FORT MITCHELL, Ky. — A new assisted living facility with dementia care (ALF-DC) is set to break ground in Fort Mitchell in the coming year.
The Kenton County Planning Commission passed the zoning changes required for the development on Sept. 5. It now heads to the Fort Mitchell City Council for two readings and a vote.
The soon-to-be facility, Sages of All Ages, will be constructed on Grandview Drive near General Ormsby Mitchel Park.
As reported by our news partner LINK nky, leaders agreed the facility was needed during last week's meeting.
“I think facilities like this are sorely needed in Northern Kentucky,” said Jeff Bethell, who represents Fort Mitchell on the commission.
“Facilities like this came out several times in our outreach for the implementation of the [comprehensive] plan,” Covington representative Kareem Simpson.
While still in the approval process, owners are confident it will pass given that "Fort Mitchell [officials] came to that [Sept. 5] hearing and spoke on our behalf for it."
Facility owners Crystal Wilmhoff and Marky Kennedy came to the idea around 2020.
"A few years ago, my granny fell and broke her arm and had to go into a rehab facility," said Wilmhoff, whose background is in reproductive health care. "The experience we had was not good as far as the care that was given because of her dementia."
Kennedy, who was caring for her late father a few years ago, said he was placed in a "big box" facility as she calls it.
"I literally picked up my office and worked from the nursing home during the day, and then my mom would come in at night to make sure that he was getting the care that he needed," she said.
Kennedy said for every 15 patients, the nursing home had one caretaker.
"I vowed to him before he left ... that I would do better because I didn't want to see anybody else in that type of situation," she said.
Wilmhoff said the ratio at Sages of All Ages will be one to six during the day and one to eight at night, meaning for every six to eight residents, there will be one caretaker.
"Instead of sending our residents over to Ohio to have a residential assisted living experience, it was really important to us that they have that [in Northern Kentucky]," she said. "The difference is, when you have two people that are coming in and they're wanting to make something for their community, it's very, very different than somebody who is sitting far away with a notebook doing the numbers."
The development plan is to break ground on two 8,100 square-foot buildings split by a courtyard and garden. The buildings will have the capacity to house up to 32 residents diagnosed with dementia.
It's officially known as an assisted living facility but will be licensed by the state of Kentucky to offer memory care for dementia patients.
"I feel like for some of the larger facilities, it's more of a mausoleum [aesthetic]," said Wilmhoff."[With this construction], everybody has their own private bedroom, private bathroom ... they also have the social aspect of being with their peers outside in that courtyard."
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