Douglas County Senior Services gets a new name and a new mission

At a press conference Tuesday, Marvel Williamson, right, pins on a new name tag identifying her as the executive director of the Douglas County Senior Resource Center. The name change for Douglas County Senior Services reflects the agency's new mission of be a clearinghouse of senior services offered in the county, she said.

Douglas County Senior Services has a new mission as a senior information clearinghouse and a new name that reflects that change.

At a news conference Tuesday at the agency’s downtown home, Douglas County Senior Services Executive Director Marvel Williamson announced the agency was changing its name to the Douglas County Senior Resource Center.

Williamson also announced the agency would move in late January to the Peaslee Technical Center while its offices at 745 Vermont St. are gutted and remodeled as part of more than a yearlong makeover of the building that its shares with Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical.

Williamson, who took her position in April, said the new mission was a result of a three-and-a-half year review of an agency that had lost relevance with Lawrence and county seniors. The city and county were blessed with a multitude of for-profit and nonprofit businesses and agencies that offered services for seniors, she said, but it is often difficult for seniors in crisis or their families and caregivers to navigate the options.

With the change, the Senior Resource Center will continue to offer the menu of services it now has available but will add no more unless a program is needed to close a gap in services, Williamson said.

“We want to make this organization the go-to place for those who need answers,” she said. “We want to be the foremost clearinghouse of information to help seniors find the services that already exist.”

The goal is to help county seniors or those looking to retire or relocate to the county find information or help on such things as locating a home, a home-remodeling contractor, a physician who accepts Medicare patients, in-home care, clubs, transportation options, snow shoveling and other services that help them remain their independence, Williamson said.

“If we don’t know the answer, we’ll find it for you,” she said.

The Senior Resource Center is planning a series of summits in 2017 with service providers in the community so it can better catalog available services, acquaint the providers with the agency’s new mission and identify bottlenecks or gaps in services, Williamson said.

To help with the clearinghouse effort, the agency has launched the website yourSRC.org. The site has links under the headings of “resources for seniors,” “resources for professionals” and “seniors as resources.” That last heading allows seniors to post their availability for employment or volunteer work, request roommates or house-sharing arrangements and even search for romantic ties, Williamson said.

Last month, the Lawrence City Commission and Douglas County Commission were presented with a proposed cost-sharing arrangement for the $6.4 million complete remodel of the agency’s Vermont Street home and Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical’s Fire Station No. 1, which occupies the other half of the building. The arrangement would have the county paying $978,185 (25 percent) of the cost of the renovations to the part of the building the fire department occupies, with the city of Lawrence providing the remaining $2.86 million. It is also proposed that the county provide $806,000 for the upgrades to the Douglas County Senior Services section of the building, with the city providing $1.713 million.

When that arrangement was before the County Commission, it was announced the city and county were looking to share in the expense of improving the old Douglas County Public Works headquarters at 1242 Massachusetts St. to make it a suitable temporary home for the Senior Resource Center during the remodel. However, county commissioners had reservations about that location, expressing concerns about the condition of the site and putting money into a building the county plans to raze.

Williamson said that the move to Peaslee would temporarily remove the agency from downtown, but that it would be on the city’s bus route. In addition to the offices it will lease, the agency would be able to rent conference rooms and open areas for programming when needed, she said.

The move opened the possibility for working with the tech center on workplace retraining and continuing education for seniors, Williamson said.

Architect Jay Zimmerschied said work on the Vermont Street building would start in February or March with the removal of hazardous materials. Actual construction for the remodeling should start in May and take eight to 10 months, he said.