The Oregon Caregiver Fall/Winter 2016

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Haven House hosts a "Mothers Tea" with members of the Fossil Baptist Church.
Haven House
Another long term care community in
Oregon facing workforce and budget
challenges is Haven House located 20
miles outside of Fossil, Oregon. News
of Haven House’s challenges recently
reached national audiences when the
Atlantic magazine published an article
on aging in rural America that featured
the facility.
Wheeler County has one of the highest
percentages of seniors in the state. Fossil’s
population is roughly 450 people. Haven
House Administrator Marj Sharp said
that with the town’s limited population
and lack of proximity to big city
resources, finding caregivers and other
staff is increasingly challenging. Sharp
says that due to their remote location,
their registered nurse actually works at
OHSU online and contracts with Haven
House part-time. Licensed nursing is not
optional in assisted living and the hours
must be appropriate to meet the clinical
needs of the residents in the building.
“Staffing is always a problem. I have
more residents here now, so I’m trying
to hire another part-time person; there’s
just hardly anybody to hire,” she said.
“The starting wage is low, so [prospective
employees] really can’t afford to come
back and forth that 20 miles.”
Sharp said it’s also true that Fossil’s
younger residents often move to larger
cities, leaving behind a mostly older,
non-working population. The town
natives that return are middle aged and
usually work remotely or bring their
existing jobs with them, limiting the
potential employment pool further.
If the need arises for transport to a
hospital or to the closest trauma center
in Bend—100 miles away—Haven
House relies on ambulance services and
sometimes airlifts. Sharp says that the
community support for transportation
is great. “The ambulance service is
volunteer and they’ve been really good to
us. They’ve come and actually assessed
folks who didn’t need to be transported.
Volunteers in this community are just
unbelievable,” she said.
And it’s not just the ambulance service
that helps out, it’s the entire community.
Haven House recently knew they had a
$10,000 expense coming up to upgrade
their fire suppression system. But Sharp
says these were funds that they just didn’t
have. On July 4, the local fire department
collected donations and held a yard-
sale fundraiser to raise funds for Haven
House to help pay for their new system so
that it could be upgraded on time. Sharp
said, “One of the community members
came by and looked at the yard sale and
said, ‘I don’t see anything that I need,’
and then handed them $100. They knew
it was for Haven House.”
With a Medicaid to private pay ratio
of about 50/50, Haven House’s low
operating budget means that they still
need additional monetary support to
maintain their operations and quality
care and services. Sharp said that grants
from Bank of Eastern Oregon and the
Oregon Community Foundation along
with private donations helped them
secure a new HVAC system.
feature
Fall/Winter 2016 The Oregon Caregiver 9
The Bank of Eastern Oregon donates $5,000 to Haven House to help the community purchase a new HVAC system.