UCP Maryland helps women live in community

From The Hagerstown, Md., Herald-Mail:

For 16 years, Rose Marie Newlin, 52, spent her life in a nursing home. There, she says, it was noisy and there weren't many people her own age.

That isn't the case anymore, she says, since moving into Salem East, one of two new apartments on Salem Avenue remodeled by United Cerebral Palsy (UCP) of Central Maryland.

"It's really quiet," she says.

Newlin is one of three women with disabilities who are cohabiting at the new facilities. The 2,500-square-foot apartment includes a bedroom for each resident, a full kitchen, a dining room, a handicapped-accessible bathroom with roll-in shower, a laundry room and a large common area. There is an additional bedroom for temporary residents.

An apartment next door, equal in size and similar in lay-out, has space for three more residents plus another room for temporary residents. There's also a deck shared by the two apartments, though it's in need of patio furniture.

Annamarie Poole, vice president of operations, says UCP had previously used the facilities for a day program. After the Hagerstown Center moved last year to its new location on Oak Ridge Drive, the vacated building allowed UCP to offer the residential program.

The three women, which also includes Judy Yellott, 52, and Becky Smith, 27, have been in the facility since July. Their neighbors for Salem West have already been selected, Poole says, and are expected to move in by September.