Update on senior citizen communities in Meridian Neighborhood

Highgate Senior Living, located in the Meridian Neighborhood, is currently connecting their Assisted Living community to their Memory Care community, which is the last phase of their remodeling project, said Director of Residence Services Marcie Suppe.  Highgate Senior Living is an Assisted Living and Memory Care home for senior citizens, and has been established in Bellingham for almost twenty years, said Suppe. She said that alongside the abridging of communities, there will be new carpets, reorganization of infrastructure, an expansion of the activity space and creation of a new dining room. In the meantime, Suppe said no one will have to relocate. She said the remodeling should be done within the next couple of months.

“When we originally built Highgate, our Memory Care community was separate from our Assisted Living community. We learned that it is important that the communities are connected,” said Adam Bryan, vice president of sales.  “Originally, the residents would have to walk outside to get from one community to the other,” Bryan said.

“Now, you’re not going to that other building when you need memory care help. You’re just going to another part of the same building,” Bryan said. “Psychologically, it goes a long way.”

Highgate’s Bellingham campus is one of nine Highgate Senior Living residences in the United States, and was the first Highgate community to be built, said Suppe. The staff at Highgate specializes in aiding individuals that require a lot of care.

“People that have high needs don’t scare us,” Suppe said. “We don’t look at ourselves as a clinical facility; we look at ourselves as our resident’s home.”

Suppe said the staff at Highgate always tries to find the root of a resident’s problem before resorting to medication. She said they want to find out the underlying issue and modify the environment before going to the doctor.

“We want to make sure all medications are necessary and appropriate,” Suppe said. “We want our residents to have the best quality of life possible.”

Bryan said that Highgate has a commitment to holistic living, and is not a facility where one will find pill-popping happening among residents.

“You don’t see a lot of our residents sedate and drooling on themselves,” Bryan said. “What’s more important is that we provide social structure, rather than heavy medical structure.”

Various aromatherapy techniques, use of essential oils, and creation of specialized tea are a few examples of Highgate’s holistic approach, said Bryan. If there is an upset resident, a staff member will take them for a walk, give them a hand massage, or just sit down and talk with them, he said.

“At home, most people have a purpose in life: get up and take care of kids when you’re young, save up and retire when you’re middle aged. When you’re a senior, we want to make sure there’s still a purpose to get out of bed,” Bryan said. “We work closely with our residents to find out what makes them tick.”

A supportive and a comfortable environment is essential to a successful living experience as a senior, said Katherine Collinson, who works as the the secretary for the board of directors at Ankar Retirement Park. Ankar Retirement Park is a cooperative housing community that has been in the Meridian Neighborhood for twenty-five years, said Collinson. She said that Bellingham is a good place to retire because it is relatively large in size, there are plenty of activities, and people have access to medical support. Everybody at Ankar Retirement Park is expected to be capable of independent living, and socializing is a big proponent of daily life, she said.

“There are a lot of activities and ways to get to know your neighbors,” Collinson said. “You don’t feel uncomfortable living by yourself.”

Highgate Senior Living’s Vice President of Sales’ Adam Bryan said that focusing on what makes senior citizens happy is more important than focusing on their ailments.

“Do you pick a residence where your loved one is happy and has a purpose, or is playing bingo all the time? It is important to make sure everyone still has goals,” Bryan said.

City of Bellingham resources for homeless and disabled individuals

Counselors in Bellingham’s Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) office have been seeing more and more of their clients go back to work as local employers continue to hire individuals with various medically documented disabilities, said Business Supervisor Carl Johnston. Despite the positive experience of watching their clients immerse themselves into the work force, the employees of the DVR office in the Meridian Neighborhood, located within the Department of Social Health Services (DSHS) building, have been increasingly challenged over time due to government service cuts and subsequent diminishing resources, Johnston said.

