In the fall of 2023 a series of events happened that makes one wonder if a heavenly hand played into the actions that took place. The person these actions affected were a non-verbal lady whom was just living her life doing what everyone expected of her in her group home. There were staff there along with involved caring parents who brought her home weekends.

    The group home was a rental and the residents paid rent, utilities and, groceries from their Social Security. In mid 2023 , the residents departed ways with their staffing and with freedom-of-choice rights they optioned for a new staffing agency provider. In the fall, the residents were told the previous staff had not gone to Social Security in January 2021 to pursue the transition of the Representative Payee responsibilities and that the accounts had been locked. As one can only imagine the outrage this caused the parents and guardians. So many questions arose and so much strain and stress was felt by all.

   One parent, in particular, had sensed things were not in order. So this father had prompted the County Board of Developmental Disabilities to investigate in mid 2022, however, no one imagined the Social Security matter had not been attended to, so the investigation was not completed.

   The agency provider had hid from the county and parents/guardians their intentional omission of a duty! This is called the Personal Funds Rule by the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities (DODD). This stretched over 2.5 years until discovered by the succeeding staffing agency provider when they realized the money was running out. The rent etc., it was discovered - had been getting paid by using monies from residents of other homes and the agency utilizing a collective account rather than giving an individual accounting as the father had asked for.

   Furthermore,this one father - a devoted volunteer to all the residents - was frequently in the group home for the 20 years these gals had been together so when he overheard grumblings of a shortage of grocery money, he offered his own cash - the Social Security Rep. Payee omission had not yet become apparent. One day out of concern for his daughter he noticed an electrical cord across a walkway and brought the situation to the attention of staff who dismissed his concern. The concern, he then, passed on to supervision who counseled the staff. Unfortunately, it did not end there. The staff took another bizarre occurrence: previous-agency staff showing-up-to-berate-the-new-staff coupled it with the father's complaint  of the electrical cord to create a list of false grievances against the father. This resulted in a 30-day notice to no longer serve the father's daughter.

   The non-verbal gal had enjoyed her life with the other residents for 20 years- they loved her dearly. The parents moved her out permanently.

   Within the 30-days, the congregation of Grace Lutheran Church in Oberlin OH voted to not sell their vacated parsonage but had no future plans for putting out calls for a pastor. The voters voted to give the father and his daughter permission to create a group home there.

   The father is applying shortly to the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities to make Luther Home LLC a State certified Agency Provider. The father - Jonathan Storr - will be the owner of the Agency but Luther Home Housing Corp. will be organized to be the property owner in order to comply with the State DODD Rule for an Agency-Controlled type of group home.