Providers of the Therapeutic Activation Program for Seniors (TAPS) are looking for an alternative to the portable trailers it has called home for many years.
Serena Naeve, executive director of the Creston and District Community Resource Centre (CRC), which operates TAPS, and Bridgit Currie, who founded the program 20 years ago, took their case to the local services committee meeting of Regional District of Central Kootenay directors on Monday.
“We are looking for long-term sustainability, and we have been exploring the possible use of Rotacrest,” Naeve told the meeting. “It’s a question of how we co-ordinate long term planning for seniors in the valley.
“Our current facility is deteriorating rapidly and the school district (which leases the facility to CRC) has said it won’t put any more money into the building. We have done all we can do with it.”
Currie explained that the TAPS program has changed since she founded it as an Interior Health Authority program with 10 clients.
“Now we have 60 clients who are at risk of becoming isolated,” she said. “I see it as a real community program.”
Naeve said that with the support of the regional directors, she would reopen discussions with the New Horizons Seniors Society that currently calls Rotacrest Hall home. The two organizations previously discussed TAPS using the top floor of the facility, which is now owned and operated by the RDCK, during weekdays, with most New Horizons activities moving to the lower floor.
Area C director Larry Binks said he was impressed with the paper CRC had presented directors with, adding that he supported the idea of moving TAPS to a more central facility.
“We started this conversation four years ago,” Area B director John Kettle said. “In my opinion only, this doesn’t have to be a revenue generator. Whatever we can do to facilitate this through the staff, we should do. It’s a service.”
Kettle said the community complex location had the added benefit of being a hub for BC Transit Service buses.
Area A director Garry Jackman agreed that Rotacrest could work for TAPS.
“We aren’t looking for revenue, we are looking for a fit,” he said. “I think that once TAPS is more connected with this facility and more people learn what it’s all about, your program will grow and our biggest problem might be finding more space.”
The directors asked community complex manager Randy Fediuk to provide them with an update of the capital plan for maintenance and necessary improvements to Rotacrest Hall to facilitate creating a plan to house the TAPS program.
“This is one more step to keeping this (community complex) viable,” Kettle said. “We understand that rec centres are not going to be profit centres — they are going to be community centres.”