Louis Brier burns mortgage

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

The Louis Brier Jewish Aged Foundation reached an important milestone this month: it successfully completed its Burn the Mortgage campaign.

The campaign started in 2007, with a goal of $1.8 million, said Dvori Balshine, the foundation's director of development. But the mortgage itself goes back to the building of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg (of Baltimore) Residence, which opened in 2003.

The Weinberg Residence and the Louis Brier Home and Hospital together comprise the Dr. Irving and Phyliss Snider Campus for Jewish Seniors. The foundation raises funds to support the programs and services offered by the Snider Campus for the elderly in the community.

"I think it's great," said the mortgage campaign's fundraising chair, Louis Eisman, about the goal being reached. "I'm thrilled about it because there was a lot of interest to pay and hopefully we'll start breaking even at the Weinberg."
He attributed the campaign's relatively quick success – about two years – to both the community and the nature of the Snider Campus.

"There's a great community here and they do support ... it's a motherhood kind of institution, so they supported it and we did pretty well," he said. "I mean, we would have raised enough money [for the building] but there were overruns, it cost a couple of million dollars more than we thought, and start-up costs were pretty expensive. Otherwise, we wouldn't have even had to have a mortgage."
Mark Zlotnik was foundation president during the campaign.

"To start, I guess you have to go back to when the building was built in the first place," said Zlotnik. "It was built and we raised almost all the money to pay for it, but we still ... were short, so we went to the Bank of Montreal and took out a mortgage and we've been paying for it.... I mean, it's a reasonable rate, but it's a big financial commitment that could be used for the residents for other purposes, rather than just going to the bank."

Now that the goal has been met, Zlotnik said, "Anybody involved feels pretty good, because the ones who were aware of what we were paying on the mortgage and interest and principal ... and having it done and not having to direct funds to accomplish that, it's a great feeling."

Gary Segal, current president of Louis Brier Home and Hospital, agreed: "Freeing up the mortgage certainly eliminates the interest cost and reduced the debt, so it frees up more money ... to be put into programs and facility upgrades at the Louis Brier; most importantly, the programs and the care for the residents. Rather than money going to pay off the mortgage, it frees up money for direct care and programming for the residents."

While no doubt some of the fiscal pressure has been relieved, Eisman explained, "We're always short of money. It's quite amazing. It's a government-funded organization but they fund it to the minimum and all the extras are very costly. We give people a lot of extras.... Kosher food is an extra and it costs us a ton of money. We have music therapy. We have yoga. We have a few other things.

"We try and make it a real Jewish home and it's expensive. To do it, it's expensive, so we're always short of money ... it's the old-age problem."

But, "The retirement of the mortgage was a milestone," said current foundation president Harry Lipetz. "Before we could even contemplate future expansion, the mortgage had to be dealt with. We are an aging population here and, within 10 to 15 years, we will have had to significantly expand the home to fulfil demand."

Segal said that the next few years will be about "maintaining and enhancing the quality of care and programs and therapy for the residents. As well, we're embarking on this upcoming campaign to add the chaplaincy program to enhance the care to the spiritual side of the residents. That's the short-term.

"We're in the middle of our long-range planning for the home," Segal continued. "We've been going through some very detailed research on the demographic trends of the home and the community in general, and so we're looking at the future needs, the possible extension needs of the home, which will be necessary in a few years, not immediately, but we're right in the process of planning for that now."

Lipetz also mentioned the Chaplaincy Endowment campaign.

"The Brier is the only major Jewish seniors facility without a chaplaincy program to provide a wide range of services, from the operation of the synagogue to end-of-life counselling," said Lipetz. "In most cases, the Brier is the final home for the residents and they deserve the best that we can provide in all aspects. We have taken good care of their physical well-being through various programs and a fine facility and now we are going to ensure that their spiritual needs are equally well served."

Lee Simpson, who has been president of both the Louis Brier and the foundation – for a combined total of nine years – echoed the enthusiasm for the chaplaincy campaign.

"The focus now has been my dream since I started there," she told the Independent. "You know, you can see a bedsore and you can fix it and cure it. You can see a limb that needs exercise and you can get [a therapist] and exercise it. [You can] help people transfer and give them kosher food, give them music and you can give them Jewishkeit, which are all so extremely important, and our community has backed all of that for the seniors.

"But the wounds that you can't see are from the journey that we all take. We still have people who have lived through the Holocaust [at the Louis Brier] and, you know, even if it's not the Holocaust, it's just life. It leaves us with some thoughts and feelings that still need to be resolved and those are the wounds and those are the needs that you really need to address with some spiritual kinds of intervention. So, for this chaplaincy campaign, it is my dream that we are able to hire someone who can allow people peace and comfort in their final journey."

