Catholic Charities In the News
Hope Haven to get PACE senior health program
February 28, 2009 - The Clarion Herald
By Peter Finney, Jr.
In a major initiative that will expand social services on the Hope Haven campus in Marrero, Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans has announced plans to establish a comprehensive health care program for seniors and a hospitality training program targeting at-risk youths.
Both initiatives, said Catholic Charities co-president Gordon Wadge, are modeled on highly successful programs already in place on the East Bank of New Orleans.
In the initial phase, the day health care program called PACE – Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly – will be housed in the former Hope Haven school building that fronts Barataria Boulevard. Future plans call for expansion of the PACE program into the adjacent St. John Bosco Chapel, which would be renovated just as the former St. Cecilia Church in Bywater was transformed into the existing Shirley Landry Benson PACE Center in New Orleans. A newly constructed wing would link the two buildings, Wadge said.
The other major program, called Café Hope, is patterned after the highly successful Café Reconcile on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard in New Orleans. At-risk teens learn every aspect of the hospitality industry – from waiting tables to helping in the kitchen – and also take life-skills classes to prepare them to compete for jobs with area restaurants.
Plans call for Café Hope to open in the cafeteria of the main Madonna Manor building on Barataria, which already has a commercial kitchen and a large seating area that can accommodate more than 100. The restaurant will feature Louisiana seafood and local produce and serve the general public.
Wadge said the PACE program should open by July 2010 in the former school. Renovation of the chapel would take place a year or two later, dependent on building the client census. Café Hope will open this summer.
Archbishop Alfred C. Hughes and the archdiocesan real estate committee have approved the plans to open PACE in the Hope Haven school building and to develop the program in stages as more seniors participate, Wadge said.
“It should be about a nine month conversion period (for the school renovations),” Wadge said. “For the chapel, we’ve still got architectural plans to do, and we’ve got to raise the capital.”
The 52-acre Hope Haven campus, which is split into east and west sides by Barataria Boulevard, is owned by the Archdiocese of New Orleans.
Chapel is spacious
The St. John Bosco Chapel is about 10,000 square feet, about 2,000 square feet less than St. Cecilia Church, said Stephanie Smith, executive director of PACE Greater New Orleans. Blitch/Knevel Architects, which did the St. Cecilia conversion, will handle the new project.
The school building needs minimal renovation to meet the criteria for establishing the program, Smith said, which is why it will be used to establish the program.
The school renovations include handicapped-accessible bathrooms, ramps and other modifications. The school building also has a large gym that can serve as an adult health center.
Smith said about 60 seniors are using the New Orleans PACE program for their comprehensive care, and there is room for about 20 more.
Those applying for the program must be designated by state as needing nursing home level care and must apply for long-term care through Medicaid, if they don’t already have it.
“If they are approved, then the program is totally free,” Smith said.
Transportation arranged
Under the program, seniors receive transportation to and from the center each day. The physicians on site, including a geriatric specialist, coordinate the client’s entire medical care. There is a full-time occupational therapist, a pharmacist and speech therapist on site.
“It’s a very comprehensive program,” Smith said. “We serve morning coffee and snacks and breakfast, and we have a full lunch with input from a dietician. If you’re diabetic, you get a certain diet.
We also work with the family to enroll them in the Food for Seniors program so that once a month they get a food box, which has about three weeks of food. All of this is free.”
Each person is individually screened to determine his or her needs, and the PACE program is tailored to meet those needs, Smith said.
Wadge said the Café Hope program will have the added benefit of attracting the general public to the campus.
“Over the years we’ve had a number of programs on that campus where we had to provide such a degree of confidentiality for the kids that a lot of people didn’t come onto that campus,” Wadge said. “Now we want to invite people onto that campus, and the café allows us to do that. It also allows us to stay connected with our core ministries of working with teenagers and kids.”
Café Hope offers hope
Wadge said attorney Tim Falcon, who was one of the catalysts along with Jesuit Father Harry Tompson to establish Café Reconcile in the 1990s, has been a chief advocate of the hospitality training program.
“Tim has long wanted us to come to the West Bank because this is where his roots are and also because of the tremendous needs here,” Wadge said. “A lot of kids from the West Bank can’t get over to Café Reconcile. That’s why we wanted to replicate the business model of Café Reconcile (on the West Bank).”
The entire Hope Haven campus houses several other Catholic Charities programs, including Independent Living Skills for teens about to leave foster care, Food For Families/Food for Seniors, Hope Haven Community Center and Jefferson CARE Center, a homeless shelter for women and children.
“This is the largest single Catholic Charities campus in the entire Archdiocese of New Orleans,” Wadge said. “We want to build on that 80-year history of ministry.”
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