Georgia Options

Georgia Options, Inc.
Incorporated 1991
Began services 1992

Georgia Options is a grass roots effort to provide residential support services for persons with disabilities in the ten-county area of Northeast Georgia. It is a non-profit organization. People served represent a broad range of type and degree of disability, such as mental retardation, chronic mental illness, physical disabilities, severe learning disabilities, and autism. Providing housing and related support services to a variety of people is feasible because of GEORGIA OPTIONS’ unique approach of attaching services to individuals rather than to places. As its principles make clear, GEORGIA OPTIONS has a strong value base of supporting people with disabilities in choosing where they want to live, with whom they want to live, and how they want to live. It is a partnership among people served, their families, trusted professionals, and other citizens of the community to ensure a variety of community living opportunities. For each person served, the partners plan comprehensive and flexible services to ensure that the person is safely and fully integrated into the community. Housing options may vary from remaining in the family home to renting an apartment with a roommate. Supports vary according to need and may include such services as generic home health care, job coaching, recreational opportunities, paid roommates, and a natural circle of families, neighbors, and friends. The creation of GEORGIA OPTIONS was timely, given the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, which bars discrimination against persons with disabilities in public accommodations, private employment, and government services. GEORGIA OPTIONS aids in implementing the letter and spirit of this law by supporting persons with disabilities in all aspects of community life.

The organization grew from a group of parents, people with disabilities, service providers, advocates, and other citizens who are concerned for the well being of adults with disabilities. Many of these adults are now living at home with parents who, in many cases, are elderly or ill and can no longer continue care giving. These persons with disabilities literally have no other place to go. They are among the thousands of Georgians with developmental disabilities who need residential support services. This is a crisis which grows daily and which has had woefully inadequate attention from legislators and other policy-makers.

GEORGIA OPTIONS hopes to be a leader for the rest of the state in the delivery of residential support services to people with disabilities. In the beginning GEORGIA OPTIONS received funding from state agencies for a demonstration project. Now it is funded primarily through Medicaid waivers and supplemental state funding. Fund raising from private sources is now seen as an essential strategy for building financial strength to survive and thrive in the future. Please click here to find out how you can donate.

We value the people we serve as persons with dignity and capacity, who not only have the right to live among us, but who also have untapped potential to contribute to our community in immeasurable ways.

Revised 3/02