WASILLA -- A facility that served as a hub for seniors in the Alaska community of Houston since the late 1980s suddenly shut its doors this week without notifying state officials as required.
Mid-Valley Senior Center also provided home meal delivery services to dozens of seniors in the spread-out but growing community scattered along the Parks Highway between Wasilla and Willow. Senior care officials said the closure is not expected to affect the home meal delivery service.
The nonprofit that operates the center announced the closure with a Facebook post Tuesday morning.
"It is with great sorrow and a heavy heart, (w)e have to tell you that Mid-Valley Senior Center has closed the doors to the building," the post stated. It goes on to say that the current board of directors that started a little more than two and a half years ago "took on much more than was realized, (a)nd recently discovered that the problem was much greater than we knew. We could not turn it around fast enough."
The center was spending more than it was bringing in, according to officers there.
Don Hodgdon, 73, discovered the center was closed only after he showed up for lunch Wednesday. Hodgdon, a 73-year-old Vietnam veteran and heavy equipment mechanic, lives on a fixed income and stays in a motor home. He said he used to come "about every day" to get food at the center.
"This is crazy," he said.
Patsy Tampke, president of the Mat-Su Seniors Inc. board of directors, said in an interview Wednesday that the vote to shut the center came in a closed-door executive session during a Monday board meeting.
The board's decision centered around a detailed financial review that revealed "longstanding debts and a problem with cash flow," Tampke said, reading from a statement the board put together. She declined to provide additional information about the extent of the debt or other financial problems. The nonprofit claimed about $504,800 in revenue in the 2012-2013 fiscal year and about $615,000 in expenses, according to its latest tax filings available on the Guidestar website for nonprofits.
The problem goes back 10 years and "came to a critical point," Tampke said.
The Houston center provided housing, communal and home-delivered meals, limited transportation and social or fitness activities, according to a matrix compiled by the Coalition of Mat-Su Senior Centers.
Tampke said the closure does not influence local housing, including eight units operated through the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. and 10 through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Drivers from the center also delivered meals to about 60 people, Tampke estimated. Additional seniors came to the center to eat -- anywhere from 3 to 30, she said. Those communal meals are no longer being served. The center also offered a monthly food pantry, twice-weekly exercise classes and board games. Activities will be held in a common area at a nearby housing complex for now, Tampke said.
The board is working with other organizations to provide services and manage the housing facilities at Blueberry Pointe, she said.
Those high-priority meal deliveries are continuing because other senior organizations in the coalition are stepping in to help.
Mat-Su Senior Services in Palmer agreed this week to a Mid-Valley board request for them to deliver at-home meals, according to deputy director Rachel Greenberg.
"I think that their main concern was making sure nobody is going hungry," Greenberg said.
Mat-Su senior organizations including those based in Palmer and Wasilla plan to meet Friday to brainstorm strategies to fill the gap left by the Houston center.
Chuck Foster, assistant executive director at Wasilla Area Seniors Inc., said the Mid-Valley closure "certainly came as a surprise" to him.
"We're going to need to know if this is a permanent or a long-term or a short-term interruption," Foster said. "Recognizing that, in the same way we normally would cooperate with Mat-Su Senior Services or Upper Susitna (Seniors), we would say, 'OK, what's the best way for us to meet the needs of the seniors without causing undue burden on any one senior center?'"
The closure also surprised the state's Division of Senior and Disabilities Services, which is part of the Department of Health and Social Services. When contacted for comment Wednesday about the closure for this story, state officials said it was the first time they were hearing about it.
The center last year received more than $82,000 in state funding for meals as a subcontractor of Mat-Su Senior Services, division officials say.
The division requires a 30-day notice period before a center like Houston's closes, said division director Duane Mayes.
"They just can't shut down an operation without giving the state of Alaska, our division, a 30-day notice to include notifying the recipients that come in for meals," Mayes said Wednesday afternoon. "So we were a bit taken aback by that."
The center doesn't face any penalties at this point, though the lack of notification violates state policy, Mayes said. "On one hand theres's some anxiety on our part. On the other hand, there's the coalition, the Palmer senior center and their leadership, I know they've stepped up to help out."
The Mat-Su area holds Alaska's fastest growing senior population. The problems at Mid-Valley surfaced during an organizational assessment that's part of an ongoing effort to regionalize the six senior centers in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
Mat-Su Health Foundation hired Rider Consulting to work with the coalition of senior centers to conduct a comprehensive operational assessment of existing senior programs and services, according to foundation spokesperson Robin Minard. The consultant is also working with the senior sector on a five-year work plan to promote a sustainable regional senior services system.
"The Mat-Su Health Foundation will be providing funding for Rider to work with Mid-Valley Seniors to negotiate with creditors, secure receivables, manage the Blueberry (Pointe) property in the interim, and explore options to provide services to seniors affected by the closure," Minard said in an email.
Tampke expressed gratitude for the foundation's help, but said Mid-Valley has a long road ahead.
"All of the options are painful," she said. "We had to take immediate action so we can protect the organization and make sure that seniors are still served."