. They, they're lifelong learners, so we don't give up on 'em, but we need to stimulate them so they can grow mentally, physically, socially, and of course spiritually. And so we're gonna meet all those needs each, adult will have a plan just for them that meets their unique needs. Cuz as you know and your listeners know, each of our young men and women are very unique and have special likes and certainly special dislikes.

Marsh Naidoo (08:59):

So Jerry when is this project going to get off the ground?

Dr Jerry Kartzinel (09:04):

It's in motion now. In other words, we have one more hearing because that's the law, the rule of law here you have to have two hearings. So anybody who wants to object, they can just like at a wedding, if anybody has an objection, say it now. They listen, no objections, they move on. So here we have two of, two times that we can object and we can either, so anyway, I don't expect that to be a problem. That's next month. Then we have to raise the funds for buying the property, which is very generously, I wouldn't say given to us, but at 42 acres of what we're paying for it, it's a huge gift. The gentleman involved is making a very generous donation to us by selling us the property very inexpensively. We plan to be buying and doing everything debt free.

(09:55):

That's very important. So we're rate in the process right now of raising funds to buy the property. Engineering is gonna cost a hundred thousand dollars. You know, when they bring in the sewer lines, the electrical cable water, you know, you've seen that before when you drive by developments where you have all the stubs up there and you, you see the hoses coming out and one's for electrical and one's for water and stuff. So we have to have that all taken care of. The site has to be prepared for the actual foundations to be laid. So that's in the $150,000 range. Okay? The indoor aquatics area, the pool area, the gymnasium, that building, which will house our admin upstairs, which will house a salon for the ladies to get their hairs done and makeup and haircuts. My barber said his whole team will take a day off each month and come to our place and do the men and women's hair for free. I mean that Jackson, well, kinda like up in Dyersburg, Jackson is just a very, very giving community.

Marsh Naidoo (11:03):

It really is!

Dr Jerry Kartzinel (11:03):

So much love that no matter what we say, oh, we'll come and help you with that. We'll come and help you with that. So we'll have multiple things, including a, a medical clinic that I plan to take care of just to take care of the coughs and colds and sprained ankles or whatever comes in, you know, I'll be able to do that. So it'll be a, so it'll all be self-contained. That facility, it's gonna be about 11 to $12 million. When we build the houses. The houses are going to be probably around $750,000 each is what I'm assuming. Now with the new costs, and I'm sure many of your listeners know that things have gone up like windows and flooring and stuff. Non-Toxic homes. Okay. So they're the HVAC systems, heating, ventilation, air conditioning. There's not gonna, there's gonna be ultraviolet light in there. And special filters that trap mold s scores. In other words, I don't want the place to, to look and smell like a ramada in, five years, seven years. It's gonna be clean as a whistle. No volatile organic compounds in the paints or any of the finishes. So the indoor air quality will be exceptional. The floorings will be exceptional. The the, it'll be incredibly attractive. Wait till, wait till your listeners go to home life community.org.

Marsh Naidoo (12:23):

I know. It's, it's a beautiful.

Dr Jerry Kartzinel (12:25):

I've had parents say, I wanna live there. You cannot live there. You can buy one of the houses in the perimeter, but this is their community. This is not your community. If you want your community, you build one <laugh>. Okay? Now here's the thing. Are you familiar with the St. Jude Hospital Model? St. Jude, no matter what happens to you with cancer, you come there and you're treated for free because they have something called an endowment. And that endowment's invested and they basically live off the interest. The interest allows them to give all the medical care and pay for everything for free. Well, that's what we plan to do too. In other words, anybody can build something like this and charge eight to $10,000 a month, but most of us immortals cannot save up $8,000 to $10,000 a month for our adult children for the next 30 or 40 or 50 years.

(13:15):

And our government's not gonna kick in$8,000 to $10,000 a month. We may get a $950 a month SSDI check and the parents may be able to give us a $25,000 life insurance policy out at the end of their life. But that's about it. So we have to come up with an alternate way to pay for this. Now obviously, if some families come and they have millions that grandma and grandpa left or whatever, fabulous. That will help with the whole community. But I don't want this to be a community of the rich and famous. That's easy to do. I'll let somebody else do that. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in making a model that can be replicated all around the country to show you how to build this and how to finance it without going into debt. And how to ensure that there's enough operating expenses and reserve money to replace the roofs in 20 years and whatever the furniture and everything, how to do it all like a vacation home, you know, how they have it all programmed.

