Seniors Doubtful About Plans To Move Senior Center To Oak Lawn Library

OAK LAWN, IL — Seniors were less than thrilled with proposed plans unveiled at Tuesday’s village board meeting to move the senior center to a new facility inside the Oak Lawn Public Library. Dubbed the “Encore Center,” the village wants to create a better space for the village’s older residents to provide them with more leisure options, and to make better use of tax dollars currently being spent on senior programs.

“The library’s mission has changed over the past decade by the internet,” Mayor Terry Vorderer said. “We did some surveys on library attendance. It’s down substantially. If we bring seniors back to town by building a facility (in the library), we can accommodate seniors who live at 105th and Cook, and seniors who live at 87th and Harlem.”

The Oak Lawn Senior Center is currently housed in the former McGugan Junior High School at 5220 W. 105th Ave. Before, the senior center was in the center of town, but the village sold the property to Wintrust Bank in 2012, so the village could balance the municipal budget.

Seniors currently have use of the old grammar school’s gymnasium for exercise and monthly box lunches, and a few classrooms, one of which has been retrofitted with a stove and refrigerator. The room also stores mobility equipment, such as walkers, canes and wheelchairs, for any senior who may need them.

The village contracts with Genesis Therapy Center in Oak Forest, to facilitate Oak Lawn’s senior center and design programs for older adults. Seniors gather to watch movies, play bingo, make arts and crafts and other leisurely activities. The McGugan location is slated to close at the end of May, which means the senior center will be on the move again.

Seniors similarly blasted the plan to move the senior center to the library when it was presented to the Oak Lawn library board last month. There, library director Carol Williams stated that the library would most likely have to hire a staff member to run the senior program.

Carol Tuman, a 30-plus year resident of Oak Lawn, and active patron and volunteer of the Oak Lawn library, told village trustees not disrupt the library by trying to squeeze a senior center into it. She suggested moving the senior center to the Oak Lawn Park District’s Oak View Center.

“Our mayor told me he envisioned a state-of-the-art facility. The seniors do not want Mar-a-Lago,” Tuman said. “There are tables and chairs, heating in the winter, cooling in the summer. That is what is available at Oak View. It’s enough. The huge expense of remodeling the library is unnecessary, where there are already adequate facilities at Oak View.”

The senior center has an annual budget of $150,000, which includes rent, maintenance and supplies, with the bulk of the amount going to Genesis to run the senior program.

“Now you might argue it can’t always be about the money, but it is ironically, especially for our seniors,” Village Manager Tom Phelan said. “They don’t want to be taxed out of their homes. We found this isn’t a particularly good use of our money.”

Phelan added that recent studies taken during different parts of the day show that the Oak Lawn library is being underutilized, largely due to a society more prone to finding information on the internet and streaming media, than checking out books. According to Library Journal, the trend today is to repurpose libraries into spaces that connect people, information and ideas.

“Give it a chance, not only will you enjoy it more, more people will come,” Phelan said. “We think this blow anything out of the water the seniors have had, at least from our perspective, that we’ve provided in the last three to four decades. This is very preliminary.”

The proposed Encore Center calls for renovating the northwest corner of the library into a flexible 2,000- square-foot space with a glass partition, along with an additional 1,000 square feet to use outside the room for special events. The idea is for seniors to take advantage of the many programs offered by the library, such as art classes, computer basics classes, seminars, writer’s group, book discussions, authors, clubs and lectures. The architectural firm Gilfillan/Callahan is designing the space, which handled the library addition 20 years ago. The project will cost between $400,000 and $500,000.

Phelan also addressed $900,000 for the senior center promised by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in 2019, under the gambling expansion bill.

“We have not received a dollar from the state,” the village manager said. “This was a 2019 promise made by Gov. Pritzker. We’re not likely to see it for several years. Hopefully, we will see it in the next budget, but as with every budget, it often gets cut. “We’re committed to do this whether we get the money or not.”

After the meeting, patrons of the Oak Lawn Senior Center said they still were not happy with the plans.

“They did not talk about the washroom facilities,” Carol Cahill said. “Where are we going to put all our coats and boots and purses? They didn’t mention anything about that. There are a lot of things they missed.”

Ginger Morgan admitted to not liking the current location of the senior center at first. Once they realized McGugan was going to work out and that they might lose it, the seniors were perfectly happy to stay if the village would pay for it.

“The senior center is not just for information, it’s a place for relaxation, camaraderie and education,” Morgan said. “Is there a place where we can see a movie and turn up the volume so the hard-of-hearing can hear it in a library? It’s not the place for seniors to meet.”

“I’m just getting weary with it. They’re not listening,” she added. “They have their own plan, and we have no choice. The village doesn’t want to put out the money. Period. That’s what this is all about.”

Videos of the current senior center presented at the April 12, 2022 village board meeting.

"Wednesday is the day the Senior Center hosts the Mother McAuley Bridge Club and when the location is usually the most crowded, requiring two classrooms," according to the village.

This was taken on a Friday, sometime in February. "For the most part seniors enjoy playing games and watching movies," according to the village.