Heritage Agency closing five Linn County congregate meal sites

CEDAR RAPIDS - Five congregate meals sites for seniors are closing in Linn County by month's end due to a funding shortfall, The Heritage Agency on Aging said on Wednesday.

Ingrid Wensel, the agency's executive director, said the five sites - in Marion, Hiawatha, Ely and Springville and at St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Cedar Rapids - serve on average a total of 55 people at lunch during the week.

'It is with great regret,” she said in making the closure announcement.

She said the congregate meals program operates with limited federal funding, donations and voluntary contributions from seniors who eat the meals.

A primary reason for the closure is the increasing number of low-income seniors who are unable to afford to contribute to the cost of the meals, Wensel said.

The closing of the five sites will prevent reductions in the Older American Act home-delivered meals program, commonly known as Meals on Wheels, she said.

At the same time, she said congregate meals sites at the Healthy Horizons Center, 1202 10th St. SE in Cedar Rapids, and at the Southeast Linn Community Center in Lisbon will continue to operate.

Wensel estimated that the program would need an infusion of more than $200,000 more to cover the total cost of meals at the five sites in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

She said the Heritage Area Agency has 26 congregate meals sites in the seven counties - Linn, Benton, Johnson, Jones, Cedar and Washington - that the agency serves, and other sites outside of Linn County could face closure, she said.

The announcement of the site closures came just an hour after Linn County Supervisor Brent Oleson, who is a member of the five-member board of the Linn County Gaming Association, took time at the supervisors Wednesday morning meeting to encourage the area's non-profit organizations to write to the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission in support of a state license to the proposed Cedar Crossing Casino. The Gaming Association will receive revenue from the casino to hand out to local non-profit groups and services like congregate meals, he said.

'This is a perfect example of how our non-profit (Gaming Association)) could step in on a temporary basis with a contribution,” Oleson said upon learning about the closing of congregate meals sites.

The Linn County Gaming Association along with casino investors and city and county officials have criticized nearby casinos in Riverside and Waterloo for fighting against the granting of a license for the Cedar Crossing Casino. Riverside and Waterloo casino executives have said their casinos depend on gaming revenue from Linn County gamblers, yet they send little or no revenue back to Linn County to support Linn County non-profit groups, Cedar Crossing Casino backers like Oleson have said.

Heritage Area Agency's Wensel said the non-profit organization Horizons in Cedar Rapids is the meals provider at the five congregate sites that will be closed after April 30.

She said Heritage was forced to cut its allocation to Horizons by 5 percent in the fiscal year that ends June 30, 2014. As a result, Horizons will receive $798,575 for 185,715 meals instead of $840,607 for 195,490 meals. In the fiscal year that begins July 1, Horizons had sought $925,561 for 202,667 meals, but Heritage will provide $718,717 for 167,144 meals, Wensel said.