Hope in the Heartland

In her neighborhood recreational center, Esther Buttitta, 74, a retired schoolteacher, is drawing on years of carefully honed teaching skills to engage a handful of local kids whose parents are out running errands. "Finger painting with chocolate pudding is pretty easy if you just dive right in, see?" she says chirpily, before unloading a Jell-O container onto the white paper in front of her and digging in. As her creation takes shape, Andrew Boatright, 3, is quiet, wide-eyed, awed. Soon his primitive portraits cover the table, and many dollops of brown glop adorn his newly animated face.

Buttitta is careful not to press too hard, as Andrew is just beginning to come out of his shell. Prior to being taken in by his adoptive family two years ago, he and his older brother Anthony had been shuffled through five foster homes. Before she moved into the neighborhood, Buttitta had had hip, heart and back surgery--all within a 12-month period--and suspected her days of enriching young minds were over. Now the two provide sustenance for each other in Hope Meadows, a community that seems to have been carved out of an earlier time, one in which the work of raising children was shared across the generations.

What's different about Hope Meadows is that it is not just multigenerational but multiracial as well. Previously part of the Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Ill., 125 miles south of Chicago, this three-block array of ranch houses has been transformed into the home of a pioneering program that targets difficult-to-place foster children who are--or are likely to be--available for adoption. A quarter of the 568,000 children in state care in America, these kids tend to be older or in sibling groups; they are likely to have been severely abused or neglected, exposed to drugs and a slew of foster homes; they often have physical, emotional and behavioral problems. Sometimes they can't form attachments.

The power of multigenerational housing has become a draw for Americans as they rediscover the virtues of the extended family. Developers like Del Webb are creating communities across the country designed for Mom, Dad, the kids--and Grandma and Grandpa. Hope has taken this natural, practical template a step farther. Qualified adults who commit to adopting up to four kids are offered free rent, a $19,000 salary for one parent to stay home and a vast network of support. Low-to-middle-income seniors receive reduced rent in exchange for volunteering a minimum of six hours a week. The result--a near miracle in a society dominated by divorce and generational disjunction--is a place where everyone knows everyone else, a stimulating haven for seniors and permanence for some of our nation's most vulnerable kids. "Hope is really quite different," says Carol Spigner, a former Clinton Administration children's welfare official. "It is probably the first child-welfare effort that has institutionalized intergenerational relationships, which are key, as part of a community."