Community comes together to build group home in Ronan

Several dozen volunteers were swarming the building site for Jake's House during the second weekend of August, carrying boards, sweeping concrete, putting in floor joists, wheeling equipment about and installing a subfloor.

Other volunteers, such as teacher Autumn Adams, were manning the kitchen, planning snacks and meals, making lemonade and wiping off tables. Adams said community members had been so generous – dropping off food, providing donations and visiting the site to help for a couple of hours. 

The building site is on Jake Janssen Lane in Ronan and is a memorial for Jake, an autistic man, son of Rich and Julie Janssen and brother of Jenna Janssen. He died April 5, 2023, at age 28. 

The Janssens began the Jake's House project after his death, but seeds were sown earlier in 2018. Rich and Julie wanted to have Jake placed in a group home, but were rebuffed by state officials. So the Janssen's started a Proactive Living Fund “to find a place for our son, but also for other Montana men and women who were autistic or were people with disabilities," Rich said. 

After conducting research they came across Farm in the Dell and visited the organization's farm near Kalispell. They liked what they saw and contacted CEO Lowell Bartels. 

Bartels and his wife, Susan, co-founded Farm in the Dell in the 1980s when they saw a need to develop housing for children and adults with autism and with disabilities. 

While a push is made to get people with autism and with disabilities through high school, "then we don't teach them a trade or how to care for themselves,” he said. “They need a place to live and work.” 

Farm in the Dell provides such a place, with animals, flowers, gardens and jobs. 

Both Bartels were present at the building blitz, with Lowell in the building area and Susan helping man the kitchen and kill hornets. 

The completed building will house four people, with a large common room and kitchen in the middle, and the bedrooms on each corner. People with autism appreciate having space, according to Janssen. 

As general contractor Kole Cordier and Rich had planned, the earthwork was done and concrete had been poured before the building blitz. The hope was to get the building shell up, and walls were sprouting at the end of day two.

    One of the volunteer workers on Jake's House works with a nail gun on the floor joists. (Berl Tiskus/Lake County Leader)