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.
An elderly resident wants the City of Flin Flon to help entice a developer to build seniors' housing in the uptown area. Vicki Dolinsky says many seniors would like to move uptown because the proximity to community services would help them lead more independent lives. "Seniors like to live close to facilities like the clinic, the hospital, the banks, the post office, the pharmacy, all the needs," she says. "Everything that we need is downtown." Vicki, who lives on Main Street with husband Nestor, says other seniors are envious of the couple because their residence is uptown. "They say they would like to live uptown if there was a decent facility," she says, adding that a number of seniors have difficulty getting uptown. A Flin Flon resident for over six decades, Vicki doesn't suggest that the City should fund a new housing complex. She would just like to see them become involved in trying to attract a developer who might undertake the project. "You can't expect seniors to do that," she says, adding that the City would gain additional property tax revenue from the completion of such a facility. Aside from convenience, Vicki feels the foot traffic on Main Street provides seniors who live uptown with desirable social opportunities. "It's hard to make friends when you're old," she says. As an added benefit, Vicki points out that the development would stand to benefit the uptown businesses in a time when retail competition is heating up. "Main Street businesses have been good to us through the years and I think we should be good to them, too," she says. In Vicki's view, the need for seniors housing is only going to increase over time as more residents opt to remain in the community following retirement. Flin Flon City Councillor Tom Therien says the City will look at Vicki's idea. "Seniors' development anywhere in this city would be a tremendous asset," he says. "We do realize that a lot of people want to retire here. They don't want to retire and leave, and we have to provide adequate housing for them." Therien says the City has already become involved in trying to help forward along proposed seniors' housing at Rotary Court and on Island Drive. Seniors' housing is also an issue on the mind of Mayor Dennis Ballard. "I'm sure we don't have enough seniors housing right now, or at least the right type," he said in a previous interview. "It's one of those issues that you don't hear about a lot, but you know it's there. The seniors aren't usually a group that clamours, so you have to look out for their interests." Asked why it seems that so many people want to retire in Flin Flon now compared to years past, Therien says more residents were born here and feel close ties to the community. Years ago, he says, that wasn't always the case. "Now you've got people who were born here, raised her, never left here, and don't want to leave," he says. "It's become their home and that's why they want to stay."
