Mesa County G.O.L.D.
Growing Older...Leading the Direction
Mesa County is preparing to meet the needs of our ever growing senior population. Through a series of public meetings citizens of all ages and interests studied the future trends regarding seniors in Mesa County and prioritized opportunities for improvement. Goals for moving forward were identified in a variety of areas.
Structure
The Senior Citizen’s initiative, which is being spearheaded by MesaCounty, is intended to help identify gaps and make policy recommendations to the public, private and non-profit sectors. The public sector will include, but not be limited to, MesaCounty, the Cities of Fruita and Grand Junction and the Towns of Palisade, Collbran and DeBeque.
As was explained at the Senior Summit, although MesaCounty has spearheaded this effort it is not the intention that MesaCounty will meet all the needs that have been identified. Rather MesaCounty will work with leaders in the public, private and non-profit sectors from all across the Valley to develop and implement strategies to ensure that the GrandValley is a good place to grow up and grow old.
The key areas that were identified from the Summit were Public Safety, Health Care, Employment, Volunteerism, Recreation, Housing and Transportation. Opportunities were identified and those that attended the Senior Summit prioritized them and created goals. Committees have been formed to implement those various goals as summarized below. The chairs of each of these committees form the Steering Committee.
Public Safety
The goals of the Public Safety committee are to:
o Implement a communication strategy to ensure seniors and their families are aware of existing services in the area of public safety and know how to protect themselves from fraud and other types of crimes
o Ensure that seniors are considered and planned for in Valley wide disaster planning preparedness
o Develop a method to assist seniors in screening personal care providers who come to their home (This process could follow the model of the Honesty Card)
Health Care
The goals of the Health Care Committee are to:
- Expand information available to seniors through 211 and increase awareness of 211 to seniors.
- Develop senior service directory that is similar to children’s directory and identify possible funding sources
- Develop action plan for implementation of public health nurse model to include a referral component and a pilot program to identify needs, gaps, numbers to be served
- Inform seniors about the Medicare Annual Election which occurs annually and develop a plan to assist them with completing the necessary paperwork.
- Implement a fall prevention campaign
Employment and Volunteerism
The issues of Employment and Volunteerism were combined into one joint committee. The goals of this committee are to:
- Complete a detailed survey of the employment needs and volunteer interests of Mesa County seniors.
- Develop a Tool Kit for employers to educate them about the advantages and benefits or recruiting and hiring elder workers as well as the special needs and requirements that may need to be considered when recruiting and hiring elders.
- Develop and widely publicize a centralized and easily accessible listing of senior employment and volunteer opportunities. This may be available in a combination of ways such as walk-in, phone-in, internet, etc.)
Recreation
The goals of the Recreation committee are to:
- Complete an analysis of the overall recreational needs of seniors in Mesa County
- Work with the Senior Center Board and the City of Grand Junction to develop a Master Plan for the existing site of Senior Center at 550 Ouray Ave.
- Secure funding to complete the renovation plans for the Senior Center that were developed in 2006.
- Develop recreational opportunities for homebound individuals
Housing
The goals of the Housing committee are to:
- Expand the Senior Concierge Program from the Benevolent Community Partnership to serve as service coordinators to work with seniors living in low income housing facilities.
- Develop recommendations for features and amenities that seniors want in new housing units, and define basic criteria for “handicapped accessible”.
- Work with the Grand Valley Housing Partnership to provide assistance to prevent homelessness for near homeless senior citizens and create options for emergencies;
- Encourage the building of a Senior Housing Community
- Modify the Senior Homestead Exemption to eliminate the requirement residing in the home a minimum of 10 years
Transportation
The Goals of the Transportation Committee are to:
- Conduct an audit of the current transportation system (motorized and non-motorized) in Mesa County to determine its suitability for different age groups of the senior community.
- Utilize information from the transportation audit to develop actionable goals and work to prioritize funding to those areas.
- Review other similar communities to identify what transit systems are doing to attract the senior population to ride transit.
- Work with the local governmental entities in Mesa County (through Grand Valley Regional Transportation Committee) to adopt road and transportation system building standards to address the needs of the aging population.
Steering Committee
The goals of the Steering committee are to:
- Coordinate the efforts of the individual committees
- Develop a Comprehensive Communication Plan for communicating with seniors citizens.
- Assist in the development of a Senior Citizens Leadership Commission
For more information about the efforts of Mesa County GOLD contact Janet Rowland at janet.rowland@mesacounty.us
