Villa Youville wants to expand with new way of senior living

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This article was published 28/08/2023 (604 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

More people are on the waitlist to get into Villa Youville than are living there.

The Catholic francophone community complex for seniors sitting on the banks and even partially built across the Seine River in Ste Anne is hoping grant money soon flows its way for renovations and expansion to help some of the 300 on the waiting list move in.

A needs assessment is being done now to determine where the main focus should be to grow its community of nearly 200 seniors aged 55-plus split between the 24-hour care of the personal care home (66 residents), supportive housing (26), and 85 independent living suites.

The last expansion was in 2012 when the supportive housing was added. Forty more beds were approved by Southern Health for the personal care home in 2019, with the board seeing 30 possibly being built, but the addition was shelved.

“The numbers just didn’t add up. It just wasn’t feasible, so they didn’t move ahead,” said Villa Youville CEO Yann Boissonneault.

He said while they have applied to the federal Green Municipal Fund for energy retrofits, Bird Construction is now looking at solutions for the renovations that are desperately needed for the independent living area especially.

“We did present to the board to look at a feasibility study not only to address our infrastructure challenges with our existing buildings, but to look at expanding and addressing our future use,” said Boissonneault.

One of the three independent living buildings has an obsolete, 30-year-old elevator. There is no fire sprinkler system.

Two of the three buildings are rented out with price based on income. The third was described as “extremely low” by Boissonneault.

“But they’re all smaller bachelors and that building needs about half a million dollars in foundation repairs. So before we look at putting a half million dollars in a 60-year-old building without improving the quality of life for our seniors, we’re going to look at alternatives,” he said.

“And that’s where we started looking at replacing that building, possibly attaching a new building, where we could relocate residents. This building would also attach to the building that needs a new elevator.”

This would add a second elevator while repairs are made on the first.

He and associate director Sara Trudeau stressed nobody would have to leave if a building needed tearing down and replacing.

Whatever is built would be updated to create even more independence.

Things have changed in the last four years. There was a pandemic, and a spotlight was shone on how personal care homes are run.

“The big eye-opener with the pandemic, I think for all of us, was how the institutional model did not work. And it’s not something where we saw ourselves, and it’s not something where we saw our parents,” said Boissonneault, who grew up in Ste Anne.

“Just doing better now that we know better,” he added.

Provinces and health agencies are also reassessing how we all live out our golden years, giving places like Villa Youville an opportunity to improve the quality of life for anyone who ages — which happens to be all of us.

“With the personal care home approved and on the shelf, we asked ourselves would we want to build in the same way?” said Boissonneault.

“Really we’re realizing personal care homes are just for a small portion of the population,” he added.

The supportive housing in Le Pavillon is what the CEO held up as the shining example of how to help seniors without making their care seem overly institutionalized.

“That’s the ultimate model. You have all the services; you have a beautiful home,” said Boissonneault.

“An independent apartment,” exclaimed Trudeau.

“You have your own kitchen; you have your own living space with your own furniture, your own privacy. And the services come to you,” she added.

In other words, it is a home in a community.

“It actually works very well for people from requiring very minimal care, to people with advanced dementia. And you’ll see in a place like that, the community takes care of each other. We don’t have room guards. We don’t have elopement issues because they’re home already.

“People don’t try to escape their home,” said Trudeau.

It was not always like this.

Nursing used to be contracted out. Through no fault of the nurses, a rotation of new faces would come and go to serve the people living at Villa Youville, creating a lack of familiarity. With Trudeau taking over as manager in June 2022 after years as a health care aid and then standards auditor, she helped Villa Youville implement its own on-site home care program.

“Before, we were just kind of a landlord and provided cleaning and the food services. But it wasn’t working to have outside contractors come and take care of our residents,” said Boissonneault.

“Having different people every day, it sucks. If your mom is getting a bath and every day she doesn’t know who she’s getting, it’s upsetting. But now, this family that Sara talks about, it’s regular staff. And they’re happy because they get to build a bond. It’s a model that works,” said Boissonneault.

He pointed to the recent announcement of the pilot project in communities across Manitoba — including Steinbach in the Southeast — that is aiming to boost seniors’ independence and determination in their own care.

“One I call super home care, and the other I call super supportive housing,” said Boissonneault.

“If you look, because of our resources — our nurses, our trained staff, our admin — we’re already able to provide that. So we’d like to continue in that fashion,” he said.

The board and administration hope this setup gets the attention of the Province after the study is done and grants are applied for post-election.

Villa Youville draws in French-speaking people mostly from the Ste Anne area, but also from throughout southern Manitoba from places like La Broquerie, St Malo, St-Pierre, and even people who moved to Winnipeg and want to come back home.