The DVR helps individuals with significant disabilities overcome barriers to seeking employment by creating specific vocational, rehab, and/or higher education plans tailored specifically to each client. Johnston, who has worked as the business supervisor of Bellingham’s DVR office for twelve years, said he has certainly noticed the growth of Meridian into one of the most congested areas of Bellingham. He said that over time, there has been a diminishment of support services. When welfare programs are cut, people who rely on these services are not receiving as many resources, Johnston said.

“Even though we are trying to be work related and employment focused, if people do not have their basic needs met, it is really hard to be successful with them,” Johnston said. “With the diminishment of resources, it has been harder to provide for customers. It limits what we can pay for and help with.”

Johnston said with the support services being slashed, there is a greater reliance on community nonprofit organizations, namely churches. Christ the King Community Church, located near the DSHS, has a young adult ministry called Ekklesia that meets every week in downtown Bellingham. Kate Crain, an administrator at Ekklesia, said that homeless people are more than welcome to attend their services.

“There are no perfect people allowed at Ekklesia, so there is no reason why homeless people cannot come in,” said Crain. “We don’t have any resources on hand for homeless people, but we can get them the help that they need.”

Jon Ng, founder of the Rising Hope Street Ministry, said he gathers his team of young adults outside of Ekklesia every Friday night, and from there they split up into the streets of downtown Bellingham to distribute food, water and clothing donated by locals.

“We reach the ones whom no one is reaching. The ones who sleep under bridges, the ones who camp in forests, the ones who’ve never stepped inside a church before, and those who most people would never talk to simply because of their appearance, smell, or intoxication,” Ng said. “It has been massively changing lives; I have personally witnessed several homeless people escape poverty, while those who still remain in it now survive with renewed hope and purpose for the future.”

Ng said he established the Rising Hope Street Ministry in mid-September 2012 after growing close to a homeless patient, who then lost his life due to medical complications.

“The grief I had over his life triggered a life-altering mission to find out how to alleviate poverty,” said Ng.

Alongside their Friday night distribution of resources to the homeless, the Rising Hope Street Ministry has Discipleship nights every Wednesday, Ng said.

“We take a 16-passenger van and load it up with clothing, coffee or hot cocoa, and sometimes we even bring soap and hot water to wash homeless people’s feet!” Ng said.

Ng encourages people to become involved with proactive help methods for the poor, because the more people step away and segregate themselves from the homeless, the more they are actually causing harm.

“The more we separate the rich from the poor, the greater the gap is between us and them, and the more we are contributing to the problem,” Ng said. “This is why the work that we do at Rising Hope is not only engaging the homeless relationally; we want to provide community and leadership to help others step in and participate in the beautiful work that God is doing here in Bellingham.”

Despite the financial challenges at the DVR, Business Supervisor Carl Johnston said he and the DVR counselors continue to keep a positive door open with the business community. Johnston said that he and his team network with local employers and help them understand that people with disabilities can be viable employees.

Only individuals with medically documented disabilities can qualify for DVR services, and Johnston said that a homeless individual may not necessarily qualify for these services. However, since the DVR is located in the DSHS building, they do see a lot of homeless people, and Johnston said the DVR’s counselors try to connect the homeless people to local resources. This includes helping them get on social security if they need a stable income, helping connect them to housing in the county, directing them to various mental health support systems, as well as providing resources for drug and alcohol treatment, Johnston said.

“A lot of the time, people with limitations get stigmatized and seen with a certain negative view. We are always fighting against that stigma and encouraging people to see the potential in people with disabilities, and not their limitations,” Johnston said. “We are encouraging people to see their strengths, and give our clients an opportunity to prove themselves.”

Meridian Church Hosts Human Trafficking Exhibit

Christ the King Community Church, a non-denominational church located in the  Meridian Neighborhood, is beginning preparations for its hosting of SOLD: The Human Trafficking Experience, a travelling exhibit which will be presented at the church in January. The SOLD exhibit immerses participants into a sensory experience, where they see, hear, and understand the stories of victims of human trafficking from all over the world, said Worship Life Director Randy Bourland. The SOLD exhibit is free and will be open from Jan. 9-13.

