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THE GHOULS and goblins are doing the final preparations for RecCentze William Griffin's 8th annual Haunted Fun House and Swim set for tomorrow afternoon
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years old. Admission is 50 cents for children and $1 far adu!ts with the purchase of advanced tickets recommended. Phone 986-2255 for details.

Rising rents, dwindiing accommodations
increase N. Shore seniors’ housing pressures

SENIORS ARE scrambling
for places to live on the
North Shore while others
are reeling over increased
rent hikes.

By Surj Rattan
News Reporter

And 4 consultant’s report has
found that there is a lack of af-
fordable seniors housing in North
Vancouver and that the problem
will only get worse if action is not
taken.

fn West Vancouver
The future remains unclear for
seniors in need of intermediate
care in West Vancouver as
Kiwanis Lodge plans to phase out
residency for such seniors.
Kiwanis Seniors’ Housing
Society president Joe Lindsey said
the society plans to opt out of an
agreement with the B.C. Ministry
of Health to provide housing at
Kiwanis Lodge for seniors in need
of Jong-term and intermediate
Care,
“The building is not adequate
to handle the level of care needed
for intermediate-care seniors,”

said Lindsey. ‘‘As the years go by
we've been getting into a higher
level of care.”’

He added that another facility
needs to be built in West Van-
couver to accommodate the needs
of seuiors who rely on intermedi-
ate care. There are currently about
84 seniors fiving in Kiwanis
Lodge.

“To handle intermediate care,
you need to have staff nursing
24-hours a day and you're dealing
with people who need to be hand
fed. With the shortage of inter-
mediate-care facilities, these peo-
ple end up in seniors’ housing fa-

cilities like ours,’’ said Lindsey.

He added that the society will
negotiate with the health ministry
to find alternative accommoda-
tions for intermediate-care seniors
currently living in Kiwanis Lodge.

West Vancouver’s Kiwanis
Seniors Lodge opened in the
1970s; Lindsey said at the time,
the society ‘envisioned a personal
care facility that would allow a
normal progression of residents in
our housing units who were not
capable of independent living.”*

He added that economics di
tated the need to keep the fac
full by admitting people ‘other
than our housing tenants.”’

In 1978, the society entered into
the health ministry’s long-term
care provincial program and also
had to surrender to the ministry
its control of admissions to its fa-

cility.

As a result, said Lindsey, the
society has had to increase the
level of nursing and other care
provisions and has been moving
more towards ‘‘a hospital-type fa-
cility.””

In a letter to Andrew Butier,
regional director of the health
ministry’s continuing care divi-
sion, Lindsey wrote that the
Kiwanis society would consider
opting out of its contract with the
provincial government to all the
society to ‘‘revert to its earlier
desire to provide some form of
sheltered housing and using the
lodge as an extension of our goal
of providing low-cost housing for
senior citizens.”’

Seniors’ housing

See WV page 3

projects in