A visit to Faith Community

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

Sev­eral pub­lic meet­ings have been held recently in regards to Eden Place, a pro­posed senior inde­pen­dent liv­ing facil­ity to be con­structed in the vacant lot where the old Galion High School for­merly stood. The NOAH Project is the orga­ni­za­tion rais­ing the pro­posal. It is also respon­si­ble for the cre­ation of Crestline’s Faith Com­mu­nity; In order to bet­ter under­stand what Eden Place would be like, the Inquirer stopped by Faith Community.

Located at 1020 Old­field Road, Faith Com­mu­nity is a stone’s throw away from Crest­line Exempted Vil­lage Schools. When it comes into view, the signs and aes­thet­ics of the area are wel­com­ing and beau­ti­ful. The park-like set­ting of Faith Com­mu­nity con­tains a half mile of side­walk alto­gether that pass the homes, which are sim­i­lar to condos.

Matt Echel­berry — Staff

A total of 41 two-bedroom units with an attached garage com­pose the neigh­bor­hood. On the out­side, they are all archi­tec­turally the same, but that does not mean this neigh­bor­hood is with­out per­son­al­ity. It has streets with names like “Dove Lane” and “Blue Bird Drive.” There is even a com­mu­nity gar­den and a pic­nic area for all res­i­dents to enjoy.

At the Com­mu­nity Cen­ter, which sits at the entrance to the com­mu­nity, NOAH Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Su Rowles dis­cussed what makes Faith Com­mu­nity so spe­cial. The units are avail­able to any seniors who wish to live inde­pen­dently, even if they have some dis­abil­i­ties. Rowles explained that a lot of plan­ning went into the design of the homes to make them senior-friendly.

All of the units have door­ways, hall­ways, etc. large enough so that peo­ple with walk­ers or wheel­chairs can move through the home eas­ily. The large bath­rooms come equipped with grip bars and walk-in show­ers; the type of car­pet­ing used in the homes makes it easy for wheel­chairs to move over, yet a spe­cial pad under­neath absorbs some of the shock if some­one should fall; soft light­ing does not effect peo­ple with vision prob­lems; and elec­tri­cal plugs are sit­u­ated higher on walls.

“This is a com­pletely liv­able com­mu­nity that allows peo­ple to be active or keep to them­selves, whichever they pre­fer,” Rowles com­mented. “It is afford­able, and you have neigh­bors to depend on, and other resources.”

Each res­i­dent at Faith Com­mu­nity is per­mit­ted to have a pri­vate gar­den and keep pets. Potlucks are held at the Com­mu­nity Cen­ter every Tues­day and Wednes­day, and Fri­days are game nights. Addi­tion­ally, there are exer­cise pro­grams pro­vided and sem­i­nars on top­ics like health and per­sonal finance.

But don’t take Rowles’ word for it. Mar­i­lyn Lucas was one of the first res­i­dents to set­tle into the neigh­bor­hood when it opened in 2008. “We really like it here, this is a won­der­ful place…Most of the res­i­dents do call it home,” Lucas said. She said she likes hav­ing an oppor­tu­nity to social­ize with the neigh­bors and liv­ing close to town.

The heart of Crest­line is mere min­utes away, and Bucyrus and Galion are within miles. The Craw­ford County Coun­cil on Aging pro­vides trans­porta­tion to res­i­dents, and Rowles called the dri­vers “marvelous.”

When asked how Faith Com­mu­nity became a real­ity, Rowles explained that the process was not easy. Early on, a group of peo­ple got together and shared their thoughts on their liv­ing sit­u­a­tions at that time. This group decided Craw­ford County needed a place for seniors who wanted to live inde­pen­dently, that bet­ter suited their needs.

One year later, The NOAH Project became a tax exempt orga­ni­za­tion with the state. Mem­bers stud­ied the county exten­sively to assess the needs of seniors and found that Crest­line had the low­est oppor­tu­ni­ties for them, yet 14 per­cent of the village’s pop­u­la­tion was 65 or older. They also vis­ited sev­eral other senior facil­i­ties and communities.

By acci­dent, Rowles said they came across some land on the out­skirts of Crest­line that the owner was inter­ested in sell­ing. NOAH met with the County Com­mis­sion­ers, the Regional Plan­ning Com­mis­sion and held sev­eral pub­lic meet­ings to build sup­port. Rowles recalled all of the fundrais­ers that were needed to raise money for the project, and all of the indi­vid­u­als that helped with get­ting the project going.

NOAH acquired the land in 2003 and the appli­ca­tion for a new senior com­mu­nity was sub­mit­ted in March of 2006. After they were approved for state fund­ing, a ground­break­ing for the devel­op­ment was held in 2008. The multi-million dol­lar project was com­pleted later that year.

Linda Toney has been a res­i­dent for more than a year. She recalled going to a garage sale in the neigh­bor­hood and get­ting a tour of one of the homes. She decided that day that she wanted to call Faith Com­mu­nity her home as well. “I love it here. It’s nice and quiet,” she commented.

Faith Com­mu­nity is incor­po­rated into the Vil­lage of Crest­line and pays prop­erty taxes. Miller-Valentine Group is the man­age­ment com­pany of the devel­op­ment and takes care of all main­te­nance: lawn mow­ing, snow shov­el­ing, gen­eral build­ing main­te­nance, etc.

With Eden Place, the pro­posed project for Galion, Rowles explained that it would be oper­ated on the same prin­ci­ples as Faith Com­mu­nity. How­ever, she empha­sized that Eden is a dif­fer­ent type of com­mu­nity because it is an apartment-style com­plex for seniors.

The NOAH Project has held so many meet­ings about it lately because they want to know what peo­ple are look­ing for in a place to live and what their needs are, as well as what neigh­bors of the com­mu­nity think of it.

If the project receives a green light to move for­ward, it would be man­aged a dif­fer­ent man­age­ment com­pany, Showe Man­age­ment. Like Faith Com­mu­nity, it would be sub­ject to prop­erty taxes, thus bring­ing rev­enue to Galion and Galion City Schools.

Rowles said Eden Place is designed to be step-free. Because it will have ele­va­tors, she said the build­ing will be fit­ted with an emer­gency power sys­tem. The heat­ing and cool­ing con­trols are indi­vid­u­al­ized by room. Also, they are hop­ing to include an exer­cise room and a com­mu­nity room to the facil­ity, but it depends on the fund­ing for the project.

She added that at Faith Com­mu­nity, the major­ity of res­i­dents are not from Crest­line, but have moved there from other parts of the county or other areas entirely, adding to the pop­u­la­tion. She said the same could hap­pen with the Galion facility.

The NOAH Project is a non-profit, com­mu­nity hous­ing devel­op­ment orga­ni­za­tion. Because of its non-profit sta­tus, Rowles said it depends on dona­tions. The appli­ca­tions and accom­pa­ny­ing stud­ies for Eden Place and other projects are expensive—thousands of dollars—so find­ing funds to oper­ate is dif­fi­cult, yet NOAH is required to develop com­mu­nity improve­ment projects each year.

Peo­ple with fur­ther ques­tions about the orga­ni­za­tion or Eden Place may con­tact The NOAH Project at 419–683-3700 or visit www.noahprojectofohio.org.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Feb 19 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.