There are mixed feelings swirling as Blue Sky Opportunities prepares to vacate the original home under its Residential Services program. The 204 house, built in the 1970s, is starting to show its age and has been put up for sale.
"It's going to be sad to see it go, but also exciting," said Ryan Potter, general manager for the Altona-based non-profit organization. "Lots of staff and clients have lots of memories in that house."
"It's a piece of history, almost, for the town," he added. "I think everyone knows that that house is a Blue Sky home. Even if they don't know about the other homes, that was a Blue Sky home."
According to Potter, the 50-year-old home is no longer meeting the needs of its residents.
"The clients who live in there, they're all in wheelchairs and even that, the hallways aren't wide enough. There's lots of challenges. The kitchen's not very big." Potter noted, bringing the home up to code brings its own set of challenges.
Coming in at just under 3,200 square feet, the home is also bigger than what's needed for the three clients that currently live there, compared to what it was originally built for.
"We had house parents at the time, so the family would move in there and it would be part of their home," explained Potter. "We used to utilize all of the bedrooms from the main floor all the way downstairs. We would have up to twelve clients, I think we had 18 clients at the most in there at one time."
Now, Potter says the most clients living in a house would be four, bringing more of a home feel to a setting that used to be more institutional.
As a result, the organization has purchased a newer home in Altona and has renovated it to meet the needs of the residents. Potter expects they'll be moving in by the end of the month.