 Peoples' Self-Help Housing
Valentine seniors stay independent
12/14/2004 | By June Rich | News-Press Correspondent
Though George Rangel has finally quit jogging, he is not, by any means, in his dotage.
At 73, he is known as something of a Forrest Gump in his community. "People see me walking to the library, to the hospital, to the store," said Mr. Rangel, a spry man with short, curly hair. "I do it because I want to keep in good shape. I want to have my legs until I'm old!"
Mr. Rangel credits his good health, mobility and independence to his unique living arrangement. He lives at the senior apartment complex in Santa Maria known as Valentine Court, where more than 50 seniors with little means enjoy their sunset years.
Valentine Court is a Peoples' Self-Help Housing project, built in phases over the past 16 years. It is the only such project—with single-story apartments built to accommodate aging bodies—by the organization in the county. Peoples' Self-Help does integrate seniors into its other complexes when possible.
Spencer Marley | News-Press | George Rangel enjoys living at the senior apartment complex in Santa Maria called Valentine Court, a Peoples' Self-Help Housing project
In an era when people live longer than ever before, and some families feel less obligated to take in their elderly relatives, many seniors across the country end up isolated in homes with few other seniors around. When their health takes a turn for the worse, the assisted living community or nursing home is often the answer.
Valentine Court is different. Here, the elderly are surrounded by other seniors, and are often able to stay independent in their own apartments because a social worker connects them to in-home help—someone to cook, clean, shop or help them bathe.
Take Mr. Rangel's neighbor, Bernice Lydle, a courtly 96-year-old with short gray hair. If it weren't for Valentine Court, and the domestic help she receives, "I'd be in a nursing home, I guess," she said.
Ms. Lydle, who likes to watch the news and listen to Westerns and other books on tape (she's legally blind), took a spill recently and had to spend three weeks in a nursing home to recuperate. "It was all right," said Ms. Lydle, who still maintains a slight Missouri drawl. "But you just don't have the independence like you have at home. They wake you up at a certain time of the morning, you go to the bathroom, they bring you breakfast and you eat it in bed. It seems the only time you're not in bed is when you're exercising."
Beyond maintaining their independence, Valentine Court tenants like living among others who care about them. In his eight years at the residence, Mr. Rangel has become something of the postman for a handful of tenants too infirm to travel to the mailbox every day.<
But when arthritis struck the Bronx native four years ago, the favors were returned.
"My neighbors cooked for me," he said, laughing sheepishly. "One wouldn't let me go past her door unless I ate something. They're beautiful people."
For a time, Mr. Rangel needed a wheelchair, and the complex loaned him one. That was a real money-saver for someone living on an $861 Social Security check because wheelchairs run several hundred dollars.
Peoples' Self-Help raises money to help seniors with costs of walkers, wheelchairs and unanticipated medical emergencies. "For the most part, all of our seniors are living on social security," said Jeanette Duncan, executive director at the organization. "They have to buy food, of course, and pay their ongoing medical bills, their electricity, their health insurance. Anything that's extra ... can be quite difficult."
Beyond the times of crisis, however, Mr. Rangel said tenants at Valentine live with the peace of mind that someone's always watching out for them.
"If someone see the blinds closed in the middle of the day, people get concerned. They looked out for each other. I lived in a building in New York for years that was so crowded. I didn't even know my next-door neighbor."
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