Rural Alberta seniors facilities are getting a much-needed financial boost.
Alberta premier Jim Prentice announced $160 million of new money over four years to build and renovate rural seniors facilities.
“Enabling seniors to stay in their own community in familiar surroundings is a key to their health, and keeping them happy is something we’ll be focused on,” Prentice told the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties convention.
The money is a joint agreement between the Alberta and federal governments through an affordable housing grant. The money can be used to build new facilities or renovate existing lodges.
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The funding is on top of $70 million announced earlier to upgrade sprinkler systems in older seniors facilities. A fire in a Quebec seniors lodge without sprinklers killed 32 seniors in January.
AAMD&C president Al Kemmere said the association has put forward a number of resolutions over the years looking for more money for new seniors facilities in rural areas.
“This is another step towards that,” he said.
Seventy percent of the province’s more than 650 seniors facilities are in rural areas, but rural residents are often forced to move away from their communities when they want to move to a facility.
“Our residents live in the rural area, they grew up in the rural area,” Kemmere said. “It’s not right they have to move to an urban centre when they retire. Not having seniors centres is a challenge.”
