BARRHEAD - The Barrhead and District Social Housing Association's (BDSHA) senior housing facilities have a vacancy rate hovering around 20 per cent.
The question is why?
To help answer the question, the association will soon conduct a housing needs assessment, which is slated to begin sometime next week.
The not-for-profit association manages four senior living facilities in Barrhead, including Hillcrest Lodge, Klondike Place, Golden Crest Manor, Jubilee Manor and Pembina Court. Hillcrest and Klondike Place are senior lodges, while Golden Crest and Jubilee Manor and Pembina Court are self-contained seniors’ housing.
The association also operates a six-unit self-contained apartment complex in Fort Assiniboine and two affordable or low-income housing buildings in Barrhead and Swan Hills.
BDSHA chief executive officer (CE0) Tyler Batdorf said the association believes one of the main reasons behind the vacancies is that the Barrhead seniors housing units is that they do not meet the need of a large percentage of area seniors.
"We are independent living. That means you are independent in that you can go to the bathroom, get dressed, are mobile, or do your own laundry and cook for yourself."
However, Bartdorf noted the association's Barrhead senior accommodations there are accommodations for meals and laundry services.
Under the province's senior or supportive-living (SL) classification scale, BDSHA's Barrhead facilities2.
The other Barrhead senior living accommodations, Shepherd's Care and Barrhead Continuing Care (also known as W.R. Keir Care) are SL4 and long-term care facilities. SL4 seniors accommodations provide services, such as 24-hour healthcare support such as LPN and healthcare aides.
"(Basically SL4s and SL4D for dementia) are for people that are fall risks, require two-person transfers (in or out of a bed, bath or toilet), and need more than basic healthcare attention for more complex medical needs and for more complex medical needs and medication delivery have 24-hour nursing staff," BDSHA deputy CEO Su Macdonald clarified.
The top level is long-term care which is provided in Barrhead by the Continuing Care Centre. This level is reserved for residents with serious, chronic or unpredictable medical conditions that require access to registered nurses able to respond immediately on a 24-hour basis.
Unfortunately, both Batdorf and Macdonald said that leaves a gap in available senior living accommodations for those seniors who need more care than what an SL2, such as BHSD's facilities provide.
Residents in SL3 facilities, need less attention than an SL4 and may only need one person to assist them in getting in or out of bed or a bath, and medical needs that cannot be scheduled, more often than not provided by healthcare aides.
The problem for the association and facility staff is when a resident in one of the association's lodges deteriorates to the point where they need the added support an SL3 facility would provide. That leaves them living in a facility that is not suited to their needs or that they are transferred to an SL4 facility, taking the space of someone who really needs SL4 supports.
"(More often than not) they are better served at staying here (in one of our lodges)," Batdorf said.
Macdonald agreed but noted that puts extra pressure on BDSHA staff because they do not have the trained staff to deal with residents' more complex medical needs.
"We do our best, but we are not a medical facility," she said, adding one of the more common issues with residents who need an SL3 facility is that they are not as mobile and steady on their feet.
The result is residents falling more often, Macdonald said because they are not supposed to pick them up and the tumbles often result in medical issues, they are forced to call for an ambulance.
"So it becomes a burden on the ambulance service, which is already overtaxed," she said.
The good news Batdorf and Macdonald said is that if the needs assessment confirms their belief that the community needs an SL3 facility, the association could incorporate the additional service level in its existing buildings.
"We have the building, the space and the specs. All that is missing is the funding," Macdonald said.
Batdorf agreed, saying that facilities often provide multiple SL designation services.
"But the needs assessment will tell us the best way to pursue that," he said. "Whether it is building another facility, repurposing or purchasing existing housing or whatever."
Batdorf added that the needs assessment will delve into more than what types of senior accommodations are needed, but accommodation needs in general, including that of affordable or low-income housing in the association's service area, which includes the previously mentioned Barrhead communities, Fort Assiniboine and Swan Hills and areas of Big Lakes County.
He noted their assessment study will also be a good fit for the related homelessness study Barrhead Family Community Support Services (FCSS) is conducting as part of a larger project by the Alberta Rural Development Network (ARDN) to determine the extent of homelessness in 21 rural communities across the province.
Barrhead area residents can fill out the online survey until March 31. The easiest way to find the link is through the Barrhead FCSS Facebook page.
"We are all working towards the same goal, to ensure people have appropriate housing," Batdorf said.
Another issue, and one that could also be impacting the association's Barrhead facilities vacancy rate, is that many seniors wait too long to move into senior assisted living.
"They decide to move in when they are beyond our level of care," he said. "They should be making the move 10 years earlier. If they did, they would probably find themselves living much better."
One of the reasons why seniors often delay making the decision is because, Macdonald said, is that they have a misconception that Hillcrest or Klondike Place are nursing homes.
"Which it isn't, they are just retirement homes," she said, adding these homes have the potential option, if needed, to have bathing and medication support provided through in-house homecare.
The other misconception Batdorf said they are battling is that due to COVID, is that the lodges have become prisons.
"They are not and never were," he said. "People can come and go as they please as anywhere else."
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
