Mayor Lovely Warren Visits with Resident Council at St. John’s Home

Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren made a special visit to St. John’s Home on Wednesday, February 4, to meet with members of the resident council and to follow through on a promise she made. Former Resident Council Vice President Tom Stewart had reached out to the mayor last fall. At the time, Warren said she would be delighted to visit, but would not have the room in her schedule until February. Sadly, Stewart passed away in that time, but Warren kept her word.

“I appreciate the opportunity of being here and, also, say sorry for your loss, in regards to Tom,” Warren said as she opened the talk in the St. John’s auditorium surrounded by a dozen residents. “We tried to get here as soon as possible to be able to talk to you about what’s happening in the city, and we are actually moving forward and reinventing ourselves and being a city that is a place where everybody gets to participate in the economic recovery.”

Warren has a very personal connection to St. John’s Home, as her mother was a certified nurse’s aide during the early 1990s. Some days, she would come to work with her mom and sit, talk, and even have dinner with some of the elders. Warren said those experiences helped forge her appreciation for seniors and the value they have in the community. Now as mayor, she is taking steps to show that appreciation.

“We have a number of elderly people in our city who want to remain in their homes and we want to give them that option,” she said. “So, we have set aside some dollars just recently to help them repair their roofs. A lot of our seniors are living on a fixed income, and we want to, as a city, make sure that we give them the support that they need so that the investment that they made in their property all these years and the taxes that they have paid is not lost when they can no longer afford to make the repairs on their property that they need to.”

While helping seniors to remain in their homes as long as possible is an important effort, Warren also understands the need for improved senior living options within the city. She referenced St. John’s own Green House Homes in Penfield as a possible goal for the city to pursue.

“I know that St. John’s Home is doing some really innovative housing developments,” Warren said. “One of them is housing in Penfield and, hopefully, over the next year or so we can talk about the possibility of having one of those in the City of Rochester. I believe that it is important to show the community and to show seniors how much they mean to you, and the plan is to give them an environment that they can actually feel special in and feel a part of.”

Warren then outlined a few of the major initiatives the city is working on for 2015, including improving relationships between the police department and the community, creating more opportunities for people who walk, ride bikes or use wheelchairs, and aggressively working to better the school district. Afterward, Warren took some pictures with the resident council members, telling them that if they would like her to come back any time, she would happily oblige.