EPA Technical Assistance Building Healthy Communities

Request for Applications: Smart Growth Implementation Assistance
Opportunities for Technical Assistance for Communities Interested in Building Healthy Communities for Active Aging.

Are you trying to encourage smart growth activities that will help prepare for older adults in your community? Are you trying to encourage specific smart growth techniques like transit-oriented development? Or direct your state department of transportation investments to better support smart growth? Are you looking to use smart growth to reach economic development goals? Do you need help analyzing guidelines for school investments that best fit your state or community? Do you need to retrofit a commercial corridor? Or coordinate your community’s smart growth design with an active aging program?

The Development, Community, and Environment Division in U.S. EPA’s Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation is responding to this need by issuing a request for applications for the Smart Growth Implementation Assistance program. Through this program, a team of multidisciplinary experts will provide free technical assistance to communities, regions, or states that want to develop in ways that meet environmental and other local or regional goals.

Communities, regions, and states around the country are interested in building stronger neighborhoods, protecting their environmental resources, enhancing public health, and planning for development, but they may lack the tools, resources, or information to achieve these goals. EPA can help applicants overcome these roadblocks by providing evaluation tools and expert analysis.

EPA is soliciting applications from communities that want help with either policy analysis or public participatory processes. Selected communities will receive assistance in the form of a multi-day visit from a team of experts organized by EPA and other national partners to work with local leaders. Applications will be accepted until March 8, 2007. [deadline]

For more information and application materials, please go to

• http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/sgia.htm

from the EPA Aging Initiative List-Serv

EPA has developed five fact sheets for older adults and their caregivers related to environmental health topics. Many of these fact sheets have been translated into the common languages spoken for older adults and their caregivers. The purple series was also created to reach individuals with limited reading ability, for those persons reading at roughly the 5th grade level. ( See http://epa.gov/aging/resources/factsheets/index.htm#lowlit ) In addition, on line, one can find copies of the fact sheets with large print for persons with limited vision http://epa.gov/aging/resources/factsheets/index.htm#lowvision Fact sheets are available in hard copy at no cost or can be downloaded at the EPA Aging Initiative website. http://www.epa.gov/aging/resources/factsheets/index.htm#fs

[If rural communities need assistance with developing a project, I know of a candidate, willing to relocate.]

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How to fall-proof your body and your home

Liz Taylor has a review of two complementary books

Geared to older people and their families, rather than professionals in the health-care field, both books are highly readable with large print and no medical jargon, amply illustrated and easy to understand.

Read more here–

• http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2003522577_liztaylor15.html

Bethel’s assisted living home construction 2006

July 15, 2006
Assisted living home construction could begin soon
By Katie Baldwin, Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corp.

Construction on an Assisted Living Home in the YK Delta for elders and adults with disabilities may be just beyond the horizon….

Currently, elders who need this type of comprehensive health care are forced to move to facilities in Anchorage or Fairbanks….

In November of 2001, several local agencies met to discuss the establishment of an assisted living home in Bethel. … Preliminary drawings were made and the City of Bethel approved a 30-year land lease at a site located south of the Lu-Lu Herron Building [sic] on Ptarmigan street.

YKHC has obtained $8.3 million to fund the project. However, the funding requires a 30 percent match. …

The 18-bed facility will be a congregate residential setting with personal and health care services, including 24-hour supervision and assistance.

At the request of the Denali Commission, Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation resubmitted their business plan on Friday, June 30. Construction plans will be made later this summer, pending the Denali Commission’s final analysis.

The anticipated completion of the project is 2008.

• http://www.ykhc.org/1253.cfm

Lulu Heron Congregate Home was opened in 1997, and is built and run by AVCP Regional Housing Corp. It was supposed to be the long-awaited assisted living housing. For some reason, it was never deemed as meeting regulations for an AL facility. It is currently just rental housing, although the elderly and low-income get first crack. To the left in the photo is the location of the assisted living home to be built by Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corp. and the City of Bethel. It was promised to open Sept 2005!!

[The Betty Guy Memorial Nursing Home Fund is an entirely separate project of volunteers, deliberately NOT affiliated with the city or other local institutions. People have been collecting money for this much needed facility for over 10 years. The effort is locally run, organized, and will be controlled by the elderlies themselves. Those wishing to, may contribute to the fund at First National Bank in Bethel, Alaska.]

No room for seniors

No room for seniors
By Chris Eshleman and Margaret Friedenauer, Fairbanks Daily News Miner Staff Writer
Published January 21, 2007

Ruth Grounds, 85, is No. 42 on the list for a spot at Fairbanks Pioneers’ Home after waiting two years. That experience has prompted her son, Barney McClure to take a proactive step in anticipation of his own golden years, even though he’s only 65. “I’m in the process of signing up for the Pioneer Home right [...]

According to Alaska Housing Finance Corp. Senior Housing services, there are 356 assisted and independent living units for seniors in the Fairbanks North Pole area for about 7,400 seniors, age 60 and older….

In an attempt to fill that niche, the organizers of a Fairbanks nonprofit have spent three years planning their proposed retirement “community.” The nonprofit Retirement Community of Fairbanks’ proposed project aims to create a new living option for seniors still strong and healthy enough to live with some degree of independence and who don’t need round-the-clock help….

• http://newsminer.com/2007/01/21/4646/

Southwest Alaska isn’t anywhere near to being as ready as the proposed Fairbanks facility. It doesn’t help when the local elite state publicly that older people aren’t capable of running their own programs or ban them from participating in the decisions about senior services.

Separation of Church and State Day January 16

Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub -

• http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/

has some very interesting pieces related to history and it value for us today through tomorrow.

January 16, is the anniversary of Virginia’s enacting the Statute for Religious Freedom, in 1786. It deserves an international celebration.

The texts of the original founders petition against an official religion and the text of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom are reproduced. They are very important for us to read.

Too bad the City of Bethel won’t read them.
Bethel fuel sales tax corrected