Home for Aging Starts Fund-Raising Drive

The Jewish Home for the Aging has launched a fund-raising campaign for a $7-million nursing facility that will replace one damaged by the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

Tenet HealthSystem, which operates Encino-Tarzana Regional Medical Center and North Hollywood Medical Center, has donated $200,000--the largest gift to date--toward the 116-bed facility that will house Alzheimer’s patients, said Michael Turner, spokesman for the home.

Demolition of the old Pavilion Building, a 60-bed facility, is expected to begin in July. Construction on the new building will start in January and is expected to be completed about a year later.

The new building will be named for Thelma Bauderdorf, a Valley resident who died recently and left 75% of her estate for the new building, Turner said.

Last year, officials determined the 40-year-old Pavilion building was unstable and moved 45 of the facility’s 60 patients to the North Hollywood Medical Center, Turner said.

The remaining patients were housed in vacant rooms at the Jewish Home for the Aging.