The expanded capacity comes at an opportune time because the Montgomery County Board of Development Disabilities Services will cease providing adult day services, impacting hundreds of clients who need to transition into other programs run by private providers like URS.
“We are expanding what we are doing in some ways, but we are also expanding the quality of what we do,” said Dennis Grant, executive director of United Rehabilitation Services.
This week, URS began the third stage of its renovation and expansion project.
This phase is expected to take some months to complete and includes the remodeling of restrooms, a kitchen expansion, replacing some floors and other improvements.
URS recently built a 21,650-square-foot facility on the eastern side of its property, located at 4701 Old Troy Pike. URS moved into its original, 38,000-square-foot home in 1999.
The nonprofit’s footprint increased twofold after buying four acres from its next-door neighbor.
URS has added a new nursing station, senior room, arts and activities room, gymnasium, computer room, library and school-age playground. Another upgrade was to include radiant floor heat in the youth classrooms.
The nonprofit now offers two preschool rooms, two school-age latchkey classrooms and two vocational training rooms, whereas previously it only had one of each. URS added a laundry center for the second-shift vocational training program, which employs clients to help clean clothing, work garments and other materials.
The expansion project has doubled the nonprofits’ capacity, allowing it to now serve 60 additional children and another 100 adults. URS also has grown its staffing.
“We’re expanding the breadth and depth of what we’re doing, along with quality,” Grant said, later adding, “These are things that are truly going to make a difference in the lives of so many people who we serve.”
Originally, URS planned to construct a smaller addition with the primary goal of expanding child care space to reduce a waiting list of more than two years for the program.
The program is in high demand because URS is the only provider in the greater Dayton area that also has nursing services, parent support groups, respite services and physical, occupational and speech therapy, said Grant.
But several years ago, the news broke that all Ohio county boards of developmental disabilities would eventually have to cease providing adult day services.
The Montgomery County Board of Development Disabilities Services must stop providing adult day, employment and transportation services to people receiving federal waiver funds, said Nancy Banks, the organization’s superintendent.
The board plans to reduce the number of adults with disabilities it serves by about 70 percent by 2019, officials said.
Last year, the number of people receiving adult services through a waiver from the board fell to 481 individuals from 635, Banks said.
The board has been working to help expand the number and types of providers of the services it is phasing out, and in the last year, a dozen additional companies began offering adult services and five existing providers expanded their programs, Banks said.
At URS, six new adults have enrolled in its programs, seven others are going through the enrollment process and about 17 have expressed interest, Grant said.
URS has enrolled seven new kids in the last six weeks alone. The waiting lists for child care, infant care and adult services have been eliminated, officials said.
Phase 1 of the project ran from January to December of last year. Phase 2 began in December and wrapped up this month. Phase 3 began this week and will be completed later this year. A fourth phase is in the planning stages.
URS raised the money from a variety of public and private donors, but the campaign still needs to raise about $400,000 to meet its goal.
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