In Astoria, Illinois today, a house warming party brought together folks from across Central Illinois. It wasn't a big gathering at a big house, but it was a big moment for a local man and a local agency.

All things considered, it is just an average small home in a small Fulton County town. It is a whole lot more than that for Raymond Parks. Parks was injured in a car crash in 1993 and left a quadriplegic.
After fifteen years, five in a nursing home, Ray Parks is now a homeowner.

"When I got here, it just felt like, 'This is me. I've got help here. I'm comfortable. It feels good," said Parks.

But getting Raymond Parks into a home required more than building an access ramp. Disabled, on a fixed income, buying a home hadn't been on Parks mind at all. But returning the disabled to the community is exactly what's on Melody Reynolds' mind.

"The Home ownership program is my passion," says Reynolds. "It's a new program at the Centers for Independent Living..."

Reynolds' not-for-profit agency, Advocates for Access, pulled together money from a variety of state and Federal resources to allow Parks to move from nursing home to home owner.

"It's through the combination of working with Advocates for Action, because they specialize in working with people moving out of nursing homes," says Jane Bilger with the Illinois Housing Development Authority.

"We got about 15-thousand dollars in down payment and closing cost assistance, and I think about another 25-hundrd dollars for rehab and modification to this home to make it accessible," adds Reynolds. "So, about 20-thousand dollars."

And so, today, Ray Parks was playing house-warming host to state and federal officials, Advocates for Access staff, and the Mayor of Astoria, showing off his small but high-tech house.

"Cops Incorporated, from Peoria, put in a camera outside where I can buzz people in. So, that helps out a great deal," says Parks.

Astoria, Parks says, is the perfect place for him. Melody Reynolds says home ownership can be a place for many people who didn't think that part of the American dream could be theirs.

"I hope this is just the first of assisting people from a nursing home into their own home," says Reynolds.

For more information on this program, you can call Advocates for Access at 682-3500.