To the Editor,
And: to the board of Abbeyfield Comox Valley, as of Oct. 11, 2017: Elizabeth Cornock Day, Shirley Hibberd, Terry Swigart, Matt Low, Maria Clark and Ken Andrews
We are a group of individuals invited by you, the Abbeyfield board, to put forward a proposal for the future of Abbeyfield Comox Valley. We are strongly committed to making Abbeyfield work as a home for independent seniors. We believe that with good policies and procedures and good tenancy agreements with residents and sponsors, this is a viable enterprise. We have legal, social work, health care, publishing, community involvement, low-income housing projects, research and accounting backgrounds. Over 900 people have signed our on-line and paper petition supporting our efforts to keep Abbeyfield open.
We are specifically not addressing this letter to Joan Carson, Abbeyfield board chair, because as vice-chair of the Comox Valley Community Foundation, a sometimes recipient of large funds of money from “ineffective” societies, for example the approximately $800,000 received from the wind up of Lillian Lefcoe Society (http://cvcfoundation.org/foundation-receives-largest-donation-ever) her apparent conflict of interest would be keeping her out of any deliberations or decisions that might lead to a donation to that Foundation. No, the decisions around closure, wind-up and disposition of the house are to be made by the six of you, alone.
On behalf of our group, I attended, by invitation, a meeting with your Abbeyfield board on Sept. 12, 2017. We proposed assisting, or at the board’s preference, replacing any directors who did not want to continue. We received no response to our presentation, so sent a letter requesting a meeting to each board member. Receiving no response to that, we send a reminder email to Joan Carson, the Abbeyfield board chair.
We received a letter Sept. 26 from the society lawyer, Richard Swift, stating that “the implication that your group of supporters is somehow more capable of operating the society than the current board is simply offensive.”
The problem is, the current board is not operating the society. As Mr. Swift’s letter says, “The society has voted to wind up. Its assets will be dealt with as required by the Societies Act and the laws applicable to registered charities.”
So, if the society is to be wound up, that means that the property will be transferred to another society or group. What will happen to the proceeds of the sale? Will they be returned to St. John the Divine, the people of the Comox Valley or to another body prepared to provide low cost housing for seniors? Or will they go to a general charity, like a foundation, where capital is invested and interest is paid out in grants, but not usually for building projects?
Will the future use be low cost housing for independent seniors? Whatever good cause might purchase this facility, it was not the intent of those who built and paid for this house, nor the more recent intent of St. John the Divine parish who generously gave Abbeyfield $100,000.00, in response to a request from the board in 2008, nor the intent of the taxpayers of this area (the land on which Abbeyfield sits was donated by the city), that the house would be re-purposed, or that if sold the proceeds would be removed from providing “low cost seniors housing”.
As a result of Abbeyfield’s closing, 10 seniors have lost housing. Although some of those needed residential care and have been appropriately moved, Abbeyfield had a wait list of seniors waiting for a home. The home was financially viable. The need for low cost housing for seniors in our community is desperate.
We are asking existing board members to consider their ethical duties as individual board members and do the right thing.
Jennifer Pass,
Pamela Willis,
Barb Biley,
Delores Broten,
Clint Burnell