“We have a volunteer-led community of people at Christ the King Community Church called ‘Hope4Justsice’, who have organized around a mission to do anything they can to end human trafficking in our world,” Bourland said. “Several of the leaders of this community visited the SOLD exhibit in another city, and were so moved by it that they wanted to bring it to Bellingham.”

As visitors travel through the twelve rooms of the SOLD exhibit, they will learn about the many types of human trafficking by “becoming” a slave in a particular situation, according to a press release issued by Hope4Justice. Visitors are encouraged to utilize social media to document their experience.

While human trafficking affects people everywhere, Bourland said that because of Bellingham’s proximity to the Canadian border and the major international city of Vancouver, the numbers for people sold into human trafficking are significantly higher than one might find in other cities located in the middle of the United States.

According to the SOLD website, one hope for the exhibit is that “attendees will begin to grapple with the deeper issues of God's love and sovereignty and justice, the evil in the world, and their own part in God's plan of bringing justice."

 Bourland said he believes the SOLD exhibit will have wide appeal. He said one of his personal goals for the church as a whole is to be able to gather the community with more outreach efforts, and this SOLD exhibit is an excellent way to gather community members.

“Our church draws from the entire community of Meridian, Whatcom County and Bellingham. We are very diverse,” Bourland said. “I would say we tend to host a lot of middle to low class individuals, as well as transients.”

The Department of Social Health Services (DSHS) is located right next to Christ the King, and Bourland said this is why the church sees so many homeless people.

“There are a lot of homeless people living behind Barnes & Noble, so we try to help them too,” Bourland said.

Hosting a diverse congregation and helping all walks of life is all part of Christ the King’s mission statement: “always a place for you,” said Shawn Walton, administrator at Christ the King. Walton said that since Christ the King is a community church, it is very open to people from various economic and social environments.

“There are a lot of tattoos and piercings, and people don’t typically wear ‘Sunday Dresses’ here,” Walton said. “I grew up in a church where I wore a dress every Sunday. When I came here for the first time, I couldn’t believe everyone was in jeans, including the pastor!”

While one of the church’s main goals is to focus their efforts outwardly, Christ the King offers a lot of classes for community members, as well as a “Spiritual 12 Step” program for church leaders, Walton said. She said the church building is in use about 5.5 days of the week with the various programs and classes, all of which are non-profit.

“We love being here. There are so many opportunities when you are located in a busy neighborhood,” Walton said. “We love the traffic of people.”

Christ the King has a separate location for its young adult ministry, called Ekklesia. Every Friday night, adults ranging 18 to 28 years old flock to the Majestic, a venue hall on North Forest Street, and experience God in an honest environment, said Pastor Garret Shelsta. With the large range of people that attend Ekklesia, a lot of them being college students, there is not a typical lens or something they have to fit into to be a part of the group, Shelsta said.

“Having a diverse set of experiences creates a more honest environment,” Shelsta said. “You always have to be honest in the things you are saying and experiencing, otherwise it gets disingenuous, as if you are trying to be a certain kind of person.”

The Majestic was chosen as a place of worship because of its location between Western Washington University’s campus and downtown Bellingham, Shelsta said.

“You’re going to hear the music; it’s loud. People are going to want to come off the streets and check it out,” Shelsta said.

Western Washington University sophomore Samanatha Hanson, 19, said she first heard about Ekklesia from friends she met in the dorms. Hanson said she knew immediately that Ekklesia was a positive Christian community that would support her in her faith journey.

“I would recommend Ekklesia to anyone, because regardless of your religious beliefs, the community at Ekklesia is incomparable,” Hanson said. “Everyone is so genuine and wants to love you no matter who you are or what you believe.”

Ekklesia is starting a new service called “music nights”, where the first Friday of the month will be a giant music session, said Pastor Shelsta. This is will be an experimental service, and the leaders will see what kind of attendance these music nights will bring, since people seem to love the musical aspect of Ekklesia, said Shelsta.

