The federal government is investing $2 million into a project that will support Niagara’s elder francophone community.
Foyer Richelieu in Welland, a predominantly French long-term-care home, is in the midst of a campaign to build a $30-million campus at its Tanguay Avenue property.
The funds announced Thursday during a virtual press conference, with officials from the facility and the government, will go toward a cultural and community centre to be built as part of the project.
The Touching Lives Campaign, when started about three years ago, aimed to bring in $5 million in contributions when it wraps up this year — a portion of the project funded mostly by the provincial government.
The announcement puts the long-term-care home past its campaign goal, bringing the total to $6.75 million, said chief administrative officer Sean Keays.
To be built on land near the current facility, the campus will create 128 beds at a new bilingual long-term-care home, an increase from the 65 beds it holds today.
A second phase will retrofit the existing site with 50 new wellness suites for supportive housing, changing its name to Maison Richelieu.
Residence Richelieu, an independent living building, will co-exist with the new buildings.
To meet provincial standards, the 30-year-old Foyer Richelieu is mandated to redevelop by 2025, along with many other long-term-care homes across Ontario that were built before 1998, equating to a replacement of 35,000 beds.
The new facility, which will be 9,755 square metres, will allow for daycare, respite care and a behavioural unit for people with dementia.
Ground is expected to be broken next year.
Port Colborne native David Lametti, minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, announced the funding for Foyer Richelieu through Ottawa’s Community Spaces Fund on behalf of Mélanie Joly, minister of economic development and official languages.
Also participating in the virtual event were Niagara Centre MP Vance Badawey, Foyer Richelie chair Milan Plentai and Louise Pitre, honorary co-chair of the fundraising campaign.
The construction of the community and cultural centre will allow residents to benefit from a wide range of community, cultural and social activities and services in French, including those who make use of Foyer Richelieu’s day hospice program and drop-in centre, as well as their families, caregivers, community partners and members of Welland’s francophone community, said a news release.
Badawey said the francophone community will benefit from the “renewed momentum” the project will generate, and that Foyer Richelieu has become a “national model for community services for francophone seniors.”
The expansion will allow them to offer enhanced services and enable them to continue to be a “community within a community,” he said.
Lametti said he was pleased to announce the federal government investment.
“By consolidating Foyer Richelieu Welland and the French-language community, cultural and social activities and services it provides, we are strengthening the future health of the entire community,” he said.
