Awaiting a 90-day notice

JCC Senior Center must move to make room for light rail

LEISAH NAMM
Managing Editor

Any day, officials at the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center (JCC) expect to receive a 90-day notice to vacate the building that houses the JCC Senior Center. The leased site where the senior center now stands, 1805 W. Montebello Ave. in Phoenix, is slated to become part of a park-and-ride facility for the METRO Light Rail Project.

"We may get a letter tomorrow, we may not get a letter for another six months," said JCC President Mark Shore.

The JCC was notified in November that it would eventually have to relocate. Since then, JCC staff and volunteers have been working with the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix and representatives of the City of Phoenix, Valley Metro Rail and Acquisition Sciences Limited - a real estate consulting company that contracts with the city - to determine the senior center's options.

"It is a very complex issue," Shore said.

In addition to financial constraints - the center has run over budget for several years - challenges include finding space that is suitable for the program's needs and also in a location that will best serve the Jewish seniors, Shore said.

The senior center has been at its current location since 1996, when the JCC closed its building at Maryland and 18th avenues in Phoenix.

The City of Phoenix acquired the current property on June 2, said Daina Mann, spokeswoman from Valley Metro Rail. Construction for the Line Section 1 portion of the METRO project, which includes the area of the senior center, is scheduled to begin in October 2005.

About 142 businesses and residences will have to relocate from that portion of the project, which stretches from 19th and Montebello avenues to Central Avenue and Camelback Road, Mann said. There are 195 projected relocations - including businesses and residences - for the entire project, a 20-mile route that extends from Phoenix to Mesa.

On weekdays, the senior center provides hot kosher meals through an onsite congregant meal program and a home-delivered meal program for homebound individuals, in addition to social and educational programs.

The relocation affects about 50 seniors in the congregant meal program and 80 in the home-delivered meal program, said Sandy Reichsfeld, JCC director of senior adult services.

The seniors have been told of the impending move and "they're very concerned," Reichsfeld said. "For most of them, it's their only hot meal of the day plus their socialization. They've made some wonderful friends here."

According to Todd Gray, program specialist for the Area Agency on Aging, Region One, an agency that provides support to the senior center, the main challenge for the JCC is to "find adequate and affordable space in the same general area that they're in now" that has a kitchen - or at least space for one.

"If they do find a location in the same general area, then there shouldn't be much of an impact," Gray said. "Some participants may have to drive a few extra miles, but they're very loyal to the program and really enjoy the program and they love the food, so I don't think that would be an issue."

However, he admits that some seniors would be unable or unwilling to drive further from their homes. "There are other senior centers around the Valley that they can attend, (but) obviously the JCC senior program is unique to serving the Jewish people in Phoenix."

If the senior center were to move out of the area, other centers would be able to provide home-delivered meals to clients, but since the senior center offers the only kosher meal program in Maricopa County, current clients would no longer receive kosher meals, Gray said.

Reischsfeld said the move could be "devastating" for some of the seniors. "The older they get, the harder it is for them to get up in the morning. If we move too far for them, some of them will just give up. You get set in your ways when you reach a certain age and every change that is made to a senior is devastating," she said.

Harry Sternberg, who has participated in senior center programming with his wife Isabelle for about six years, said they wouldn't be able to participate as often if the senior center moves out of the area. He used to volunteer with teens at the old JCC location and at Temple Beth Israel when both were in Phoenix, but stopped when both organizations moved to Scottsdale.

"Most of everything has moved out of this area," he said. "There are quite a few (seniors) in the area (but almost) everything else has moved to Scottsdale."

If the center does not find a new location by the time they need to be out of the current location, the City of Phoenix will help find a temporary location to prepare the meals for home delivery, said Mann. This will enable the JCC to meet the guidelines of a federal contract with the Area Agency on Aging to serve food to seniors. The city will do their best to find a suitable facility for the senior center to use for temporary head-quarters while the JCC continues its search for a permanent facility, Mann added.

The city will also pay for up to 12 months of storing items from the facility, as well as some relocation costs.

Shore said that he appreciates the support the JCC has received from the City of Phoenix and the federation and stresses that the needs of the elderly is a communitywide issue. "Any solution will be multi-agency and with the involvement of federation and the temples," he said.

Finding a new location should not be the sole responsibility of the JCC, Shore added. "This is really a Jewish community problem. ... Even though the JCC has been the operator of the senior center ... to serve the seniors and the multiple generations of seniors is really beyond our scope.

"We need to take care of our elders."

What the City of Phoenix gives the JCC in relocation expenses is dictated by federal regulations, said Andrew Schwartz, vice chairman of the JCC board. "What they've said is that it's really unlikely that 100 percent would be reimbursed."

Since the city will pay only for relocation costs as set by federal guidelines, "the Jewish community would have to come up with additional funding," Shore said.

Adam Schwartz, executive vice president of the federation, said the federation is "ready to work with the JCC fully to help in any way that we can."

Last fall, the federation established the Jewish Community Development Initiative (JCDI), a "planning vehicle to develop a road map for the future," said Schwartz. One of the five critical areas the JCDI has identified to look at first is issues related to the elderly.

The other four are Jewish participation, Jewish edu-cation and continuity, outreach and welcoming newcomers and support for vulnerable populations.

"The senior center is one component of the whole notion of a continuum of care for seniors, and we need to look at seniors as active as well as frail elderly," said Fred Zeidman, federation assistant executive director. "The senior center meets a need ... the broader question is what's the range of needs among our senior population and how we provide for those needs."

For more information about the METRO, visit www.valleymetro.org/rail. To contact the senior center, call 602-242-1999.

Contact the writer at leisah_namm@jewishaz.com.

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