When Michelle Short, 52, was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2019, her first thought was about how she’d maintain care for her son.
Then a single mother to a 12-year-old with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities, Short made a decision she thought she’d never have to make: She put her son, Riley, in a group home.
Today, 17-year-old Riley lives in Pocatello, nearly 250 miles away from Short’s home in Meridian. She said she still fights to get him the best care and quality of life possible, with the help of “severely underpaid” caregivers, as she put it. But she doesn’t want other families to go through what she had do.
Her experience inspired the idea for Riley’s Residence , a project holding its inaugural fundraising gala at the Boise Centre on Saturday night.
“Riley’s Residence will be a state-of-the-art, long-term and short-term housing facility for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” Short told the Idaho Statesman.
Her vision for Riley’s Residence is bold: 200 beds; a centralized, “holistic” approach to care; Medicaid-provided therapies on site; and aspects such as a community garden, theater room, hair salon and worship center.