Shelsta said he hopes to keep bringing in all types of people from the community as Ekklesia continues to grow, and he is continuing to familiarize himself with the diverse congregation.

“We have people exploring religion and people that are more established; people just being introduced to Jesus and people who have been Christians for a while,” Shelsta said. “We also have people that wouldn’t be at church if they didn’t attend Ekklesia.”

New Neighborhoods May Lead to Increase in Meridian Traffic

A newly developing Bellingham community may worsen the pre-existing bad traffic in the Meridian Neighborhood, according to Steve Mason, Certified Residential Specialist at Windermere Real Estate Whatcom Inc. This new community is called South Springs, and it is a residential area being created in the Reserve in the nearby Cordata Neighborhood. Development of the South Springs community started last year.

South Springs, which is situated north of the Meridian Neighborhood, is continuing to develop more houses over the year, said Mason. He said that this new residential area will definitely move more people into the northern proximity of Bellingham, and most of these people will have to travel south to get to work and school, putting them right into Meridian traffic.

“Any place you build a house, you’ve just added two vehicles to the neighborhood,” said Mason.  “We assume this will add to the traffic that is east of Bellis Fair, which is considered a bad traffic area.”

Another developing neighborhood may add to the traffic congestion in Meridian as well; the development of an urban village within the King Mountain Neighborhood, said Lylene Johnson, Full Service Real Estate Agent at Johnson Team Real Estate. If the urban village is created, Johnson said that may funnel people into the shopping areas of the Meridian Neighborhood. The traffic around Bellis Fair Mall is already scary whether you are in a vehicle or walking around, Johnson said.

            While housing developments around Meridian may increase the traffic flow into the neighborhood, the Meridian Neighborhood itself is not going through any major development changes, said Johnson. The Meridian Neighborhood, composed primarily of commercial zones, is a different kind of neighborhood, said Johnson. She said the commercial development of the neighborhood started with the creation of Bellis Fair Mall.

“This neighborhood shows how commercial, single family and multi-family zones all work together,” Johnson said.

Johnson said that the Meridian Neighborhood is the single neighborhood with the highest number of condominiums in Bellingham, and one reason so many condominiums have developed is due to their proximity to commercial zones.

“There hasn’t been a lot of neighborhood bias against multi-family housing, as you might find in other neighborhoods,” said Johnson. “People that live in single family homes fight to keep their neighborhoods that way.”

Johnson said people that move into single family neighborhoods may watch their neighborhood change into a multi-family neighborhood, and this transformation can change their lifestyle.

“They have a fear of college students moving into the neighborhood, and that is likely to happen in a multi-family neighborhood,” said Johnson. “They don’t fear college kids because they expect a riot, like the one that happened in the Sehome Neighborhood; they just don’t like the traffic that comes with the kids.”

While there is a strong market for condominiums, Johnson said that Meridian is not a good place to sell a house.

            The houses that Windermere Management rents in the Meridian District are older homes, and they are all old farmhouses, said Sandi Jones, the designated broker at Windermere Management. She said this area is very stable and not many homes end up as rentals, and it is the norm for rural areas to be very predominately owner occupied.

            Residential Specialist Steve Mason said people tend to hold onto farmhouse properties in Meridian with the hope that someday, as the city expands, their property value will increase.

“When you drive up Meridian, you don’t see anything that is representative of the residential reality of the neighborhood at all,” said Mason. “You see commercial, you see abandoned homes. This is an isolated part of Meridian; you don’t see anything else like that in the residential areas.

            There could be more people driving through the Meridian Neighborhood if the undeveloped land north of the Guide Meridian is incorporated into the city of Bellingham, said Real Estate Agent Lylene Johnson. This “new arm” would expand city limits and could potentially be a huge housing development project, said Johnson. She said that currently, the city is unwilling to develop that land, and has remained unwilling for years. One of the big topics in the upcoming election in Whatcom County is what kind of development is going to be allowed in Bellingham, and how much the city is going to be allowed to spread, said Johnson.

