New community group looking for solutions to lack of seniors housing
LONDON: A new community group is looking for solutions to the lack of variety in seniors housing.
Nearly all Summit County residents have a senior citizen who is special in their life — and even if they don’t, an inevitable truth still applies: most everyone will eventually become one.
That’s why a newly formed group, dubbed the Gray Ribbon Housing Committee, hopes to address issues affecting senior citizens in Summit County. The committee, which focuses specifically on future housing projects, hopes to find solutions that will allow the 65 and older population to age without leaving the community they call home.
Senior Center Board Member Cheryl Soshnik, city staff and stakeholders held a community forum in December to discuss the needs and desires of senior citizens. After the meeting, the Gray Ribbon Housing Committee formed as a subgroup to regularly research prospective solutions focused on housing, according to Beth Armstong, chair of the committee and former executive director of People’s Health Clinic.
Housing issues aren’t new in Summit County, yet the committee feels that community conversations are often centered around affordable housing for the workforce without much consideration for seniors. There aren’t many options for people 65 and older in Summit County who want to remain independent and social, but need to downsize or receive some living assistance.
With limited transitional housing or continuing care retirement communities, which include independent living, assisted living and memory care facilities, in the county, residents seeking these options must move to Salt Lake City, Heber City or elsewhere.
The committee wants to see that change and allow senior residents the opportunity to grow old in the community they’ve invested years — or, in some cases, decades — in.
“None of us wants to see our family members or parents or grandparents just exist. They should be able to live and drive, and in Park City that’s hard. Our seniors tend to move away; they can’t really age in place and we think that we can do better for them,” Armstong said. “Do we really think it’s fair that they would be required to move out of, for some of them, the only homes they’ve ever had?”
She said the issue hasn’t been a huge priority for local government officials in Park City and Summit County in the past but believes current elected officials are anxious to discuss the issue.
The group believes that small housing units, around 900 to 1,200 square feet, would allow seniors to sell their larger homes. The smaller units would better fit the seniors’ lifestyle, Armstrong said, especially if they were one floor or within a building that included an elevator or activity services. The Gray Ribbon Housing Committee would also like to include affordable housing options with any construction.
The committee is also open to engaging with Park City officials over the housing project City Hall has proposed at the current Park City Senior Center. dubbed Woodside Phase II, as long as it includes something for seniors. Armstrong said this could be maintaining its designation as a meeting place for older community members or building housing specifically for that population.
“We think that it’s not one or the other … so we’ve just started the conversation and we’ve decided that we need to go ahead and start taking some action,” she said. “We want to involve the city and the planners to see what it could look like, what it should look like and make sure that there is some form of senior center left standing at the end of this process. We need to secure the rights for the seniors now, early on.”
The Gray Ribbon Housing Committee strives to create a unified voice for the seniors, which Armstrong said has been a struggle in the past. The group also hopes to conduct more research to determine specifics about how many housing units are needed and how to ensure seniors who are already living here are the ones who ultimately have access to them.
“What we don’t want to do is create this really wonderful place for seniors and it’s used up by people who aren’t the people we want to have housing,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong added that to have a well-rounded community, there must be representatives from all parts of life.
“If we don’t address it now when there’s some opportunity, at some point, there will be no opportunity. If we don’t do something, this will be a place only for those people that can afford to live here — and that would be a very sad thing,” Armstrong said.