Why get involved?

While Segal doesn't have family at the Louis Brier home, he said, "I do have a historical family connection, in that my grandfather, Abrasha Wosk, one of the pillars of the community going back many years, was the first president of, not of the Louis Brier in particular, but the predecessor to that. And he was instrumental in getting the Louis Brier expansions going ... and then my father got involved in some expansion capital campaigns.

"You know, the first home that I actually owned was two doors down from the Louis Brier. For about seven or eight years, I was right near there and I had some young children at the time. You'd see the [Brier] residents walking up and down the street. We'd stop and chat and the kids would chat with them. We actually befriended some of them, became very close to one in particular, who has since passed away some years ago, but the kids would go and visit and sort of adopted them like a substitute grandfather, and just sort of had that connection.

"Given all that, when I was asked if I'd go on the board, I said sure. It's a valuable and vital institution here in Vancouver. I think you have to take care of the young and the infirm and the elderly. I've been involved in Talmud Torah before and I'm involved in other things as well, such as Ronald McDonald House, but Louis Brier's always had a soft spot in my heart and I've been on the board a long time, probably over 10 years now."

"Back when B'nai B'rith was active, I was asked by another B'nai B'rith member if I'd be willing to get involved and I did," said Zlotnik. "And I developed a real interest in the facility and the residents and Weinberg and, as it happens, my father became a resident of Weinberg and passed away last May and my mother's been there for five years. I got involved long before that, but now I've got additional reinforcement that it was a good thing to do."

"I've been on many, many boards, I think every Jewish organization in this city through the years," said Eisman, who has no family residing at Louis Brier or Weinberg. "You start off with your kid at the JCC and then Talmud Torah and then, as you go along, with Federation, and so forth. Now that I'm older ... I was standing actually at Omnitksy's one day and a guy walked in that I knew, an older gentleman, and he says, 'Why don't you get involved with the Louis Brier?' And I said, 'You know something, I quite like that organization.' So they asked me to come along and I spoke to a few people. It's a very meaningful organization and a fantastic board, just an incredible board. So I got involved. I've actually been there nine years."

Lipetz's experience was similar. "For over 20 years, I had been involved in various Jewish organizations in Vancouver and had taken several years out. It was time to get back to being directly involved. While fortunately many persons in our community are financially supportive, it is important to give of one's time. When I had visited the home from time to time over the years to visit residents, I came to appreciate the importance of the facility to our seniors and their families. While I have never had family in the home, I felt an obligation to support the seniors in the Jewish community. I worked for many years on the board and executive of the Talmud Torah and now I am involved on the end of the age scale."

"I've pretty much always through my career worked with the elderly and so it just seemed a niche that fit more than others," said Simpson about her choice to say yes when Hershey Porte asked her to sit on the board some 10 years ago. "I was teaching out at UBC and I was teaching students about long-term care, so it just seemed like a natural fit, so I said yes."

Simpson is a nurse and has done a variety of other health-care-related activities, consulting and counselling, for example. As to why she enjoys working with the elderly, she said, "I come from an extended family where my own grandmother lived with us, my mother's mother. She was just a wonderful, beautiful, gentle soul and, I don't know, I was a young child and she was just this beautiful role model and it just went from there, I guess. I don't know. I like old people, what can I tell you? I like the fact they're old. It sort of reassures you that there is a chance you might get there, too!" she said, laughing. "But I like their stories and I like their wisdom. I like listening about their journey."

"It's very rewarding when you see the kind of change you're making in people's lives," said Segal about being involved with the Louis Brier. As an example, he gave the significantly lower wound incidence among residents at the Louis Brier compared to that of seniors at other facilities, an achievement reached through the Brier's focus on training and the use of specific procedures. He also pointed to some of the new technologies available that help people stand on their own, when before they weren't able to do so.

Zlotnik summarized why the Snider Campus is so universally important: "Really, in the end, it affects pretty well anybody in the Jewish community because it's not just your parents, it's your cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents and, if it's not yours, then it's someone you know. It really touches a lot of people."

About everyone involved with the Louis Brier and the Weinberg Residence, Simpson concluded, "We do great work. We're not perfect, but, in imperfection, there lies a challenge, because the challenge is to strive for perfection. We're so good, but we're not perfect, but we try real hard."

Lipetz said, "I would encourage members of our community, rather than to drive by 41st and Oak, to park their car, walk in and look around. It is not what you may think a seniors facility is like. It is a Jewish home first and foremost, with caring and loving support from the staff. Drop by the foundation office, located off the lobby, and say hello. We would love to show you around."

^TOP