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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Seniors centre slated to close

Age & Opportunity rebranding itself

By: Carol Sanders

Posted: 05/14/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

WITH an aging population, the closure of Age & Opportunity's Main Street Senior Centre June 1 is a puzzle to some in less affluent areas of the city.

"There's a lot of seniors who are well off who don't need this. It's the poor ones who need it," said Peter, 73, who didn't want his last name published. "A lot of them come here," he said while resting his injured ankle at a picnic table outside the doomed centre.

Peter, who lives in a bachelor suite, said he picked up a renters' guide for seniors there when he was having problems with a landlord. He said he's gone to the centre for help a few times since but it was either closed or staff were busy with someone.

The retired sheet-metal worker said he needs ankle surgery and home care for six to eight weeks while he recovers. On Friday, he was frustrated trying to get help and talked about taking all his painkillers at once.

"What's the point?" he asked.

Age & Opportunity has rebranded itself and is getting out of running seniors centres and into providing support services for older adults, said chief executive officer Amanda Macrae. The non-profit organization delivers programs for hoarding, elder abuse and fraud, for example. She said there are already several seniors centres in the area, and they decided to close the Main Street centre with the blessing of their board and the province, their principal funder.

"I don't think it's been highly used," Mynarski ward Coun. Ross Eadie said about the centre and its reason for closing.

"It's a matter of their ability to maintain it," he said. "They're shifting the way they deliver their services." But Eadie said there is still a need for supports for seniors in the area. There, the average annual income for an adult is $10,000 less than the average Winnipegger's, the 2006 census found.

"It takes away an option."

Eadie said the Andrews Street Family Centre, Bleak House and the Barber House 55-Plus Centre may extend their help to seniors affected by the Main Street closure.

It's more than a kilometre away, but Barber House program manager Rick Caslake hopes they can help fill the void.

"I just heard about it the other day," said Caslake, who runs the North Point Douglas Seniors Association centre. He plans to visit the Main Street Senior Centre next week. "I'm going to see what seniors might be in this area who I haven't met yet," he said Friday.

"I've got to let them know we're here and what we're doing."

Barber House has 172 members and gets half of its funding from the province, a third from the feds and the rest privately from donors such as Assiniboine Credit Union. It's open weekdays for coffee and programs and has a weekly food bank and recycling programs.

Gathering places like it are key to keeping the elderly safe and healthy in their homes and community, said Norah Stark. The senior and volunteer fought the closure of the West End Senior Centre two years ago and lost.

That building on Burnell Street near Sargent Avenue remains vacant but has been sold.

"Now another one of our senior centres is closing," Stark said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 14, 2012 B1

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