New Doug’s Place now complete

Construction is now complete of Opportunity Partners-Doug’s Place group home in New Hope, which replaced our residence destroyed by fire in 2019. We especially want to thank Denali Custom Homes in Wayzata and their team of dozens of subcontractors who generously donated a portion of supplies and labor to rebuild the house.

The residence, home to three adults with disabilities, was destroyed by a mid-day fire in June 2019. No one was seriously injured in the fire, although an Opportunity Partners employee heroically helped a resident who was home at the time to leave the house safely.

Denali Custom Homes Founder/President David Bieker was particularly interested in helping OP with the rebuild. He has an adult son with special needs and sees the difficulties people can face in finding suitable housing to age in place. In addition to the contributions from Denali and its subcontractors, many friends of Opportunity Partners donated more than $49,000 to the organization after the fire.

The spacious four-bedroom, more accessible residence will be home to four women with disabilities. When touring the house recently for the first time, they were excited as they checked out the new washer and dryer, wall-mounted TVs, and large pantry in a modern, white kitchen.

Doug’s Place is named for OP’s long-time Residential staff member Doug Annett, who worked for OP for 23 years and was instrumental in growing the organization’s Residential options for people with disabilities to include group homes, supported apartment programs and community living services.