(14:08):

So that's what we're plan on doing. So that's big fundraising and you know, you hear a lot of negative things about our country nowadays, but there's still a lot of big hearts out there with big money, philanthropy we call it. And when they see this going and they'll say, here's a 5 million check for your longevity fund, your legacy fund, whatever you want to call it. And we'll be able to live off that interest. So the kids aren't like gonna be told, this year the government cut back a hundred thousand dollars. So we're going back to green beans and mac and cheese. The food here's gonna be organic. And you know what, my son likes Taco Tuesdays. So in his house they can have Taco Tuesdays, but the next guy, he likes to have meatloaf Mondays or whatever it is. They can still have the same foods that they're used to. It'll be organic, it'll be clean. So that's the difference,

Marsh Naidoo (15:01):

Jerry, there's such width and depth to our children with disabilities as far as abilities are concerned. So for example, if someone perhaps had a work assignment that was outside of the actual community, is that something you foresee happening where younger adults would have a place to stay and perhaps have work assignments or employment outside of the community? Or do you see this being something more self-contained?

Dr Jerry Kartzinel (15:41):

How about not, or how about all, okay, this facility will be self-contained and for those young men and women who can work outside, whether in a computer lab, Starbucks, or the grocery store, God bless 'em, let them go, we'll make sure that they get there and they get back. So it will be a facility that caters to all abilities. Now what I see going up is not the, and it's the ore. In other words, I see places that are being designed for only high-functioning adults who don't even need anybody living in their apartment. Okay? And they are self-sufficient and they may need help paying bills, they might need help getting groceries, but otherwise they're going to work at FedEx or UPS and they love it and stuff. But that's all that, that's what they're building and that's a very inexpensive model cuz you don't have, you don't have things for their

Marsh Naidoo (16:36):

Needs.

Dr Jerry Kartzinel (16:37):

We're building it where these guys and gals who can work four hours a day, come back, do more learning, playing, have a place to play basketball, dance nights, arts and crafts, home theater, but a community. So they're never lonely. And they will find friends in this community that they like to hang with and maybe room with. So I think we can do both.

Marsh Naidoo (17:03):

Jerry, how can parents find out more about Home Life Community? Now you guys do have a website www.homelifecommunity.org correct? But if they would like to maybe reach out and, and talk one-on-one with somebody in the organization and such, what access would parents have to kind of get the communication going?

Dr Jerry Kartzinel (17:31):

Okay, so let me ask David. On the website, is there a contact form? Yeah, there's a contact form on our, on our website. I thought so. I was like, better have one. But yeah, there's a contact on how to contact us and they can put in their name and their email address their specific questions and reach out to us and we will answer 'em.

Marsh Naidoo (17:50):

So as a parent, I guess a question I would wanna ask is what would be the enrollment process?

Dr Jerry Kartzinel (18:00):

So that's coming. Okay. We're first getting through the first stages of building. Okay and so that will come. So what we're doing first is we're gonna build this out modularly. In other words, we're first going to build the day facility. And the day facility before we build any residents, the day facility will be fully staffed and we're going to have, if you will, our day campers be, will get dropped off at nine in the morning and picked up at five or four 30 in the afternoon. Parents have some respite care, especially when they got their adults who are no longer in the school system. And for those guys and gals who aren't working, they're just at home. Okay? And the only facility here in Jackson that was doing that just shut down. So we, there were like 40 adults that were in a day program.

(18:50):

So the first we're gonna do is create the day program and then as we develop funds, then we'll build our first set of four homes. At that point, we will develop the procedure on how to be considered for enrollment in our lifelong community. This is not a day program. Now this is like, this is, now that doesn't mean you can't take your son or daughter away for a week and go to Disney World or whatever. I mean, they're still able to come and go as you would like. Of course we need to know that. But they have a home. But it's good to know where they're gonna be after we're no longer here, but that's coming now. Give me, let me build the 12 million day program first and then we'll start building the homes again.

