Monday, July 21, 2014

CITY-RUN RESIDENCES FOR SENIORS OR HANDICAPPED


THERE ARE FOUR, WITH THREE OTHERS NEARBY 
(AT RUE DU CHÂTEAU DES RENTIERS)



During the heat wave of 2020 the City distributed electric fans and bottles of water. During covid the caretaker disinfected floors and door handles three times a day and placed an antiseptic solution and paper towels in the entry. The City distributed masks with filters.  

Posters at the entry :

 
Accompaniment for seniors who fear withdrawing cash from ATM machines (the service is free and tips are forbidden) / Excursions outside Paris, the fee based on income.
  
Free activities for residents include workshops 
in crafts and writing, yoga, a chorale, theater and dance
and visits with a lecturer to the Musée d'Orsay.

# # #

The mayor comes for the Christmas apéritif. The caretaker is to his right. Members of his team surround them. 


Jérôme Coumet, the mayor, gave a short talk 
to tell residents what City Hall
had done in the past year and what it planned for the future.
He also gave everyone a box of excellent chocolats
and spoke personally to whoever came up to him.

The caretaker takes groceries up five flights of stairs for the elderly residents when the elevator is stalled and the muscular young men hired to help at certain hours are not present. 

When a person in the neighboring building committed suicide by throwing himself out of a window in sight of some of the residents, she had City Hall send two psychiatrists to meet with them. She thought particularly of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees, for whom the tragedy might evoke terrible memories. For those who did not speak French well, the psychiatrists proposed interpreters. 

"The residents are like my family,"
 she said with tears in her eyes 
when an aged man died.
 

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