Nanaimo Family Life Association board president Carol Evans thanking volunteers for their years of hard work and effort to provide a community for seniors. (submitted/Sacia Burton)

By Spencer Sterritt

SENIORS CONNECT

Community space helping seniors battle isolation to close after more than 3 years

Nov 8, 2019 | 5:43 AM

NANAIMO — A safe space for Nanaimo seniors to make friends and build a community will soon be closed.

Seniors Connect will formally finish at the end of November after federal funding granted in 2016 expired. The location at 150 Wallace St. held workshops for seniors and resources to help them navigate the difficult world of applying for services and assistance.

The centre was a joint collaboration between many service providers in Nanaimo, who came together to help fend off the dire consequences of social isolation.

Deborah Hollins, executive director of the lead service provider Nanaimo Family Life Association, told NanaimoNewsNOW it was a valuable centre because it caught seniors who were falling through the cracks.

“We know seniors isolation is the number one health problem among seniors,” Hollins said. “(It) means a myriad of physical and emotional health issues which can be debilitating, life altering and life-ending.”

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Seniors Connect hosted workshops as well as a sitting area for seniors to get to know one another over games. There was also an outreach worker to bring seniors without many supports into the centre.

“The ones we were working with, they were not the people who could drive to their doctors appointment or go see other seniors,” Hollins said. “These were seniors who really require the connections we were able to provide them.”

The centre was started in 2016 with roughly $2 million in funding from the federal New Horizons for Seniors Program. Hollins said it cost less than $200,000 a year to keep the downtown location open and staffed to help seniors.

“It is the responsibility of governments at all levels to make sure these centres exist in every community across the province. Because of the number of seniors we have it is a responsibility those are funded with stable, core funding.”

Hollins said she’ll continue raising senior care issues to all levels of government and hopefully keep some aspects of Seniors Connect going in Nanaimo.

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit