How It Works

Umbrella Organization

Living Unlimited acts as an umbrella organization with the mission of starting and managing as many farms and suburban residences as possible. It facilitates the formation of like-minded groups of parents interested in a particular property or particular type of property. LU will identify and negotiate the purchase or lease of such properties; develop the project, and manage and maintain the property; and supervise the provision of services, much like a franchisor ensuring that best practices exist at each community. Each property will be owned by a limited liability company (LLC), which in turn can be owned by families or their children’s special needs trusts. For these services LU will own a small percentage of each LLC and serve as managing member.

Parents will be able to exit their investment by finding another suitable family to take their place or (eventually) by asking LU to purchase them out. As LU is able to grow the number of its community projects, the ability to trade to another LU property will be explored.

Join Us

LU looks to parent groups to pioneer each LLC. Eventually, once their children are settled, most parents will have no interest beyond the LLC which houses their child, and will support that LLC as members of the board or volunteer workers at the residences. However, in the meanwhile, families are invited to assist in the urgent committee work of LU. Individuals attracted to the LU mission would be welcome to join an LU committee or its Advisory Council.

Property Owning Structure

Living Unlimited intends to identify suitable properties, organizing groups of founding families for each property, arrange planning and zoning approval (if necessary) and spearhead financing of each property.

The number of founding families required for each property will depend on the number of bedrooms (adjusted to reserve bedrooms for what we are calling house companions [neuro-typical roommates], depending on the level of independence of the special needs residents). We expect founding families to commit for one-half of the available bedrooms, in the expectation that we can fill the remaining bedrooms (and arrange house companions) before each property is ready.

Equity Model

Each property would be owned by a Limited Liability Company (LLC) with two groups of owners:

Managing Member

Living Unlimited will be the Managing Member of each LLC with responsibility to identify, secure, finance, and manage the associated property, and prepare financial reports to Members and tax returns.

Living Unlimited will own 15% of each property for this service, but as a non-profit corporation, it will take none of the tax benefits of ownership. It will have initial control over the LLC Board of Directors.

Limited Members

Parents or special purpose trustees of special needs residents will be Limited Members of the LLC. Limited Members will enjoy all the tax benefits of owning the property (such as expenses, depreciation, interest on loans, etc.) which will pass through the LLC to their benefit. While the project is in the formation stages, Limited Members will have non-controlling (non-voting) seats on the LLC Board of Directors.

Limited Members will have the right to sell their membership under certain conditions (allowing the selling Limited Member and/or Living Unlimited sufficient time to replace their child with a suitable new resident).

Eventually, Limited Members may be able to swap their membership in one LLC for membership in another property-owning LLC, if there is a more suitable property that LU is offering and seeking to fill.

Also, LU may eventually be in a position to simply buy out Limited Members, based on the value of the membership – but to be the lesser of original investment or appraised value of the limited member’s membership share. This structure will protect the families’ investments; however, this should be seen as a fair and flexible way to house our children and not construed as a traditional real estate investment.

Each LLC will have an Advisory Committee consisting of parents (or special needs trustees) of the residents, with oversight responsibility and the power to make non-binding recommendations to the Managing Member on how the property and the services are run.

LU will move forward on a property, once there is a core group of founding families, roughly one-half of the total occupancy of a property. In such case, founding families may be required to have larger down payments at the start, with new members’ investments being used to repay the founding families over-subscription amounts, so that by the time a property is occupied, each family will have invested no more than their fair share of the total.

The monthly rental payments are slated to fit comfortably within the amount paid by SSI or SSDI. Naturally, living expenses will depend on the needs and requirements of each resident.

In the future, we plan to provide resident spaces for children from families with very little financial means. It is one of the reasons that Living Unlimited the nonprofit is involved in the purchasing and ownership of the properties under it’s management. Our goal over time is to find a solution for all parents and their special children.