by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
When Theresa Bertram, the CEO of the Cathedral Foundation, is wearing a different but related hat —that of head of the Center for Advanced Living — and visiting local high schools and organizations like Youth Leadership Jacksonville to talk about aging, she asks her young audience to tell her what comes to mind when they hear the word “old.”
“I get words like wrinkled, dentures and gray hair,” said Bertram from the Foundation’s (and soon-to-be the Center’s) office on Lakeside Drive near Ortega. Then Bertram asks them to visualize someone they know who is old.
“Usually, the person they describe,” she explains, “garners words like caring, loving, wisdom, importance and strength.”
That dichotomy — the difference between perception and reality — lies at the heart of the Center’s mission: to change the way people think about aging.
Incorporated at the beginning of last year, and with two board members so far, the Center uses pioneering texts like “The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the Second Half of Life,” written by Gene D. Cohen, the first person to lead the National Institute of Mental Health, to spread the word that aging can be positive. Bertram and her team are teaching the young and old alike about how to age gracefully and at the same time dramatically improving the lives of seniors in Jacksonville.
The Center for Advanced Living is the academic and research arm of the Cathedral Foundation, pioneers in downtown residential development, and local leaders behind the increasingly important national movement to improve the lives of the elderly, both physically and spiritually.
“We’re moving from bracing to embracing,” said Bertram, referring to the demographic statistics that show Florida leading the country in the population of people over 65 in the coming years. “We think the elderly themselves as well as the population at large can benefit from a more enlightened perspective on the value of seniors in our community.”
The Cathedral Foundation is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. It was in begun 1962 when $100,000 in seed money was allocated from St. John’s Cathedral to build homes for the elderly downtown.
“This was really the first time in the history of our nation when there was an increasing population of people who were getting old and didn’t have any family,” Bertram said. “So we saw a major need and we tried to meet it.”
The Foundation originally thought it should build a nursing home, but at the same time the federal government passed Section 202 (now a fundamental tenet of the department of Housing and Urban Development), allocating funds for affordable housing for seniors. Provisions were made for low-interest loans and depending on need, some or all of a senior’s rent could be paid by the government.
So in 1967, the focus shifted and the decision was made to build Cathedral Towers, a move that not only was the catalyst for a building spree that became the focal point of downtown residential living, but also established the Cathedral Foundation as the authority on eldercare in Jacksonville.
The Cathedral Townhouse was built in 1970, Cathedral Terrace in 1974, Cathedral Court in 1980 and the Cathedral Gerontology Center in 1984. Together, those buildings house almost 1,000 people and employ over 300.
It was also in 1974 that the Foundation established Meals on Wheels, the program that started out of the back of a station wagon and now employs five vehicles that deliver 900 meals a day to elderly people who can’t cook or shop for themselves. The Foundation also has the contract from the City to deliver over 1,100 meals daily to the various senior citizen homes like the Singleton Center.
When an elderly person is adjudicated, or ruled, unfit by the court to take care of themselves, the Cathedral Foundation establishes something called protective counseling, which amounts to daily financial management, advice on medical care, help with resolving housing issues and help forming a budget. The Foundation not only helps facilitate guardianship but is the only organization in Jacksonville that offers guardianship education for those who are appointed as legal guardians for the adjudicated.
The Foundation also offers general volunteer services and community care for the elderly providing services like running errands, companionship, and small household chores. They provide emergency home assistance and even allocate money for full-time caregivers.
All of this comes under the auspices of Urban Jacksonville, the division of the Cathedral Foundation created to decrease the premature institutionalization of the elderly. Money comes in from the Department of Elder Affairs, the Department of Children and Family Services, the Area Agency on Aging, private donors and the City.
The Florida legislature recently put a moratorium on the building of nursing homes, knowing that it had to do something to curb the development of the most expensive form of eldercare. That was a boon for the Foundation, which offers an alternative.
The Cathedral Foundation is a $20 million organization. In addition to the five towers in runs downtown, it is staying actively involved in the new Parks at the Cathedral project being built directly behind the church. That, said Bertram, is the culmination of a vision that was established 40 years ago to provide a “family-oriented, integrated community downtown.” Dean Gustave Weltsek, who ran St. John’s Cathedral from the early 1980s until three years ago, was originally from Detroit and was a major proponent of a healthy downtown. It was Weltsek who kept the momentum going during a time when the major department stores and shops that were the foundation of downtown began to leave.
When the Foundation held a focus group recently with 17 new residents, they asked why they chose the Cathedral Residences. They said it was because they wanted to live downtown.
Currently, the Center for Advanced Living is developing a curriculum and programs that will try to improve the lives of the elderly and educate young people on the possibilities of aging. It’s all part of the shift from looking at the elderly from a position of weakness to a position of strength.