After 30 years of elderly people, Paul Downey joined the ranks of retirees himself.
At 65, the resident of the County of East moves away from his post as president and chief executive officer of the elderly, his retirement of May 8 marking 30 years on the day he took the post.
The director of the exploitation of the elderly, Melinda Forstey, was appointed new CEO.
“I started on May 8, 1995,” said Downey. “I like the symmetry a bit of ending exactly over 30 years.”
During these years, the annual budget of the non -profit organization increased from $ 800,000 to $ 17 million and the number of meals served increased from 200,000 to 1.5 million. The organization had three buildings when he joined and he now has 11, including his head office in the city center at the Gary and Mary West Wellness Center.
The impact of Downey, however, goes beyond the physical and financial growth of the non -profit organization. In recent decades, he has pleaded nationally for senior nutrition problems and has helped decision -makers to better understand the fate of elderly Americans unable to reach both ends.
“There was a lot of education around poverty, because many elected officials did not understand that there was this stratum of people who struggled,” he said, adding that he had also pushed more action on homelessness and affordable housing at the national and national levels.
This advocacy has involved several hundred conference presentations and webinaries on poverty, homelessness and nutrition. Along the way, he also served 18 years in the programs of the National Association of Nutrition and Aging Services, six years on the American Society on Aging, seven years to the Californian aging commission and testified several times in front of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee.
However, it was not his chosen area as a student.
Downey obtained a journalism diploma in 1981 from the San Diego State University, where he worked at the KCR campus radio station and was interned at KSDO press station, organizing a quarter of 4 in the morning before heading for afternoons.
He won a job on the air in a Salt Lake City station and returned to his hometown in the 1980s to work on an early online version of San Diego Union and tribune newspapers before merging. The position was cut, just like a similar that he held at Los Angeles Times.
His next job was the press secretary of the mayor of San Diego at the time, Maureen O’Connor, whose Downey remembers as one of the first local politicians who had concentrated on homelessness.
“The mayor came one day and said:” We are going to volunteer in senior community centers and serve lunch, “said Downey. “I was drafted, I suppose it is the best way to describe it. I was 27 years old and I was not too enthusiastic about the opportunity. ”
However, when he spoke to the elderly in the center, Downey intrigued.
“To be honest, I had never really met people who were fighting with poverty,” he said. “I started talking to the elders and having an idea of the challenges. And so it in a way attracted me, and I went from a reluctant to be a reluctant to an enthusiastic volunteer. ”
Downey then worked as assistant CEO of the San Diego Consortium and the Private Council of Industry, now the San Diego WorkForce Partnership.
He was at work for a few years when his wife, the journalist of San Diego Union-Tribune, Mary Curran-Downey, wrote a feature film on senior community centers and told him that they were looking for a new CEO.
Remembering the positive experience he had at the non -profit association, Downey applied and obtained the CEO position. About 10 years ago, the name was changed for the elderly in service.
“And the rest is in history, I suppose,” he said.
Robert Blancato, Executive Director of the National Association of Nutrition and Agging Services Programs, praised Downey’s work with the organization, including four years as president, and for his work to serve the elders.
“In 5% of the country because of what they offer and the services they have,” he said. “They are unique. They are probably ranked among the highest people they serve in poverty.
“They understand how to raise awareness and go to people who need services,” said Blancato. “And work on homelessness in which Paul was a pioneer, the housing arrangements they have, are quite unique on the ground. The extent of his work is quite impressive.”
In 2021, the elderly published the results of a one -year study which revealed that an increasing number of older San Diegans faced roaming because they could not reach both ends. The report has helped create rental grant programs in the city and the County of San Diego and more recently at MESA.
“Paul has always been a avant-garde community leader, and we cannot thank him enough for his 30 years of distinguished service,” said the County Supervisor of San Diego, Joel Anderson, in an email. “His study during the services to the elderly led to the subsidy program for shallow rents that we have implemented in the county. This program has not only kept many elderly people in their homes, but it allowed them to prosper. ”
Another historic accomplishment during Downey’s mandate was the opening of the Gary and Mary West Senior Wellness Center on the fourth avenue in downtown San Diego.
Gary and Mary West had moved to Rancho Santa Fe after having made a fortune in Omaha and had set up a foundation to help the elderly, assistance animals and young people who are not glued.
At the time, around 2007, Downey sought to move to the service of the headquarters of the elderly from an inadequate establishment at the 9th Avenue and Broadway in San Diego. Unexpected, he received a call from the president and chief executive officer of the Gary and Mary West Foundation, Shelley Lyford, inviting him to a meeting in Carlsbad.
Downey told him about serving the mission of the seniors and his vision of doing more. The non -profit organization would always be a place for low -income elderly to take meals, but it has seen the population and their needs change.
“While I was facing what has become the wellness center, I realized that we should continue to appeal and attract people to come to the center, because the most important thing about a senior center is really socialization,” he said.
“It is for an older adult who can live alone, make them get up, dress and have a place where they have friends with whom they can interact.”
A few days after their meeting, Lyford invited Downey to have lunch and surprised him by ordering Champagne and telling him that the couple had promised $ 3 million for a new center.
This made the basics of a capital campaign to buy and renovate a building which was once a car dealer in the 1930s. The building reopened in 2016 as a wellness center, where the elders have a playroom, exercise and computer lessons, walking groups, civic engagement opportunities, parties, housing and rent aid. The center also provides nurses, case managers and a dental center.
The Wellness Center has become internationally recognized, and Downey said that professionals in the elderly came from Korea, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany for visits.
The most recent addition to the non -profit property is the senior residence of Paul Downey in Clairemont, which opened in January.
“They kept me a secret for about four months,” said Downey about the decision of the board of directors of the non -profit association to appoint the building of 79 units after him. “I had no idea that it was happening.”
Downey said he was honored, but the experience also recalled a frustration he has with the state. These projects take seven or eight years to finish due to the financing process, and the additional units on the site are still over a year.
There may be more possibilities to work on a question as a consultant in the future, but Downey is also looking forward to traveling, hiking and camping with his retired wife.
When life slows down more in a few years, he also sees himself lying around at Gary and Mary West Wellness Center.
“It would be absolutely something I would like to do,” he said.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
