The number of senior citizens looking for affordable housing in the region continues to grow and it鈥檚 likely to only get worse as the baby boomer population begins to age.
There are currently 96 senior citizens waiting for housing in the region including 26 seniors in Jasper, according to The Evergreens Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides affordable housing for seniors in the region.
鈥淭his is the first time since I鈥檝e been the chair of Evergreens that every lodge is full,鈥� said Greg Pasychny, chairperson for the foundation and mayor of Edson.
He said wait times vary depending on the location, but priority is given to applicants with the greatest need. He also emphasized the challenge was not unique to the region.
鈥淭he whole province is experiencing a boom in seniors becoming seniors,鈥� said Pasychny, adding that there are 60 new seniors everyday in Alberta.
The foundation currently operates five lodges in Jasper, Hinton, Edson, Grande Cache and Evansburg. Together there are 182 units, all of which are full.
The largest list is in Edson, where there are 40 seniors waiting to move in.
To cut down the waitlist, money has been earmarked to renovate and expand the Parkland Lodge, in Edson, however construction won鈥檛 be completed until the fall of 2018 at the earliest.
To speed up construction and cut down costs, residents in the 55-unit facility will be temporarily moved to Edson鈥檚 old hospital. The new Edson Healthcare Centre is slated to open on Nov. 1.
鈥淪ome of the seniors are not very happy about having to move into the hospital, but as a board we鈥檝e gone over this a dozen times. It will also save the government and the foundation a lot of money, in the millions, by shaving off that build time,鈥� said Psychny, adding it will speed up construction by 12 months.
According to Psychny, there are also more rooms in the old hospital than the current lodge so they will be able to immediately accommodate some of the people on the wait list and then move those people into the renovated building.
Once construction is complete there will be a total of 102 units in the new Parkland Lodge.
In Jasper, where housing is already at a premium, finding places for seniors is even more of a challenge.
鈥淚n Jasper we have a huge gap in transitional housing,鈥� said Coun. Gilbert Wall, who is also a director on the foundation鈥檚 board.
He said a lot of seniors in town can afford to move, but there simply isn鈥檛 anywhere to go.
鈥淭here are people on the wait list that are hedging their bets, but we also have a whole group of seniors in this town that really have nowhere to move if they choose to move out of their house and they don鈥檛 want to go into a care facility,鈥� said Wall.
He said the lack of housing for seniors has a knock on effect for the entire town because many seniors own a multi-bedroom house that they no longer need.
鈥淚f we had somewhere for seniors to go it would have a two-fold effect. It would have an effect of moving those people to a place where they are better-suited and it would liberalize the vacancy rate,鈥� explained Wall, pointing to his parents, who own a six-bedroom house, as a prime example.
Despite the shortage of housing, he said it鈥檚 very unlikely more housing for seniors will be built in Jasper.
鈥淭he likelihood of having any kind of relief from our waitlist in the short-term is low,鈥� said Wall.
He said a large part of the problem is that the municipality doesn鈥檛 have jurisdiction over land use and development, which hinders the town鈥檚 ability to create a community plan that would address the issue. Jasper also received funding in 2008 to build the Alpine Summit Seniors Lodge, the newest facility in the region.
With limited resources and growing waitlists elsewhere in the region, the foundation has now turned its attention to Hinton, where 24 seniors are waiting to find affordable housing.
鈥淭he board, both through policy and direction, has said that our next big project will be in Hinton and whether we get help on that project or we go it alone, we have to address the issues in Hinton, because they鈥檙e the next ones in line,鈥� said Wall.
In February 2015, the former Progressive Conservative government promised to build an additional 48 continuing care spaces for seniors in Hinton, however, that promise failed to materialize after the NDP swept to power in May, 2015.
The money was suppose to expand The Good Samaritan Mountain View Centre, run by The Good Samaritan Society, a faith-based, not-for-profit organization that has 29 locations across Alberta and British Columbia.
Alberta Seniors and Housing did not return a request for comment.
鈥淲e have to get that back on the rails,鈥� Psychny said, about the Hinton project. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 wait two more years or three more years, because we don鈥檛 want to be in the situation we got to in Edson, where all of sudden we have this massive list.鈥�
According to Psychny, the facility in Hinton will likely be large enough to accommodate seniors from Jasper if they are willing to move.
Wall acknowledged this wasn鈥檛 the ideal situation, but said there simply aren鈥檛 enough resources to build affordable housing for seniors in every community.
鈥淲e鈥檙e going to have to regionalize some of the care and that will mean people moving out of the community,鈥� said Wall. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think we can accommodate everyone, we just don鈥檛 have the resources for every single community so the next best thing is to keep them as close as possible.鈥�
Paul Clarke
[email protected]
