Chestermere took an important step towards developing seniors housing in the city with the Aging-in-Place Facility forum Sept. 22.
“It was more than a success,” said Sherri Standish, one of the organizers of the event that took place at Lakeside Golf Club.
“It went beyond what I anticipated because of that level of energy and interest,” she said.
The forum brought together approximately 50 of the movers and shakers of the community said Standish.
“They are so committed to making Chestermere the best place to live,” said Standish.
Community groups, businesses, active community volunteers, Member of Parliament Martin Shields, MLA Leela Aheer, Mayor Patricia Matthews and members of city council were among those in attendance.
“You can feel the energy in the room,” said Standish.
The Aging-in Place Facility forum had several guest speakers, small work groups, and former Progressive Conservative MLA Doug Griffiths as the keynote speaker and forum facilitator.
The guest speakers were Wildrose MLA for Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo Tany Yao, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Dany Skelling, and Carol Borshcneck from the Rocky View Foundation.
All three speakers presented on the funds and programs available to the development of seniors’ facilities. Borshcneck also spoke on the role of the foundation in assisted living facilities.
Griffiths gave an abbreviated version of his talk 13 Ways to Kill Your Community speech for his keynote address. He used it to guide and focus the forum on what they need to do to make the dream of seniors housing in Chestermere happen.
The talk was designed to keep the group focused on what they were there to do and highlight how easy it can be to derail a project like this through a lack of cooperation.
He asked each of the work groups to discuss three questions; If you could build something tomorrow what would it look like? What do you need to make this happen? And who or what organizations can help?
After each question they were asked to report what they had come up with to the group.
“Those three questions that I asked them got them very motivated on to what they needed right now,” said Griffiths
The enthusiasm for this project went beyond the formal programing. During all the breaks and over lunch, the room buzzed with conversations about how to develop seniors care in Chestermere and what kinds of facilities might work best here.
Common themes that people wanted to see in the development of a seniors home included; affordability, levels of care, a location near amenities and having room to expand.
“People want all levels of care in one place,” said Standish. “That’s so you can keep couples together.”
The work groups identified that to move forward partnerships will need to be built both within the community and with other groups and municipalities that have been successful in the development of seniors housing.
Griffiths recommends getting the seniors motivated and working on this as they can be very important volunteers in any community.
“I’m very, very encouraged that something will happen from this,” said Standish.
Now that the idea has been planted, it is up to the people in attendance to keep the process moving forward.
“I can’t make it happen,” said Standish, “It has to be a group of people that want to make it happen.”
The forum ended with the formation of a working group to continue moving forward with the work of creating partnerships in the community to get a senior’s care facility built.
Mayor Matthews said in an e-mailed statement after the forum that council wants to collaborate with this group as much as possible.
“Council considers Senior’s Housing a priority,” said Matthews who is looking forward to seeing the results of the groups endeavors.
“That’s what this was about,” said Griffiths.
“It was to get them to…start to talk about how they owned it, how they needed to partner with it and what they were going to do to take the next step,” he said.
“Chestermere’s always stepped up to the plate to make things better,” said Standish.
If nothing comes of the meeting Standish said it is a sign that Chestermere doesn’t want it to happen yet.
“We’ve waited so many years I hope that’s not the case,” said Standish.
“I feel that we’ve waited long enough and that now is the time,” she said.
From what he heard of people’s conversations, Griffiths said people are very interested in housing issues of all kinds.
“My sense is that if the energy in this room carries the day…Chestermere will be famous for meeting peoples housing needs,” said Griffiths.
He said that in his experience, not many communities have had the same enthusiasm about the opportunities to move forward.
“It bodes well and it speaks a lot to the quality of the people in Chestermere and the potential it has for securing an incredible future,” said Griffiths
The Aging-in Place Facility forum was the culmination of a lot of hard work done by Standish, along with Elaine Peake, and an organizing committee.
The forum was funded by a Family and Community Support Services (FCSS) grant to organize and host the forum.
The grant was awarded to the committee and they have been working since then to put on the meeting said Standish.
The need a senior’s care facility was determined through research conducted by the Chestermere Regional Seniors Housing Initiative with a grant from the United Way.
“A group of people that really felt that there was no care facility in Chestermere and we needed to do something about that,” said Standish.
“There’s no question about the need,” said Peake.
