$2.4M awarded to area organizations
Toolbox
By Gordon Dritschilo Herald Staff - Published: January 13, 2007
Gov. James Douglas came to town Friday to deliver a bundle of big checks.
Douglas announced $2.4 million in community development block grants during a ceremony at the Maples Senior Housing facility in Rutland. Almost $1 million went to the Rutland area in the form of $750,000 to NeighborWorks of Western Vermont and $200,000 to PACE VT Inc.
NeighborWorks, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, provides housing services to low-income families and individuals in Rutland, Addison and Bennington counties.
"This money provides the lending capital and the services that will help 50 households a year make repairs to their homes to bring them up to health and safety standards — a roof, a furnace, electrical upgrades, handicapped accessibility," said Executive Director Ludy Biddle.
Biddle said qualifying households have an income at 80 percent of median or less. She said homeowners contact the West Rutland-based group, which sends someone out to inspect the property and make recommendations.
NeighborWorks acts as the lender and helps the owners apply for any grants or other assistance for which they might be eligible. A specialist from NeighborWorks finds contractors and oversees the work.
A number of the other grants were for housing programs, something the governor described as a growing need.
"Affordable housing is becoming an oxymoron in Vermont," he said. "We need to assure that people can find a decent place to live close to where they work and their children go to school. More and more Vermonters are working to provide that."
PACE, which stands for Program for All-inclusive Care for the Elderly, is spending its grant on a facility on the ground floor of a new building under construction at the Maples, which the governor said would include a kitchen, an activities room and a health center catering to people in Rutland County 55 years old and over.
"As more of our population requires these services, more families will benefit from that," Douglas said. "We're the second-oldest state in the union now, depending on which report you read. That means more and more Vermonters are going to need services like this."
Rutland Redevelopment Authority grant administrator Barbara Allen said the PACE health center would offer area seniors "one-stop shopping."
"They will have all their health-care needs taken care of in one place," she said. "If they live at the Maples it's the best thing for them, but anyone in Rutland County can participate in PACE. It's to keep them out of a nursing home so they can live as long as they can in their own home or a facility like this."
PACE program coordinator Betsy Davis said it was the first "very rural" PACE program.
"We're opening one in Colchester in a few months," she said. "We'll be one of the first states in the union to open a rural pace program."
Davis said the program includes day programs for recreation and therapy along with the comprehensive health care
"There'll be a health clinic that'll have a doctor, nurse, social worker, dietician, physical therapist, occupational therapist," she said. "PACE pays for everything. For the Medicare/Medicaid population there's no cost. We provide transportation. We pay for all the medical specialties if they need it — cardiology, dermatology."
Davis said PACE will get a certain dollar amount for each member from Medicare and Medicaid each month.
"The emphasis is on keeping people as healthy as possible, prevention and primary care," she said. "PACE programs have been shown to reduce hospital use and reduce emergency room use."
Davis said the program has two major advantages, the first being that they are not bound by the usual rules for Medicare and Medicaid spending, and can use the money on transportation and homemaker services. The second, she said, is that medical decisions are not made by remote bureaucrats.
"This program is all managed by the clinical team, the person and their family," she said. "It's very patient-centered. It focuses on outcomes. You don't have to call anyone up and get permission for procedures. The doctors, the nurses and the patients are the ones that make decisions."
Davis said they hope to have the clinic up and running by October.
Contact Gordon Dritschilo at gordon.dritschilo@rutlandherald.com.
13