ML Senior Living Community opens its doors

Ecstatic directors make announcement after long wait

It's amazing the difference a week makes.

Last week, the Moses Lake Senior Living Community was still waiting for licensing in order to open its doors.

But administrator Stacey Gurley found out on Friday that the center, located at 8425 Aspi Boulevard NE, would be licensed, and the center's first resident moved in Monday afternoon, the day the center officially open.

"Wonderful … we are just ecstatic," Gurley said when asked how she feels about opening. "With moving in, we are able to accept private pay or private insurance right now. Our Medicaid contract is still pending. We should have that in hand in about seven to 10 days, and then we will be able to accept Medicaid."

Other residents are having to give notice at the places they were living at, Gurley said.

People interested in moving in should call the community at 762-9115 to set up an assessment, Gurley said. They can come in, take a tour or reserve a room.

Community staff started back at work on Monday and, as previously reported, the center is still working on setting up some outdoors games, a booth for the fair and preparations for an open house at the end of the month, she said.

"It's great," said community relations coordinator Renee Pryor. "Everybody's really excited about us opening. We were on the phone all day Friday afternoon, calling everybody, letting them know that we were open. People that had said, 'Please call us as soon as you open.'"

A good number of people were at an ice cream social Friday, so they were the first people to find out, Pryor said.

Billie Jean Haley, a long time resident of the area — she and her husband opened Haley's Office Supply in Ephrata in 1952 and in Moses Lake in 1967, selling it in 1980 and retiring in 1982 — was the first person to move into the community center.

"It feels wonderful; I've waited so long to get here," she said, noting that she had been admitted to McKay Healthcare in the wake of a fall during a windstorm. "It's been a joy to come here because I have progressed from needing a lot more care … I'm more independent now, and so it means a lot to me to have my own things here."

Haley's son Jim was still placing different items up in her room Monday afternoon. He said he took something from every room and every wall from Haley's home in Ephrata to bring into her new apartment so that it would be "her big house in miniature."

Jim Haley said that the community had its first open house June 21, 2003, at which his mother was in attendance.

"Since the time she first saw this place and made a decision that she wanted to reserve a room here, it's been 14 months," he said. "Janea Holmquist, our state representative, who just happens to be my next door neighbor, she personally made all kinds of phone calls and got the ball rolling or it may have never opened yet."