Overview:
Anson’s Place is closing after five years, leaving adults with disabilities and their families searching for what comes next.
Editor’s note: Reporter Trinity Schermerhorn is the daughter of Anson’s Place owners Kelly and Steve Schermerhorn and the sister of Anson, for whom the program was created. This piece is published as part of Bucket List Community News’ Voices section.
My brother Anson is the reason Anson’s Place exists.
He was diagnosed with autism when he was 18 months old. Years later, after he finished high school and went through a transition program, my mom, Kelly Schermerhorn, struggled to find a day program that fit the life she wanted for him.
“Anson’s Place was created out of a need for my own son, Anson,” my mom said. “When he graduated high school, he was ready for his transitions program. He did transitions and went to go to day programs, and it just seemed to be lacking for more active adults.”
So five years ago, my family created one.
Anson’s Place opened in Aurora to give adults with disabilities a place to socialize, build friendships and experience things they might not otherwise have easy access to.
Now my family is preparing to close it on Wednesday, Sept. 30.
Rising operating costs have squeezed the program for years. More recently, Colorado approved a 2% across-the-board reduction in provider rates for Medicaid waivers serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities as part of state budget reductions.
Those state reductions are unfolding alongside much larger changes to Medicaid under H.R. 1, the federal tax and spending law enacted in 2025. The federal law did not directly set the reimbursement rate Anson’s Place receives, but it has added to the financial pressures Colorado is confronting as it tries to contain Medicaid spending.
For families who rely on Anson’s Place, however, the consequences are much more personal than a line in a state budget. Susan Morris’ son, Logan, attends the program.
“He’s got a community of peers and friends that he can be with and just see his friends every day, his little community,” Morris said. “It’s just like anybody else. We all need to have social connections.”
Logan was born with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, also known as DiGeorge syndrome, and has a significant heart defect. Morris says he is social and thrives on being around other people.
“He loves to interact with his friends,” she said. “He loves to have a social life, and he likes to get out into the community and do things that are different.”
That sense of community was what my family wanted Anson’s Place to provide. My dad, Steve Schermerhorn, manages much of the program’s Medicaid billing and finances. He says the business was never operating with much room to absorb higher costs.
“We lived on razor-thin profits, which basically just broke even,” he said. “So once we started getting hit with the inflation and the cuts, it just started to become untenable.”
Transportation has been one of the biggest expenses. Unlike many businesses, however, Anson’s Place cannot simply raise its prices when fuel, wages or other operating costs increase.
“It’s not like another business where you can charge an up-fee of any kind or increase your prices,” my mom said. “We have to go by what Medicaid pays us, and doing so on that budget would have lowered the standards to a point that wasn’t what I wanted for my own son.”
For her, lowering those standards would defeat the purpose of creating Anson’s Place.
“We want Logan to have a good quality of life,” Morris said. “We want him to be healthy, we want him to be safe, we want him to do all of the things that people need to have that are normal. But that’s not enough. We really care about his quality of life.”
She does not know what will replace the program.
“I don’t know of anything that could take the place of Anson’s Place to provide him with that quality of life,” she said.
Jennifer Whitney, manager of Anson’s Place, remembers one client whose family initially hoped the program might simply help her communicate more.
“One of the clients, when she first came to us, we were told from her family that what they wanted from the program is for her to be able to talk because she didn’t communicate much,” Whitney said. “Since she’s been coming to us, she sings, she does karaoke, she has full-blown conversations. I think it brings everything out.”
Those are the kinds of changes my mom says she wanted when she built the program around Anson.
“The quality was very, very important to me, and a lot of this was experimental to see if it could be done — to see if we could do a day program on what Medicaid paid and give the maximum amount possible to the clients,” she said. “We did that for as long as we could.”
The impending closure has also forced my family to think about who gets heard when decisions are made about disability services.
“Logan can’t vote, and he can’t advocate for himself,” Morris said. “People who are making decisions that have a negative impact on him are able to vote. I don’t think it’s fair that when we make these decisions, we make them on the most vulnerable people who can’t do anything about it.”
After Anson’s Place closes, my mom hopes to continue working with adults with disabilities, including helping eligible voters understand their rights and the assistance available to them.
“I am hoping to reach out to other day programs and voluntarily go in and teach them about voting and what their rights are, and that they have the ability to vote, even if they need assistance in doing so,” my mom said.
For my family, though, the immediate questions are simpler.
Where will Anson spend his days once the program closes? Where will Logan see his friends? What happens to everyone else who has built a routine and a community there?
My mom does not yet have all those answers.
“All of my clients are incredibly important to me, and each client was treated as if they were my son,” she says. “Anson’s Place was created out of a need of a day program that was safe and fun and interactive and a place where they could grow and learn, and I still want all of that for them.”
“So, however I can do that for them, I will.”
