West Mont opens assisted living home

Sixteen West Mont residents in Helena, Mont., are celebrating the new year by moving into new living quarters after the purchase of an assisted living home triggered a sequence of facility upgrades.

Hillside Group Home is West Mont’s twelfth residential home. The nonprofit, which has been providing services for individuals with disabilities in the Helena area since 1973, purchased the facility last year. Previously the location of Rosetta Assisted Living, the home has an open floor plan, a fenced and level backyard, and eight bedrooms, enabling its newest residents to enjoy rooms of their own.

West Mont purchased the building for $343,000 and then invested another $35,000 in upgrades, including the addition of a second fully accessible, ADA-compliant bathroom.

“We have $380,000 into it, and we couldn’t have even begun to build a facility for that, so we are very thankful,” said Kris Bakula, president of West Mont.

Four of Hillside’s residents moved from the Saddle Drive Group Home, which opened in 1992 and is half the size of the 3,428-sq.ft. Hillside. In addition to being West Mont’s smallest group home, this location also had a sloping backyard and narrow, difficult-to-manage bathrooms.

Hillside also became the new home for residents from West Mont’s Fern Drive Group Home in the Helena Valley which has just four bedrooms.

The other residents of Saddle Drive and Fern moved into West Mont’s Lewis and Clark Group Home (previously named the Dorothy House) which received its own facelift after its former residents moved into the Caldwell House last year.

With the changes, West Mont gained room for two additional clients, while vastly improving living conditions for sixteen individuals.

“Staff, clients and their families—everyone—is so excited,” Bakula said.West Mont plans to sell the Saddle Drive and Fern residences to help pay for Hillside.

Learn more at http://www.westmont.org/wp/.