Editorial: Fresno needs a seniors center
Here’s an issue to chew on for the want-to-be mayors who will duke it out in 2016 to become Ashley Swearengin’s successor: Why doesn’t Fresno have a seniors center?
Our city is the largest in California without one and, truth be told, many cities much smaller than Fresno have a public place where seniors can converse, exercise, have meals, use computers, take classes, sign up for tours, and learn about elder abuse and scams.
As the mayoral contenders will hear more than once between now and the primary, not only did Clovis build a senior center in 1982 the city is now planning to expand it. We say, good for Clovis!
Fresno’s long sputtering economy is one reason why it doesn’t have a seniors center. During the Great Recession, City Hall had to cut back on everything from police to tree trimming — and its Parks and Recreation Department was stripped to the bone. Now that the economy is coming back, Swearengin and the city council are rebuilding the police and fire departments and restoring funding for other departments.
But there’s another important reason that Fresno — the fifth-largest city in California with more than 510,000 people — doesn’t have a senior center: It hasn’t been seen as a priority. Many seniors are simply forgotten about. They are out of sight and out of public consciousness. This is a shameful fact the city’s next mayor must work hard to change.
Some people might recall that Fresno was supposed to have a top-notch seniors center, right in the heart of town, near Blackstone and Dakota avenues, in the former Sierra Hospital. Here’s what was reported in The Bee on April 21, 1999:
“It’s been a long march, but Fresno leaders believe the community is about to move from backwater to showplace with the creation of its first senior citizens center.
“The Fresno City Council, which had set aside $1.5 million in federal money for the project, agreed ... that the former Sierra Community Hospital is a perfect location for a ‘one-stop’ center that offers health care and other services for the area’s estimated 72,000 seniors.”
One million dollars was paid for the hospital and $500,000 was designated for improvements. But private fundraising needed to complete the effort went nowhere. There was political infighting as well. The former hospital is home to the Fresno-Madera Agency on Aging, which does good work for seniors. But it doesn’t have a senior center.
There are, however, senior activities offered through the Fresno Adult School at Manchester Center. Participants pay to take exercise and various dance classes. Henry R. Perea arranged for the space when he was on the City Council. The center donated a room and Perea paid the utility bill through his District 7 budget. His two successors, Henry T. Perea and Clint Olivier, have worked to keep the dance and exercise classes going there.
But a small space in Manchester Center does not a senior center make. If you want to see what one should look like and what kind of activities it should offer, check out the Ethel MacLeod Hart Senior Center in Sacramento.
We believe that putting together a Fresno senior center plan is a worthy test for every mayoral aspirant. And it’s smart politics. Seniors, as the consultants like to say, are high-propensity voters.
This story was originally published July 4, 2015 at 9:51 AM with the headline "Editorial: Fresno needs a seniors center."