Affordable Senior Housing

Wisdom Gardens is a first of its kind housing initiative, aimed at providing affordable housing to both senior citizens and individuals with developmental disabilities. The complex, located on Terryville Road in Port Jefferson Station, includes 40 affordable senior housing apartments, with 6 apartments reserved for developmentally disabled individuals and a community center to serve the residents.

                                                             Widsom Gardens - A Community of Caring

The dictionary defines a community as a “a unified body of individuals with common interests living in a particular area

Remember when neighborhoods were small communities where you knew most everyone and they knew you?  Folks watched out for one another, helped one another and celebrated together.  This kind of community is not one of the past, but of the present.  Wisdom Gardens at Maryhaven is that kind of community…”a community of caring.”

Nestled in Port Jefferson Station, Wisdom Gardens was created by Maryhaven Center of Hope as an affordable housing opportunity for seniors.  The site is conveniently located near shopping, medical facilities, recreation, libraries and transportation. Its New England style buildings face green courtyards and recreation areas.  Wisdom Gardens at Maryhaven consists of 40 apartments, of approx. 600 sq. ft.  All apartments are handicap accessible and feature kitchens with stove, frost free refrigerator and wood cabinetry.

Some of the amenities offered to Wisdom Gardens residents include: a community center with full kitchen, recreation room & library, medical & social services and laundry; an on-site social services coordinator; and a Maryhaven run jitney service to take residents to local shopping and recreational centers.  In the near future, residents will be able to obtain on-site medical screenings provided by St. Charles Hospital & Rehabilitation Center.  

The community residents of Wisdom Gardens are encouraged to plan their own activities.  S. Maryaline and S. Cathy, who both work at Maryhaven, provide on-site social service support, pastoral care and management services.

Part of what makes Wisdom Gardens unique are the six apartments reserved for individuals with developmental disabilities.   Maryhaven has received certification from the NYS Office of Mental Retardation & Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD), officially designating the reserved apartments as supportive IRA’s (Individual Residential Alternative), enabling them to be used by consumers.  Eight additional apartments have been set aside for the Town of Brookhaven for their section 8 affordable housing program.

It has been more than a year since the groundbreaking ceremony that heralded the beginning of this unique housing initiative, which combines affordable senior housing with apartments for individuals with developmental disabilities.  “What we created,” in the words of Maryhaven Center of Hope CEO, Lewis Grossman, “is a bold, innovative senior housing concept where seniors and individuals with disabilities live together and help each other. It is a new community of caring where neighbors look out for one another as was done in small communities of the past.“

 By opening day in January of 2002, all of the Wisdom Gardens apartments were fully rented, with 180 people on a waiting list for Wisdom Gardens II, now in the planning stages. Maryhaven Chief Administrative Officer and project coordinator Robert A. Murphy has been pleased with the residents’ reactions to Wisdom Gardens. “We have achieved our objectives to create a unique community where the phrase, “everyone knows your name” is a reality.”

For more information about Wisdom Gardens please contact S. Cathy Smith at (631) 474-4120.