Buying A Special Care Home Made It Easier For This Couple To Move Home From B.C.
SACKVILLE – When Julie and Greg Steeves were planning to move back to New Brunswick after years living in Surrey, B.C., to be closer to family, they wanted to be sure they could continue working in their respective fields.
“Because of my parents, with their different health issues, we thought we should come back,” said Greg, a Moncton native.
While Greg, an electronics engineering technologist, can continue working for the same company remotely, Julie would have had to look for something in the care space. Luckily, an opportunity came up for them to run their own special care home, with the help of Greg’s mother Brenda.
They bought Cedarwood Lodge in Sackville from its previous owner, and have been operating it since August 2019. Greg said although there were “tons and tons of requirements and paperwork to get through” for an operation like this, it helped that property prices are lower in New Brunswick compared to B.C.
Julie says that the opportunity to buy an existing business also made their move easier. And it helps that there’s a house on the property where Brenda lives, so they can be close to her.
“It’s nice for [Greg] to come back again,” she said. “But while we were in B.C., I said, I don’t want to quit working. So we looked into opportunties like this while we’re there and we found this place, it was for sale, we looked into it and we ended up here.”
“It’s easier, definitely, because I need that income for myself. It definitely made it easier for us to move here,” she said.
Buying an existing care home means the property already meets government requirements for health and safety, though the Steeves also made some upgrades.
“Everything was already here, so it’s not building from day one to start something. It was kind of like, walk in, take over, and obviously, there’s a lot of things that aren’t the way we like them, so we were spending a lot to just do upgrades,” Greg said.
Cedarwood Lodge is a 10-bed level 1 and 2 facility for adults with special needs, mental health issues, and the elderly. It currently serves six residents but Greg has been getting calls from interested patrons and hopes to fill the rest of the beds by the end of April if all the requirements are fulfilled smoothly.
The Steeves, including Brenda, and one staff member cook, clean, administer care and medication, take residents to their medical appointments and more.
“I guess it comes down to, we can be also their moral support, we talk to them about a lot of things,” Julie said. “At the end of the day, it’s almost like we’re now a big family because…if they have problems, they come to us, or anything that’s going on with them, they share with us.”
Care work has been something close to the Steeves’ heart for a while.
Brenda owned and operated a care home in P.E.I. in the 1990s, with 24 residents, and Julie has worked in hospitals and care home facilities for many years.
Julie, a former stockbroker, entered the care field shortly after she moved to Canada, where she and Greg decided to live after getting married in her native Indonesia.
While looking for work in Canada, she took a care aide course and started a job in that field. She became passionate about it and comfortable with doing the work after years of experience. At Cedarwood Lodge, she gets to share some of her home-made cooking with residents as well.
“People are glad to have us helping them here. We’ve been able to help them in a lot of ways just from experience and just caring, you know?” Greg said. “Because of that, we’ve received in the last couple of weeks, several phone calls from people that want to move into the place.”
With new rules to follow due to COVID-19, restrictions have been implemented for visitations. Some potential new residents have also chosen to postpone their move into the home. But in the meantime, Julie says renovations and upgrades are being done.