ABOUT US
Our Mission & Vision
We are building OHANA village, a diverse, inclusive neighborhood of support, a community designed to harness the power of home, neighborhood and the relationships of the people within to strengthen, heal, and unite us.
You’ll Find People Like Us Everywhere…
We are a small group of parents, professionals, and community members who live with and therefore understand a complex problem and envision a solution that includes us. In 2013, we formed BUILDING OHANA, a (501c3) nonprofit to create a new, community-based response to the immense challenges facing individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, especially as they grow into adulthood and leave their families and the support of specialized public education. These losses—of home, loved ones and a daily community of support—are immense. It’s not surprising that in search of a solution to this very specific problem, we kept coming back to the power of healthy home and neighborhood as a natural social safety net, not just for those of us affected by intellectual and developmental disabilities, but for all of us. Ideally, and in our much-divided world, these are places where we can belong and connect with others, where we can be accepted, appreciated and supported, and where we can contribute and grow. In a sense, they are our launching pads into an increasingly complex world, and the safe place to which we can always return to be renewed.
Our Guiding Values
They lead us every step of the way.
What We Do Every Day
OHANA is pioneering the development of diverse and inclusive communities of intentional neighboring to help people of all abilities, ages, and backgrounds to thrive. We seek to align our design and development strategies with our social purposes, making each aspect of home and environment integral to our goals of diversity, inclusion and social connection. We find new approaches to building accessible, healthy and sustainable homes designed for all people through the life course. We innovate new development strategies to fund high-quality housing for people of every income. And, we build strong, lasting, mutually beneficial OHANA relationships with the broader community.
OHANA Staff & Board of Directors
Frank is a man who loves family. As a seasoned land planner in Spokane with over 35 years of experience planning, designing, and facilitating approval of new residential communities, he has guided the development of many of our area’s neighborhoods. Frank’s greatest joy is creating special places and watching those communities grow over the years. His work with OHANA blends his expertise and passion as it brings family and friends into a neighborhood where both interior and outdoor spaces are intentionally designed to strengthen relationships within the context of community. Frank’s landscape architecture background and appreciation of the outdoors has always led him to seek a balance between work, family and his spiritual life. Frank has three daughters and six grandchildren, and he enjoys traveling with his wife Shari and spending time with friends and family — still seeking that balance.
Jill is a founding member of BUILDING OHANA, and is the mother of Spencer, a 28 year-old man with autism. She is the mother of two and grandmother of four little people. After 15 years as Community Connections Director for Northwest Autism Center in Spokane, Jill stepped down to take a position as Program Specialist with the University of Washington's Autism Center. Jill has years of experience and expertise in family support, communications and program management, and autism resources and treatment. She has worked statewide with agencies, hospitals, clinics, and private health practices to assure the best outcomes for families and affected individuals. Her work with OHANA from conception to the present exemplifies the urgent relevance of our project to the real-life housing, equity, inclusion and support needs of families and individuals living with intellectual and developmental disabilities in our community.
Jill Ide (she/her)
AS360 Navigation Program Operations Specialist
University of Washington Autism Center
Institute on Human Development and Disability
Box 357921 IHDD CD-206
Seattle, WA 98195-7921
Jill Ide (she/her)
AS360 Navigation Program Operations Specialist
University of Washington Autism Center
Institute on Human Development and Disability
Box 357921 IHDD CD-206
Seattle, WA 98195-7921
A leading authority on Intentional Neighboring, Brenda joined our OHANA Board of Directors upon her retirement from Generations of Hope in 2015. She has received numerous honors for her intergenerational community building work, including recognition as a Champion of Change by the Obama administration. Brenda’s work has been featured on ABC’s Nightline, Sixty Minutes, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The New York Times and NPR’s All Things Considered. She is the author of Neighbors: The Power of the People Next Door, an inspiring story of Hope Meadows, the community she founded over 25 years ago. Brenda is an invaluable leader on our team as she continues to share experience and expertise alongside clear values and a cohesive vision for a new way of building communities here and across the country.
Deb is a retired school teacher, writer, and former Community Connections Director for Spokane’s Northwest Autism Center before founding OHANA in 2013. Deb manages our day-to-day operations, building partnerships across our community, and guiding the work of OHANA from vision toward fruition. Her interest in communities of inclusion and her vision for an intentional neighborhood of support was born when her son Jonathan, a remarkable young man with profound autism, was close to exiting the public school system where he had been known, cared for and supported since the age of three. Deb has served 12 years on the Spokane County Developmental Disabilities Board and currently chairs the I/DD Champions Network Advisory Board. She lives with her husband Charlie in Liberty Lake, Washington.
Marja is consulting director to BUILDING OHANA's real estate and intentional neighborhood development project. She brings her unique skills and experience in creating successful financial and development strategies for mixed-income residential projects, and has more than 20 years’ experience in urban planning and real estate development, leading integrated teams to design and build healthy communities. Her projects include the Bainbridge Island Art Museum and Island Gateway commercial project and Grow Community, one of the first residential net zero energy neighborhoods in the U.S. Marja also serves as Vice Chair for Programs for the Urban Land Institute National Sustainable Development Council.
Dan Dunne is a Liberty Lake City Councilman and an Enterprise Solutions architect with Washington Trust Bank.
David Sittser is the director of Side by Side, an organization that brings people with and without developmental disabilities together. David believes that this neighborhood concept (Ohana) can also be an antidote to other societal challenges we face: loneliness, polarization, environmental destruction, and wealth inequality.
OHANA Partners, Consultants & Affiliates
As we seek new ways to design, finance, build and provide mixed income housing that is healthy, accessible and nurturing to all people, we are building a diverse team of local and national experts, innovative thinkers, and people whose experience can inform a new way of living. The following is a growing list of people we rely on to help us achieve what has never been done, but what we know is possible.
