Every year, Apartments.com’s ThanksGifting program honors deserving nonprofits that partner with the multifamily industry to build a brighter future. This year, Hammer & NER was selected to receive a $10,000 gift from the ThanksGifting program.

Leslie Klecatksy is the property director of Lake Place Apartments & Townhomes in Eden Prairie, which is affiliated with Apartments.com. This year, she won the opportunity to select a nonprofit organization to receive a $10,000 gift courtesy of Apartments.com. She chose Hammer & NER, as 12 of the men and women it supports are proud to call the Lake Place Apartments home. Our apartment programs support people who have the desire to live more independently. Hammer & NER staff help them build essential life skills to do so and provide 24/7 onsite assistance, lending a helping hand as needed.

DSP Rita Tri with Jenna

Our apartment programs, like Lake Place, make it possible for people with disabilities to live meaningful, self-directed lives. We are pleased that community partners like Lake Place Apartments welcome those we support to be a part of their community. This is what inclusion looks like and it means the world to those we support and their families. We are grateful for this $10,000 gift and to Leslie and the Lake Place staff for making it possible.

Hammer & NER opened its apartment program at Lake Place 15 years ago. Leslie Klecatksy says it has been more than a landlord-tenant relationship. “It has felt more like a partnership, and one we are proud to be part of,” she says. “We couldn’t think of anyone more deserving to be nominated for the Apartments.com donation. We have seen firsthand the positive impact the apartment program at Lake Place has had on the Hammer & NER residents and in our community as a whole.”

The Apartments.com gift will make a difference in the lives of the people we support. At a time when significant changes to government funding are deeply concerning, the $10,000 gift from Apartments.com will help us continue to provide the support and services the people at our Lake Place Apartments and the 360 other people we support rely on.

Thank you to Leslie and the team at Lake Place Apartments & Townhomes and to Apartments.com for this generous gift!

Photo above: Back row (from left): Hammer & NER staff, Sam and Edison; Lake Place Apartments & Townhomes management, David, Leslie, Lori, and David; Dave, Hammer & NER staff; Chris, supported at Lake Place Apartments. Front row (from left): Mark, Debra, Alyssa, Jenna, Christine, Kari, Jenny, and Katherine, supported at Lake Place

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I took a deep breath.  This was risky, I knew.  Just mentioning a difficult situation to Leslie could potentially ignite a crisis. A few years ago, it would have sent her into a sobbing, raging state that would have lasted a week. “Leslie, I heard you did a good job handling a difficult situation this morning,” I say. She is quiet for a minute, thinking. Then her face brightens. “Oh, you mean when my housemate mocked me?  I was just practicing Radical Acceptance.” When she noticed that my jaw had dropped, she adds cheerfully, “I learned that from Jenny Pinion, my therapist.” “What is radical acceptance, Leslie?” I ask. “I think it’s accepting difficult things you cannot change.”

Like many of the people Hammer serves, Leslie has an invisible disability hiding behind her visible one. Leslie has mental illness. There is no master template to follow when you support someone with mental health challenges. Each individual and each diagnosis is different, and there is very little agreement in the scientific community about effective treatment. So how do you support someone in such complex circumstances? One answer is to draw upon our community partners to guide and support us.

I want to share a little bit about a community partner that has been invaluable asset to the people Hammer serves. Advanced Behavioral Health is a group of therapists in Brooklyn Center, MN who “specialize in providing quality psychological and behavioral services to children and adults with developmental challenges, traumatic brain injuries, and mental illness.”

Leslie was suffering terribly when we first reached out to ABH. ABH did a thorough two-day evaluation, made recommendations for a psychiatrist, and then got to the real work. Today, ABH supports Leslie with individual therapy and a support group. They utilize an approach they call PILOT therapy. In it, Leslie sees herself as the pilot: one wing of her plane is her emotions; the other wing, her thoughts. She knows she has to have balance, or else she may crash.

The other day Leslie was worried about a housemate’s dinner party. She said that she had once been to a funeral and gone out to eat afterwards at this particular restaurant, and she was worried she would have bad memories and obsess about the past ruining her housemates’ party. Her therapist wrote her a little note, which she carried in her wallet. Leslie looked at her note throughout the evening, and worked hard to follow the directions. We had a lovely night, filled with laughter and celebration. It is so thrilling to see Leslie be able to enjoy herself and a good quality of life, thanks to the excellent work of Advanced Behavioral Health! Leslie’s plane is soaring beautifully through all kinds of weather, and we are all enjoying the flight. And the staff team agrees: the next time we face a difficult situation, we need to remember Leslie’s courage and imagine we have a note in our wallet reminding us to stay in the moment and practice radical acceptance.

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