Rendering shows the Shrewsbury Avenue side of the proposed building. Access to an interior garage would be at the far left. (Rendering by CPA Architecture.Click to enlarge.)

By JOHN T. WARD

When Karen Fluharty moved her special-needs adult son to a neuro-diverse housing complex in Phoenix two years ago, she was both relieved and devastated. There simply was nothing anywhere near her Rumson home that would allow young Ryan to live an independent life with an overlay of needed support, she said.

“I had to make the choice as a parent, to leave my 19-year-old son, my only child, in Arizona,” she said. “I had to make the choice between the right program and being near family. And no parent should have to make that choice.”

On Thursday night, a nonprofit entity Fluharty created will go before the Red Bank zoning board with an alternative.

Karen Fluharty at Coffee Corral in April, with 273 Shrewsbury Avenue visible in the background. Below, a schematic shows the ground-floor plan of the proposed building. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)

Working as Parents With a Plan, Fluharty and a team of professionals she assembled four years ago are scheduled to present a plan to address the long-term housing needs of people like Ryan, a “higher-functioning” person with autism who’s now 21 years old.

Their proposal calls for razing a long-vacant two-story building at 273 Shrewsbury Avenue and replacing it with a three-story structure with one-bedroom apartments for 32 residents. The neuro-inclusive facility would provide independent, supported living and community spaces for adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

The site, at the northwest corner of Shrewsbury Avenue and Drs. James Parker Boulevard, was approved for 10 apartments in September, 2021, though that project never advanced to the demolition stage. Would-be developer Warren Diamond told redbankgreen recently that he is “working with” Fluharty’s group to advance their plan instead.

According to a 2022 study commissioned by Parents with a Plan, the need for dedicated housing is pressing. About one in 34 New Jersey children have a chance of being diagnosed with autism, it says, and 500,000 individuals with autism across America are aging into adulthood.

In Monmouth County alone, an estimated 11,000 adult residents have autism or related conditions, the study found. Among them, an estimated 420 individuals live with family caregivers over 60 years old, leaving them “at extreme risk of displacement into provider-controlled settings or homelessness.”

About a decade ago, Fluharty, a single mom, began looking into housing and other services for her only child, worried about what would happen to him when he “aged out” of high school and state-supported programs.

“I was shocked at how few options there were,” she told redbankgreen in an April interview. Eventually, Ryan moved to First Place Arizona in Phoenix, “which is very much what we are modeling our project here in Red Bank after.

“Our kids need some support, but more than anything, they need community,” Fluharty said. “They need friends, they need a social life.”

Working with Middletown resident John Klein, a longtime former colleague the commercial property industry, and his wife, Robin Klein, Fluharty and the Parents With a Plan conceived of the Shrewsbury Avenue facility, to be called Thrive Red Bank. With interior parking for 13 cars, the facility would be monitored around the clock by a trained “concierge/navigator” onsite, Fluharty said.

Residents would be able to go to jobs, shop in local stores and restaurants, and gather in recreational spaces in the building, while having their own living spaces, Fluharty said.

Parents With a Plan already has a waiting list of hundreds of caregivers interested in finding housing for loved ones, said John Klein. If the plan succeeds, the the project would provide “a drop in the bucket” relative to the amount of specialized housing needed, he said.

For Fluharty, it would also mean “I could bring my son home, so he could enjoy both family and the best services and housing,” she said.

The proposal needs a number of variances. The zoning board meets at 6:30 p.m. Here’s the full agenda, and here’s how to listen in and participate.

The Thrive hearing is expected to begin after an application by Lunch Break for signage on the addition, now under construction, to its home on Drs. James Parker Boulevard.

An expected resumption of the hearing on a plan for a giant LED billboard on Riverside Avenue has been postponed yet again; a single night of testimony was heard in February, but the matter has repeatedly been put off at the applicant’s request since.

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