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Foundation Emerges
From Sinai Sale

Build, And They
Will Move In

Jewish Federation Apartments is hoping to build two
more congregate living facilities in West Bloomfield.

Its role in Jewish communal and general community health care
must still be determined.

JULIE EDGAR STAFF WRITER

PHIL JACOBS EDITOR

I

Mr. Aronson. "It should be a
safety net for social services.
The foundation will not be
controlled by Federation. How-
ever, Federation will be asso-
ciated with the foundation.
What that means is being
worked on.
Mr. Aronson also said, though
the foundation's chief mission is

PHOTO BY DANIEL LIPP ITT

I

The existing Sinai Health
he basics:
Sinai Hospital and the Care Foundation will merge
Detroit Medical Center with the new foundation. Sinai
reached an agreement of Health Care Foundation's assets
affiliation or sale on Tuesday will be used expressly for Jew-
evening, Dec. 24.
ish medical services.
Sinai Hospital will still be
The new foundation will, ac-
cording to Mr. Schlussel, provide
called Sinai Hospital.
Huron Valley Hospital will health care and social service
add the name Sinai in the near needs to Detroit's Jewish corn-
future.
Jewish services such as
chaplaincy and kosher food
will remain intact at Sinai.
For the time being, it will
be business as usual for
medical and support staff
The yet to be disclosed
price of "affiliation" with
the Detroit Medical Center
could result in anywhere
from $40 million to $60
million. Those funds will be
used to establish a Jewish
foundation for health and
human services.
"The Jewish identity of
Sinai is going to stay," said
Sinai board chairman Mark
Schlussel. "We've made a
partnership. And our part-
ner feels that the hospital's
Jewish components are
very important to its iden-
tity. The leadership of the Huron Valley Hospital will adopt the Sinai name.
Detroit Medical Center has
said how excited they are
about the relationship with the munity. Its mandate will be to
Jewish community. They are enhance the lives of Jews, who
looking forward to preserving would otherwise fall through the
and enhancing what we already safety net of existing services. A
have as part of the DMC system." good example might be the cur-
That enhancement, according rent dilemma of hundreds of
to Jewish Federation executive Russian Jews. New welfare law
vice president Robert Aronson, requires immigrants to pass
will still mean health care for U.S. citizenship tests in the very
the new Jewish immigrant pop- near future or lose Supplemen-
ulation as well as continuation tal Security Income and food
of services provided by Sinai in stamps. This comes to about
conjunction with Jewish agen- $500 per person per month. Fed-
eration could be looking at hun-
cies.
Also, Sinai will continue dreds of immigrants in need of
working as part of the Jewish the basics of living — food, shel-
community when it comes to leg- ter and medical care.
Other components could in-
islation in Lansing affecting the
clude services for people with
future of hospitals and care.
There's an added component disabilities, families with chil-
as well. Partnership 2000, an ef- dren in need, and aid to JARC
fort matching experts in many and Kadima, programs for those
fields of expertise to the Central with mental disabilities.
"This foundation needs to be
Galilee region of Israel, could be
expanded to include Sinai and connected with the general mis-
sion and purpose of Sinai," said
the Detroit Medical Center.

f West Bloomfield Township
okays it, Jewish Federation
Apartments plans to build
the first of two new 100-unit
apartment complexes on the
Jewish Community Campus.
At a meeting in October, West
Bloomfield planning commis-
sioners approved the amend-
ment to a zoning ordinance to
make way for the project. The
township board reviewed the re-
quest in November, but took no
action. The next phase is a hear-
ing by the zoning board, but a
date has not been set. After that,
the site plan must be approved.
JFA operates five "congregate
living" facilities, which differ
from assisted living facilities in
that they don't provide medical
care and diverge from indepen-
dent living facilities in that they
provide one kosher meal daily,
as well as social workers and
transportation services. A total
of 667 residents, all but 1 per-
cent of them Jewish, live in JFA
buildings on the Jewish com-
munity campuses in West

Bloomfield and Oak Park.
JFA Executive Director Mar-
sha Goldsmith said there is a
waiting list of 825 people to get
into the apartments and, for
Hechtman II in West Bloom-
field, an average wait of two
years.

One hundred
more units for
senior citizens.

The new building would join
Hechtman II, which opened in
West Bloomfield in 1993, and
Hechtman I, which opened in
1983. If site plan approval is
granted, JFA would finance the
first apartment building — at
an-estimated cost of$6-7 million
— by selling tax-exempt bonds
through the Michigan Southeast
Housing Development Author-
ity.

JFA page 19

The Personal Touch

•

to serve the Jewish community
it will also consider the health
and welfare of the entire com-
munity as well.
"There's a legitimate call to
secure part of the fund for the
general community," he said.
"What that role would be, how-
ever, we just don't know."
"I think this is a tremendous
achievement for the Jewish com-
munity," said Mr. Schlussel.
"We've achieved a relationship
with a world class medical cen-
ter. This strengthens the qual-
ity of medical services available
to the Jewish community and
the general community. It's the
best medical services that can
be offered.
"Many more opportunities
will surface to expand and en-
hance those services our Jewish
patients have experienced
throughout their history with
Sinai." ❑

Jewish Federation Apartments launches a
company that enables its residents to age in place.

T

JULIE EDGAR SENIOR WRITER

illie Nakisher has come to

count on a daily morning
visit from Mary.
For the past three
months, Mary, a certified nurs-
ing assistant, has been helping
Ms. Nakisher prepare for the
day by making her bed, some-
times assisting her with a show-
er, other times washing the few
dishes that might be in the sink
at her Hechtman II apartment.
It's a good chance for Ms.
Nakisher, 82, to talk to some-
one for a little while. She said
she doesn't leave her apartment
much.
"You know somebody's corn-
ing. Mostly, I stay in my apart-
ment and I don't bother
anybody, you know? It's not
bad. If you want to pay the mon-
ey, it's okay," she said.

Ms. Nakisher, who moved to
Hechtman II on the Jewish
Community Campus in W e st
Bloomfield two years ago, plans
to renew her contract with
Jcare Inc., a new nonprofit com-
pany started by Jewish Feder-
ation Apartments that offers
personal care services to resi-
dents of its five buildings.
More older adults than not
require the kind of attention
that falls short of medical treat-
ment, said Marsha Goldsmith,
JFA executive director.
Maybe their eyesight is fail-
ing and they need help cooking,
or they need an escort to ac-
company them to doctors'
appointments. Or, like Ms.
Nakisher, they might need
someone to simply check in on

APARTMENTS page 19