            “In this race for county and city council, the polls are very polarized and very partisan,” said Johnson. “It is going to be very interesting to see what happens.”

Alderwood Seeking Tutors for Literacy Club

Alderwood Elementary School is now recruiting bilingual high school and college students in Bellingham to tutor students for Alderwood’s Spanish literacy club, El Club de Lectura en Español. Orientation for the club is on Tuesday, Oct. 29 from 3:00 to 4:15 p.m. at Alderwood Elementary School, where new tutors will be trained by Alderwood teachers and staff.  

“High school students and college students will be tutoring our younger kids that have learned Spanish as a second language, and allowing them the opportunity to practice Spanish with their new mentor and leader,” said Alderwood’s Assistant Principal Josephine Estrada, who also works as a part time Spanish teacher at the school. Estrada said Alderwood students will learn strategies to practice speaking and reading in Spanish, and then transfer those new skills to their school work in English during the school day.

There are going to be service learning tutors from Western Washington University at the orientation and, for the very first time, Spanish-speaking students from Whatcom Community College, Estrada said. She said she can see the success for Alderwood students in El Club de Lectura en Español, as they are able to enhance their abilities in reading and writing English through learning how to read and write in Spanish as well.

El Club de Lectura en Español is only one of the many extracurricular learning opportunities at Alderwood, said Estrada. She said other opportunities for study include monthly literacy nights where Spanish speaking parents and community members interact with students, and weekly professional learning communities where teachers from each grade level collaborate and set goals for their students.

“I’m very proud to be a part of this focus on student achievement,” Estrada said. “It is amazing how little our kids have and yet, against all odds, they are achieving.”

At Alderwood Elementary, 82 percent of the students are eligible for free breakfast and lunch, Estrada said. Over the past couple years, Alderwood received awards from the state governor recognizing student achievements, and Estrada said she is so excited to be part of the supporting, caring environment.

“Alderwood works with the community to embrace diversity, and empower students to become lifelong learners,” Estrada said. She said that Alderwood is the most diverse school in the district.

Estrada said that she works with other staff members, as well as the PTA, in efforts to reach out to the community for support and contributions for the school. Estrada said donors such as McDonald’s, WalMart, Kohl’s and Superfeet have all contributed to Alderwood, and thanks to these contributors Alderwood now has a bus for after-school homework club students to return home.

“PTAs raise a lot of money when they have communities that have money, or can fundraise it,” Estrada said. “Our PTA does not have families with that kind of money.”

Noticing the abundance of low-income families at Alderwood before her time as PTA president, Becky Diaz has been working to improve all aspects of the PTA, said PTA Vice President Erika Gurrola. Diaz and Gurrola work together to raise funds the teachers need for events, and make financial decisions based on what the teachers want combined with what the school needs, Gurrola said.

“It has been really nice to know that our school is supporting us and helping us out, we have accomplished a lot,” Gurrola said. “There has been a lot of improvement in school over the last couple of years, the biggest improvement being the PTA itself.”

Another very diverse school in the district with a high attendance of low income families is Cordata Elementary School, where the PTA tries their hardest to fundraise in order to make all activities available for all children no matter their economic status, said PTA President Angie Strand.

“It takes a village to run a PTA,” Strand said “We work very closely together to make every child’s potential a reality, which is the PTA mission statement.”

                Alderwood’s Assistant Principal Estrada recognizes that students do very well in spite of their reality. “We make no excuses. We collaborate, and we bring in the community.”

Welcome to the Meridian Memoirs!

This is a neighborhood news site dedicated to keeping you informed about the Meridian Neighborhood in Bellingham, Wash.

Meridian Memoirs will provide you with hard-hitting news and narrative accounts about the the latest happenings, issues, plans and community ideas from around the Meridian area.

Feedback and comments are more then welcome, and please let me know if there are Meridian happenings I have not posted about.

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