The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor Flin Flon and area seniors are concerned about having a reasonably priced place to live out their golden years. Affordable housing tops the list of priorities they identified in a survey distributed by the local Age Friendly Committee. 'There's obviously a need when we have that many people and comments on a survey,' committee member Aimee Deans told the Flin Flon and District Chamber of Commerce last week, 'and anybody that lives here know that we need the housing for the seniors.' Deans and her committee distributed their survey during the Rotary Seniors' Christmas Party held Sunday, Nov. 25 at the R.H. Channing Auditorium. A total of 363 surveys were properly filled out, with 183 respondents (50.4 per cent) identifying affordable housing as the community's top need in terms of the senior population. Health matters Ranking second were health and medical matters, identified by 135 respondents (37.2 per cent). Sidewalks and streets were a distant third, singled out by 19 participants (5.2 per cent). The remaining 26 respondents (7.2 per cent) gave miscellaneous answers. Deans said the committee, made up of nine members, is now focusing on ways to bring more seniors' housing to the community. 'We're hoping to get the government, mayor, council, everybody, on the same page,' she said. 'It's something we definitely need.' Deans said a 2010 public forum also identified housing as the main concern among seniors, but it was attended by just eight people. 'We wanted bigger numbers,' she said, explaining the rationale for the recent survey. 'If we want to lobby for more money, go see the government, we can't just say, 'Well eight people in our community (said seniors' housing was needed).'' Deans was joined at the chamber meeting, held at the Friendship Centre Restaurant, by Brenda Russell, co-chair of the Age Friendly Committee along with Nora Fontaine. Russell said the term 'age-friendly' does not necessarily refer to seniors' issues, as it could also denote matters concerning young people. But she said the committee has for now determined it will focus on seniors, a rapidly growing segment of the Flin Flon area population.
