Olds’ Accredited Supports to the Community association (ASC) is aiming to have a home on 42 Street ready for at least six people coming out of the closing Red Deer’s Michener Centre by September.
Olds’ Accredited Supports to the Community association (ASC) is aiming to have a home on 42 Street ready for at least six people coming out of the closing Red Deer’s Michener Centre by September.
Last year, the province gave ASC, a non-profit society that helps people with disabilities, a grant of $660,000 to create spaces in Olds to accommodate six of the 125 people who have to move out of Michener.
The original deadline for the closure of the centre announced in 2013 was the end of this month and the spaces in Olds would have had to have been ready for March 31.
But the province decided to allow more time for the families and service providers of people moving out of Michener, which has housed people with developmental disabilities for more than 90 years, to find new homes for those leaving the facility.
The relaxation of the closure deadline has given ASC up to March 31, 2015, to prepare the home it purchased on 42 Street for occupation.
Linda Maxwell, ASC’s executive director, said the sale of the home was finalized on March 12 for $512,000 and the association needs the extra time to ready the home.
"That’s primarily because purchasing a house, renovating it and also preparing people to move is a very time-consuming process," she said.
Before the one-storey home is ready for people to move in, Maxwell said ASC has to create new bedrooms and widen a hallway to make it more accessible for people in wheelchairs.
She added ASC is working with a number of people, including occupational therapists and specialists who can determine what modifications are most appropriate for people with disabilities, while preparing renovation plans for the home.
"We are in the process of asking the people who set standards to come in, review some of that and take a look."
No one has been contracted yet to start renovations and when renovations begin depends on the availability of contractors, many of whom are still busy working on repair projects related to last June’s floods.
Maxwell said the plan is to use the provincial grant it received last year to cover the cost of the home as well as the renovations.
But ASC will have to cover "incidentals" such as furnishings, a van to transport people living at the home, equipment and items such as pots and pans and sheets using money from local fundraising efforts.
The home will be staffed 24 hours a day with up to 15 full- and part-time staff who are paid from provincial Persons with Developmental Disabilities (PDD) funding.
Once completed, the 42 Street facility will be ASC’s second home for people with disabilities in Olds.
The Town of Olds’ municipal planning commission approved ASC’s application to develop the home at the commission’s Dec. 19 meeting.
ASC has started the process of sitting down with families who have members living at Michener to discuss the possibility of moving those members to the new Olds home, Maxwell said.
While the organization is only focusing on families with members living at Michener, she said if none of those families decide to move a family member to the Olds home, the six spaces here are available for local people with special needs.
Maxwell said at this point, however, no one else has approached ASC about the spaces.
"The request hasn’t come up from other families, probably because not everyone’s aware we’re around with it," she said.
The government, Maxwell added, is not trying to rush the process of moving people out of the Michener Centre.
"I think they’re really trying hard to make it as peaceful for people and as positive as they can and also give families an opportunity to learn what’s out there."
Cheryl Chichak, a spokeswoman for Alberta Human Services, said the new associate minister of services for persons with disabilities, Naresh Bhardwaj, decided last year that no one will move out of Michener until the right space is available for them and a transition plan is in place for that person and their family.
"And we’re still abiding by that," she said.
A transition team out of PDD Central Region is helping to plan all the moves and its members have held discussions with the families of people living in Michener on topics such as where they would like their family member moved, what needs that member has and who that member may want to live with, Chichak added.
"For example, we’ve had someone move to Edmonton because their family lives in Edmonton and they thought it would be nice to be closer."
So far, 10 people have already moved out of Michener and the province is anticipating the other 115 people will move before the end of the year, provided the right spaces and transition plans are in place, she said.
Altogether, Chichak said 100 transitions plans have been completed as of March 14.
Efforts to move people out of Michener continue even as a judicial review into the province’s plans to close the centre works its way through the courts, she added.
People who have moved are doing well and their families are pleased with their placements, Chichak said, although there is still resistance to the need to move people out of Michener.
"We still have some families who are not ready to work with us and we respect that."
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