HALO looks to Eden and beyond

Two-day symposium at FGCU teaches coalition about Eden Alternative housing and other ways to help elders and disabled

Saturday, August 17, 2002

By MARCI ELLIOTT, mrelliott@naplesnews.com

They want to help the elderly and disabled, people who fall through the cracks.

And for the past two days, they gathered together to learn from experts who told how they could do that.

More than 120 professionals, government employees, educators, agency officials and just plain interested folks spent nearly 16 hours Thursday and Friday at Florida Gulf Coast University and learned about state and federal regulations, alternative housing, volunteer networks, grant possibilities and other information.

It was the first major symposium held by the new HALO Coalition, a grassroots group that has snowballed since its launching two months ago. HALO — which stands for Housing and Assisted Living Options — is an initiative of FGCU's Center for Assisted Living Innovation, or CALI.

Symposium participants said they learned a lot — but most of all, some said, they will return to their jobs and communities with the empowerment of working together.

"I was amazed at what I've learned these two days," said Lynn Blank, a certified recreational therapist who came from Miami for the symposium. "What has really impressed me is all these people coming together who want to do things to get things done. I'm going back to Miami and tell everyone about this symposium."

Connie Bass, wearing a "Lee County Children's Services" sticker, left the symposium Friday in a new high-tech electric wheelchair donated by Tom Jones, owner and president of Medical Equipment Exchange of Naples. Jones heard Bass tell at Thursday's session how she "doesn't qualify for anything" and needed a new chair.

Friday, zipping around the Whitaker Hall Sprint Room in her new wheels and smiling nonstop, Bass could hardly contain her excitement.

"Look at this. Watch what it does," she said, pressing colored lights on a hand-held touch screen that beeped and moved her seat up and down.

Other participants said they wanted to bring some of the programs and opportunities they learned to help people, particularly in Collier County and Southwest Florida.

Collier County has special needs because of the paradox found in no other part of the state: thousands of federal grant dollars going unused because of the high cost of property pushed up by the concentration of wealth along the Gulf Coast.

The participants were especially interested in a presentation on the Eden Alternative, a housing network that shatters the traditional nursing-home state of mind, and the Green House, a type of home for the elderly and disabled specially designed to look and feel like a home instead of an institution.

Judith Rabig, Green House project adviser, told the group Thursday that the Eden Alternative — like its founder, Dr. Bill Thomas — says no to the traditional "medical model" nursing homes.

"Long-term care should not be about medical efficiency," Rabig said. "It should be about people. Eden says cut it out — you don't need layers and layers of bureaucracy."

Rabig explained the Eden Alternative principles, including the three plagues of the elderly and disabled: loneliness, helplessness and boredom.

Cecilia Rokusek, special assistant to Provost Brad Bartel and former dean of FGCU's College of Health Professions, opened the symposium Thursday by telling about the background of elderly and disabled care.

"The fastest growing segment of our population is over 65," Rokusek said. "This is especially significant in Southwest Florida. By the end of this century, the average age that we die will be 120. We need to educate our physicians and consumers about the attitude toward elders and people with disabilities."

Terry White, secretary of the Florida Department of Elder Affairs, told about state programs that offer services.

But he warned that, like all other areas of the state budget, there wasn't enough money in the department's budget to meet all the state's needs.

"That means we have to use the dollars we have in a more effective manner," White said. "We have prioritization. All of you have done a good job of serving those most in need, and we have to depend on people like you to fill the gaps."

Thursday and Friday's symposium showed how the HALO Coalition is supposed to work, said Gary Kluckhuhn, coalition founder and director of FGCU's Center for Assisted Living.

Already, groups, individuals and companies are joining the coalition and offering to help, Kluckhuhn said. Heron House, Carlisle and Moorings Park assisted living communities, Pepsi Cola and the Glenview at Pelican Bay donated meals and snacks for the symposium.

And Peggy Hanson, a HALO Steering Committee member, reported her club, the Year-Rounders at Pelican Bay, presented CALI with $2,400 raised at an "Evening in Paris" fund-raiser Wednesday night. The donation was for seed money for the HALO Coalition, Hanson said.

Kluckhuhn is looking for philanthropic sources to help with more seed money that will lead to a continuous revenue stream for CALI and HALO.

He said the symposium — and HALO Coalition's snowballing success — were "phenomenal."

"I never expected response like this," he said. "I've never seen anything like it in my whole entire life."

For more information on the HALO Coalition, visit the Web site www.halocoalition.org.