Residents of the closing Michener Centre in Red Deer will have the option of moving to six residential spaces in the Olds area.
Residents of the closing Michener Centre in Red Deer will have the option of moving to six residential spaces in the Olds area.
The province has given Olds’ Accredited Supports to the Community association (ASC), a non-profit society that helps people with disabilities, $660,000 to create two new three-space homes to accommodate six of the 125 people who will have to leave the centre before the end of next March.
The provincial government announced this winter the pending closure of the centre, which has housed people with developmental disabilities for 90 years.
In an interview on May 31, Blaine Gillis, chief executive officer of the province’s Persons with Developmental Disabilities (PDD) program in Alberta’s central region, said the ASC is tasked with using the money to either build the spaces or purchase and renovate existing structures.
People leaving the centre will have the choice of moving into these spaces, he said, and so far, at least one family is looking at the option of moving a resident at Michener to the area once the centre closes.
If, however, no one from the centre chooses to occupy the spaces, they would be available to other people with needs in the community, Gillis said.
"If people at Michener don’t end up choosing going to Olds, what we would then do is that infrastructure would be available in Olds to look at supporting other PDD support folks."
The spaces would need to be ready by March 31, 2014, when the province intends to move 125 people out of Michener.
Another 100 residents would stay in group homes at the centre run by Michener staff.
Gillis said the provincial cash won’t cover the full cost of the spaces in the Olds area and ASC will also put in money for the project that the association will recover from collecting rent from residents.
Another provincial program called Assured Income for the Severely Handicapped provides money for rent and food to people who can’t work.
Linda Maxwell, executive director of Olds’ ASC, said the association is still in the "pre-work" phase of the project and is looking at communities such as Olds, Didsbury, Sundre and Bowden as possible locations for the six residential spaces.
Right now, the association is talking with those municipalities about the availability of lots for the spaces, the cost of those lots, what types of zoning exists in certain areas and what types of permits would be needed for the projects.
The association is looking at all options, Maxwell said, but the preference would be to build the two homes.
"Usually when you build, you can build it to what you really need and of course it needs to be accessible housing," she said, adding the association is looking at options that make sense economically and for the community.
As for whether the association can meet the March 31 deadline, Maxwell said it will try.
"We’re not sure right now. If we do build, then that needs to go to tender. So there’s that process and so that takes a little bit of time, as well as the information gathering."
At a meeting in Olds on May 22 about announced changes to the PDD program, local care providers and families asked Gillis why the money for local spaces for Michener residents did not go to tender.
He responded by saying the province had money available for PDD programs across the province and that cash, under government rules, had to go out before March 31 of this year.
"As a result of that, we went through a process that wasn’t the most transparent that I would have liked to use," Gillis said at the meeting. "We didn’t want to lose the funding because if the funding didn’t go out the door by the end of March, we would not have been able to use that funding under the government rule around budgeting and finances."
During the May 31 interview, Gillis said if additional cash becomes available later this year for the housing project, the ASC and other agencies would have the opportunity to bid on that cash.
"What I’ve committed to is to try to use a different process in the future should we run into a similar situation," Gillis said. "More of an open tendering or procurement process. And the other one as well is that, should there be any additional dollars this year for capital I would also try to ensure we use a more timely and consistent process around that."
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