Purpose Prize winner Conchy Bretos opens doors for disadvantaged adults
By Michele Harris
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE
The Purpose Prize recognizes the achievements of older social innovators who are taking on some of society’s greatest problems. In 2006, five winners won grants of $100,000 each to further the good work they have already begun. This is the fourth article in a series about The Purpose Prize and its awardees.
A little help
Sometimes all you need is a little help. For many low-income adults, a little help is not an option.
When their health requires even a minimal amount of daily care, many who rely on government aid can’t afford the move to an assisted living facility or the expense of in-home care. Without options, thousands end up prematurely entering a nursing facility.
Expanding the options available to low-income adults in need of care has been the mission of one Miami woman, Conchy Bretos. Bretos was the guiding force behind the Helen Sawyer Plaza in Miami, the nation’s first publicly funded assisted living facility.
For that and her ongoing passion to make care options available to all, Bretos won a 2006 Purpose Prize and with it, a $100,000 grant to further her good work.
Not even the basic services
As Assistant Secretary for Aging and Adult Affairs for the state of Florida in the early 1980s, Bretos found that many older adults living in public housing were not getting some of the basic services they needed. They weren’t sick enough to need the kind of around-the-clock care a nursing facility provides, and they were unwilling to leave the place they called home. Bretos says, “I started to think that it would be so wonderful to bring services to the place where they live.”
After leaving her government post, Bretos took on the challenge of establishing a place to call home for disadvantaged adults in need of care. “I went to the housing authority in Miami to ask if there was a building they were going to sell or give away. I wanted that building,” Bretos says.