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L’ife at L’Arche

L’Arche homes are places of welcome, celebration, cooperation, and inclusion. We welcome those of every race, ethnic background, nationality, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, family or socioeconomic status, and educational background. Those sharing life in a home commit to being active participants in creating a healthy home life that supports everyone. There are many intentional practices that go into creating a culture of home. These include, but are not limited to welcoming new housemates & guests, practicing hospitality, sharing meals, celebrating holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries, and being open to, and supporting, the spiritual practices of one another.

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Become a Founding Core Member

If you’re thinking of living at L’Arche, we invite you as you are able to join our L’Arche North Carolina’s community events as a way to learn more about us . We offer virtual and in-person events that are designed for families that include adults with disabilities. We’d love to get to know you, and want you to get to know us!

When L’Arche welcomes a new core member, we anticipate that they will live in L’Arche for life. For that reason, openings in L’Arche are very rare and we move through the selection process carefully. A number of factors go in to the decision, including whether the prospective core member is interested in living in an intentional community.

Our founding home will welcome four core members to share life with two live-in assistants. Great care will be taken to welcome core members who want to live in an intentional community with an active spiritual life. We will consider the eligibility criteria below as well as our capacity to provide certain types of care.

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Eligibility

For a person to be eligible to be welcomed into our first home, all of the following criteria must be met.
  • The candidate must have a current clinical diagnosis of intellectual or developmental disability.
  • The candidate must be over the age of 21.
  • The candidate must be a NC Innovations Medicaid Waiver Recipient
  • The candidate must be ambulatory and able to exit the home in case of an emergency without assistance.
  • The candidate must be willing to live in an intentional community home
  • The candidate must be supportive of L’Arche North Carolina’s mission.

While everyone is welcome in community at L’Arche, this first house will be licensed for members who are ambulatory due to the multilevel layout. We do hope to offer opportunities for non-ambulatory people at future L’Arche NC homes. You are welcome to fill out the interest form on behalf of a non-ambulatory person so that we have your information for the future, but we aren’t able to welcome a non-ambulatory core member in this first home.

Friends from L’Arche GWDC

Our Discernment Process

Applying to live at L’Arche North Carolina has several important steps. As we discern who to welcome into our first home, we will use the following discernment process. If at any point during the process L’Arche NC determines you are not eligible for any reason to live at L’Arche NC we will notify you. We hope that this is our first of many L’Arche NC homes so there may be opportunities to live at L’Arche NC in the future.

Initial Inquiry

Individuals interesting in living at L’Arche should complete the Interested Core Member Application. We will accept applications on an ongoing basis. L’Arche NC does not have a first-come-first-served waiting list but when there is an opening in a L’Arche NC home, we will contact those who have completed this form.

Connection & Exploration

For those eligible we will schedule time to connect, either in person or virtually, to get to know each other better. This is a chance for us to learn about the core member candidate’s aspirations, needs, and desires, and for them to learn about our community and way of life.

Mutual Discernment

We will engage together in a process of mutual discernment, exploring whether L’Arche NC is the right fit for the individual and whether the individual is the right fit for our community. This may involve further conversations, review of medical history, visits to our home, and opportunities to meet current community members. This is a lengthy process to make sure L’Arche is a good fit for all involved.

Questions

Our Core Member Discernment team stands ready to guide you through the application process, and help you with any questions you have along the way. If you have questions, contact us at [email protected].