(19:38):

The whole idea is proof of concept that this can be done. Everybody says it's a good idea. Everybody loves the idea. Your listeners but nobody really wants to do it. Very few of us, like myself and my son David, who's the executive director, want to do it. Okay, it's not, it's great to talk about it, but let's do it. That's what, that's where we're at. So we're at the doing it phase. I'd say give us a year. Might not be that slow, but, but generally when you develop a property, you've seen that, you've seen master plan communities. It doesn't pop up overnight. By the time they start, the tractors come in, they probably have been in permitting and stuff for six months to eight months. You know, all the architectural drawings have to be approved. The bids have to come in from the contractor. So by the way, the contractor that we have elected to build this has a child on the spectrum. And so he's got skin in the game. He's not gonna be ripping us off on windows or flooring or, or tiles or doing substandard work. This is where his son's going to be. So it's kind of nice having somebody where I don't have to look over his shoulder and say, why are you getting cheap over here?

Marsh Naidoo (20:45):

I think a lot of parents with our perspective are vested in making sure their kids have a place that they can call their forever home. And just, if there's any way that we can help on the podcast, I would, please don't hesitate to reach out and just thank you for having the foresight to plan and move ahead and actually take action. As you said it's not always easy to take action and it's many hands coming together to prove the concept. And just honestly would really like to thank you for your time this morning coming on board to tell us what you have planned here in northwest Tennessee

Dr Jerry Kartzinel (21:40):

That's exciting to be here. And we love it. We came from Orlando. My wife's still missing the sun in the warmth, but we'll, we'll acclimate to this environment. It's great. Oh, by the way, each of the houses will have a safe room in them. They'll be the pantry. So cuz I found out there's something called, what's it called tornadoes that come through here now. And then I wanna make sure that you don't have to like, hustle all these young men and women outta the house and into now they just go into their pantry and close the door and it's a big safe room. I don't know if you're familiar with that concept, but these are, it's like a concrete vault, okay? So there may be nothing left except for your vault, but you'll have your lives there and that'll work. But right now what we're looking for is gifts.

(22:20):

And if God puts on the heart of your listeners to support us in this adventure we'd be most appreciative now because that's what's really gonna take to raise it to the next level to raise buildings. It takes, it takes a lot of money. And like I said, we're gonna do this debt free. I know God's got a plan and I don't have to worry about it. I appreciate you and, and let our families know that this is coming here and we're gonna plan to replicate this so it's not just one.

Marsh Naidoo (22:53):

Jerry thank you so much for your time and thank you, David, for organizing and getting this podcast together. Guys, is there anything that you perhaps would like to leave the listeners with or any words of encouragement?

Dr Jerry Kartzinel (23:10):

I think the words of encouragement would be that there are like-minded moms and dad warriors out there who maybe when we have kids who are three and four, we don't really, aren't really thinking about what's gonna happen to them when they're 27, 28 or something happens to us. But as they get older it becomes more and more clear. We're gonna need to find a place for them and not just a residential community for those with disabilities. You know, we're building homes, we're building communities, we're building family, and that's the difference. And there'll be something that we'll have medical freedom because we won't be involved with the government in building this. So if our families do want to have their kids vaccinated, they may, but if they don't want them vaccinated, they don't have to, we're not gonna have any rules and restrictions like that. Have faith and we'll see what God can do and it's gonna be pretty exciting.

Marsh Naidoo (24:07):

All right Jerry, well thank you so much for joining us today and you know, God bless you as well for the work you and your family are doing, and hope to talk to you all soon.

Dr Jerry Kartzinel (24:19):

Very good. We'll keep you posted.

Marsh Naidoo (24:21):

Thank you so much for listening along to the podcast today. Please give us a rate and review on your podcast player that will be sincerely appreciated as well as share this story with friends living in the northwest Tennessee area of the work that Dr. Jerry Kartzinel is planning as far as Home Life Community is concerned. And again, the website that he referenced was www.HomeLifeCommunity.org.

(24:54):

As always, remember, get to the top of your mountain. This is Marsh Naidoo signing off.