CANMORE – Eight residents have moved into Bow River Lodge’s newly operational dementia wing since early July.
The news comes more than a year after a long-awaited expansion of the Canmore seniors’ facility was completed to add 60 suites – 30 of which are secure accommodations specially designed for seniors struggling with memory or dementia issues.
While the other 30 suites designed for designated supported living needs began to fill up before the expansion celebrated its grand opening, understaffing issues kept the rest of the expansion from becoming operational.
“The big struggle with opening the first floor was being able to attract sufficient healthcare aides and nursing staff to safely open that floor,” said Ian Wilson, CAO of Bow Valley Regional Housing (BVRH).
Staffing challenges were largely exacerbated by a lack of affordable housing in the Bow Valley, making it difficult to recruit and retain the necessary workforce. At the time of the expansion opening, there were 15 healthcare aides working at the facility, including casual workers. Another 15 vacant healthcare aide positions needed to be filled, according to SE Health, which provides care management services at the lodge.
“Even now, a good chunk of their staff is coming out of town. So, the biggest challenge, absolutely, was housing,” said Wilson.
To help meet accommodation demands for staff locally, a building that was being used as a construction office and for other purposes during the expansion project has since been turned into housing.
“We were able to create five units of double occupancy housing in that building and SE leased four of those units from us, and with that, they were able to bring a bunch of people in,” said Wilson.
“Basically, BVRH is renting them to SE in bulk and SE is renting them to their staff at an affordable rate.”
A housing needs assessment conducted by BVRH in 2018 identified a lack of spaces in the Bow Valley for designated supportive care housing.
Alberta Health Services (AHS), in its own studies, also found a growing demand for such facilities, underscoring the urgency of expanding care options within the region. AHS helped fund $16 million of the lodge’s $16.9 million expansion and is also providing operational support.
The lodge’s dementia floor offers private, personal and secure living spaces, along with a secure communal area. It was part of the second phase of BVRH’s ‘This is Home’ project, aimed at laying the foundation for offering enhanced care levels in the future, reducing the need for seniors to relocate outside the Bow Valley as their medical and support needs grow.
Almost all residents of the lodge were originally residents of the Bow Valley region or were forced to move to Calgary, Cochrane or another nearby community to receive the same level of care and have since returned to the Bow Valley.
“That, for us, is a huge win,” said Wilson.
Since the last housing needs assessment was released, and with an updated assessment expected to be released in the next month or two, Wilson said BVRH has made “tremendous gains” to help residents age in place.
In Canmore, the non-profit has helped provide housing options for fully independent low-income seniors housing, as well as housing options at the lodge that allow residents to live independently or receive a wider spectrum of care.
“For example, we have a couple, and one of the spouses lives in a secure unit on the dementia side, and the other spouse lives in the lodge. So, they’re on the same property, they get to hang out and see each other, but they’re both receiving the level of care that they want or need, and that’s super awesome,” said Wilson.
For the chair of BVRH’s board of directors, Lisa Rosvold, this has been an initiative that hits close to home.
“I’m incredibly proud of the work that Bow Valley Regional Housing has done and specifically accomplished to get this dementia care unit open. It’s a little bit more personal for me because my mom has early onset Alzheimer’s and she’s recently had to move into a comparable type of home in Ontario,” she said.
“I understand and see how important it is for her to still be close to my dad and still be a part of the community where she was raised and all her family is, with the exception of myself. It’s definitely maintained her quality of life.”
In addition to its two seniors lodges – Bow River Lodge in Canmore and Cascade House in Banff – BVRH operates independent seniors apartments, community housing and the provincial rent supplement program.
Looking into the future, phase three of the non-profit’s ‘This is Home’ project is looking at replacing 12 independent seniors’ apartments with a 50-unit apartment building, which could also include staff accommodations. The apartments – two side-by-side 6-plexes – are located on the same site as Bow River Lodge.
BVRH will be seeking funding from the province to complete that project.
“There’s lots of competition for funding. So, they’re looking at the more ready your project is to go from the moment they say ‘yes,’ the more likely you are to get approvals as this point,” said Wilson.
“So, we’re now working at shoring up our submission to get it as close as we can to that kind of level of being able to go. We’re definitely not shovel-ready, but we’re just partnering with a construction company to get us much closer to shovel-ready for that project.”
The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada. The position covers Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation and Kananaskis Country.
