Twelve Oaks has more than property value

Re: “Seniors told to move out of elder-care home,” Aug. 28. My mother has lived at Twelve Oaks Lodge for the past two years and I have visited her nearly every day during that time.

It is a really delightful place, and there are very few others that match it. It’s a shame that people who prefer the beauty of nature at a place such as this to the sanitized, homogenized indoor life in a large retirement community with hundreds of residents are being denied the lifestyle they have chosen due to corporate priorities.

The be.group spokesperson claimed that they have had to subsidize Twelve Oaks. It’s possible, however, that a more important consideration may be the several millions of dollars that the property can be sold for to a developer who will demolish it to build residential units in its place. I believe the subsidies they have put into it in some years have been relatively small and in other years it has run a surplus.

Twelve Oaks is a valuable asset that has been part of this community for almost 80 years and has been supported, for all of its long history by two community service organizations. It would be sad to see it lost forever simply because it does not fit in with the corporate priorities of its most recent owner.

I believe that, were it not for the considerable value of the land it sits on, and the profit to be gained by its sale — which could subsidize be.group’s other, larger communities — ways might be found to allow Twelve Oaks to continue serving the community as it has for many decades.

Donald MacDougall
Glendale