Although there were rumors of many complaints about Genesis House residents using NIU facilities for free, university officials said the rumors are unfounded.

Genesis House is a residential program for mentally retarded people, said Jack King, liason between Genesis House and NIU. The program is located in Genoa and is for mentally retarded adults, although there are some high school aged residents attending a special education program at Genoa high schools.

“It (Genesis House) is a nursing home for people who need that kind of care,” King said.

But rumors of Genesis residents abusing NIU facilities have been floating around campus.

King said Genesis residents use NIU facilities including the Holmes Student Center, the Huskie’s Den, the Office of Campus Recreation, rooms in the Founder’s Memorial Library and some classrooms in various buildings on campus. However, he said Genesis Enterprises does pay for NIU facilities used by Genesis residents.

Genesis pays to use the OCR, pays for activities at the Huskie Den, the Huskie Buses and most of the other activities they participate in at NIU, King said.

The Genesis budget is based on regulations set up by the Illinois Department of Public Aid and the Illinois Department of Mental Health, he said.

However, King said Genesis residents are allowed to occasionally attend certain classes at NIU on an informal basis, free of charge.

“The classes they’ve been in, they attend informally, they don’t come everyday and they don’t take up space a student could pay for,” he said.

“I never had anyone complain about anyone (a Genesis resident) in the classes,” King said.

But he said, “There are some people on campus, like there are everywhere, who are uncomfortable with people who are different.”

Other complaints center around the Genesis residents allegedly using the student center as a base, spending their whole day there and disrupting students who are there to study or nap.

But Student Center Director Judd Baker said, “People are really hesitant about complaining, there haven’t been many complaints.”

Baker said his only concern about Genesis is that the student center is for tHe NIU community. “I didn’t want Genesis to use the HSC as a base. It’s not good for them or NIU students,” Baker said.

But he said, “They can use the facilities and they will not deter from the basic mission of the university. All we ask is that they not take over areas on campus.”

Another concern some students are reported as having is Genesis residents are often unsupervised, but both King and Baker said this is untrue.

Genesis sends about 30 residents to NIU on a daily basis, King said, and they are broken up into groups of anywhere from one to five members with at least one supervisor at all times.

Many of the supervisors are NIU students receiving credit for their work with the residents but others are from Genesis, he said.

Some of the student supervisors are special education majors, others are art therapy majors. He said there are about 50 supervisors from all academic backgrounds at NIU.

King said sending Genesis residents to NIU is part of the training required by state law. And he said, “The overall goal is to develop an appropriate (social learning) experience for people who have been institutionalized most of their lives.”

“I think it’s a good system, I think it’s worked out very well,” Baker said.

King said, “having Genesis residents on campus will provide some students the opportunity to see them (the residents) as people.”