Introducing Golden Life Management - new operator for seniors care facilities
By Mona Mattei
Despite the community anger over contracting for seniors services in Grand Forks, Golden Life Management is gearing up to break ground on their new complex care facility to be built by late 2012. Golden Life is a company based in Cranbrook that operates ten facilities across Southern B.C. and Alberta. Celeste Mullin, spokesperson for the company, said the company’s story is one of collaboration and community involvement in their housing projects. “Our roots are small town. We live in Cranbrook and we really understand the needs of the communities,” said Mullin. “It’s very important to us that we work collaboratively with the entire community whether its local government, non-profit societies, or the community members at large to ensure that the programs we’re offering are meeting the needs of the community.” Mullin assures locals that there will be public meetings hosted as their process moves forward so that there is better understanding of the project as well as giving an opportunity for clarity between everyone. Feedback gathered through this process will be used in the design of the building itself. Golden Life is responsible for financing the development and construction of the proposed facility at their own cost and, once built, their service contract with IHA will start for 40 suites. The independent suites in the second unit will be entirely privately funded. “The development including land will be about $14 million to bring it to completion. During construction we work really hard to be able to work with local trades and resources as much as we can throughout the construction process,” explained Mullin. “We’re quite diligent in ensuring that we support the communities that will be supporting us as we’re up and operational. Once we’re up and operational we’ll be having jobs for roughly 80 positions that include part-time, full-time and casual employees and again we’ll be doing a full recruiting process, and hopefully we’ll be able to hire a lot of local people into those positions.” Golden Life’s tender included a one-story building with 40 beds for complex care, but also a 48 bed independent care facility for seniors at different stages of their lives. The property chosen for the project is located beside the Dick Bartlett ball diamond and Grand Forks City Council will decide on the sale of the property to the company at their May 9 meeting. The offer for 3.25 acres of land is $300,000. “We have built and developed 10 housing communities similar to what we are doing in Grand Forks through the West Kootenays and Alberta and all of them have been (built) within (18 months). We’re quite confident with our timelines and our ability to meet those,” Mullin added. Golden Life is looking forward to the opportunity to expand their services into the Boundary region, said Mullin.
“(Grand Forks) actually was a community that we were looking at prior to the RFP coming out. We were actually looking at the market out there late in the year and were moving forward with potentially doing an independent living site,” said Mullin.
“The goal is always to have those services in the community so seniors, when their needs change and they need these kinds of support systems, they don’t have to move out to another community. It makes a sustainable community because seniors have lived there their whole life, raised their families there, and they can continue to live there as their needs change.”
