Satellite Housing: News: Fremont Oak Gardens Opens Doors to Serve the Deaf

Fremont Oak Gardens' fifty-one affordable housing units are designed to accommodate the special needs of the elderly and Deaf. Fremont Oak Gardens received the 2005 Helen Putnam of Excellence in Housing Innovation from the League of California Cities.

The moment property manager Charlene Jones threw open the doors to Fremont Oak Gardens was the beginning to a new era in elderly housing for the Bay Area’s Deaf. It will also be the end of a long journey for local Deaf advocates.

Deaf advocates began work on the idea for Fremont Oak Gardens in the 1970s. In the mid-1990s, the Bay Area Coalition of Deaf Senior Citizens teamed up with Satellite Housing to form the Deaf Senior Retirement Corporation. Satellite Housing provided the expertise to assemble a complex private/public-financing package to get the project underway. “It’s been long overdue for us,” Julian Singleton, President of the Deaf Senior Retirement Corporation, told the news outlet Today’s Seniors. “We’ve been trying for it for over 12 years.”

Today, Fremont Oak Gardens is a beautiful multi-building complex designed by Van Meter Williams Pollack, LLP and managed by a staff fluent in American Sign Language.

A series of workshops with Deaf community members helped Fremont Oak Gardens’ planners understand the housing features Deaf seniors need most. Amenities include strobe lights to signify doorbell, phone and fire alarms, and TTY intercoms and elevators with windows to allow signing with the outside in case of a malfunction. Throughout the complex, the architect emphasized clear lines of site to enable visual communication.

The two-story complex includes a main community building and multiple residential buildings interconnected by covered walks, creating three intimate courtyards.

“With about 5,000 Deaf residents, Fremont is a hub for the Deaf community because of the presence of the California School for the Deaf and the city’s many amenities for the deaf,” Ryan Chao, Satellite Housing’s Executive Director told Today’s Seniors. Fremont Oak Gardens is located near the California School for the Deaf to allow seniors to mentor students and be part of the learning community.

Fremont Oak Gardens is located in a quiet area less than half a mile from a major grocery store and pharmacy, restaurants, banks and neighborhood shops. Reliable transportation is also nearby. Legal and health service programs will be available to the residents. “There isn’t anything else in Northern California like it,” said Chao.