KENORA – To help mitigate the growing concerns of seniors being displaced from their home community under Bill 7, the Ontario government has committed a capital investment of $4.5 million for a new seniors’ housing complex in Kenora.
“Our government’s investment in the new Kenora mixed-market seniors’ housing complex is an innovative way to help seniors who want to continue living at home and avoid admission into long-term care or hospital, but need support to do that,” said Minister of Long-Term Care Paul Calandra. “We’re taking action so people can live and receive care where they can have the best possible quality of life, close to their family and friends.”
The Kenora District Services Board (KDSB), All Nations Health Partners, Kenora Chiefs Advisory, Waasegiizhig Nanaandawe’iyewigamig, and Grand Council Treaty #3 will head up the development of the complex by providing input on the design and the type of supports and services provided.
According to Henry Wall, Chief Administrative Officer for the KDSB, the last multi-unit seniors building that was built was Park Place in 1992.
“To have 56 new units being built in the community is just fantastic,” said Wall.
The new project marks the first time housing and long-term care are both coming together through capital investment by the province, Wall said. He believes the project could be looked at as a prototype of a new way of supporting seniors’ and elders’ healthcare needs while providing them with the comfort of aging within their homes and communities.
“There are way too many seniors right now that more often than not have to look to other communities to be in a supportive seniors housing or in long-term care,” he said.
Another notable part of the project is the new facility will have accessibility. Wall explains that personal support workers will have ease of access to provide services, but also complex will have dedicated bathing rooms.
“What we have seen for the last 20 years in exciting building that KDSB operate, we have had to take exciting units and convert them into bathing rooms,” explains Wall. “In other words, we had to reduce the number of units we have for seniors to accommodate service to come on-site because we know that we have many seniors that are in homes with KDSB who are on the waitlist for long-term care.”
Wall also states that the complex will also have community space, such as a commercial kitchen, but will also have dedicated space for home and community care to provide support and services like a space for annual flu shots.
“We are recognizing that service should come to seniors rather than requiring seniors to go and get those supports,” said Wall.
Additionally, with the help of Indigenous partners, the housing complex will provide culturally sensitive support services that take into account modern medicine and traditional medicine to meet the need of elders.
Wall acknowledges that All Nations Health Partners, which includes Kenora Chiefs Advisory, Waasegiizhig Nanaandawe’iyewigamig, and Grand Council Treaty #3, are going to be partners through the whole process.
“I think as a province and a country we are honest,” said Wall. “There is a lot of [healthcare] options for elders that are very close to what they experienced in Residential Schools. They are very institutionalized. That is something that as communities here in the North we cannot let happen.”
Wall addresses that without these facilities in the communities and elders and seniors are forced to leave, they take with their lived experience, knowledge, and wisdom.
“Our youth cannot afford to lose out on that,” said Wall.
