Problems continue for the Kalispell Senior Center, as the aging facility now has a new burden to contend with: The property next door is in a shambles.

The Kalispell Senior Center had rented the house for the better part of a decade to an elderly woman, but the center reclaimed responsibility for the residence a few months ago after she was evicted.

The long-neglected house has become a burden for the seniors next door.

“My honest opinion is just give it back to the county,” said Don Manning, a senior center member and the contractor providing estimates for the house. “There’s no way to fix it. My guess was $25,000 just to get it livable. I’d walk away from it.”

Earlier this month, the Kalispell Senior Center board took its members on a tour of the house, and the county-owned building left some of the seniors in shock. Several women covered their mouths and noses with sleeves or handkerchiefs to block out the creeping odor.

Nicotine has yellowed the walls and dust has settled in the nooks and crannies of the more-than-100-year-old house, and the center is out $700 a month in rent it was collecting.

The lost rent would be fine, said Jim Pearson, president of the Kalispell Senior Center board, but the costs of getting the house up to habitable conditions are prohibitive. The seniors have turned to the county for help.

Pearson wrote to the county commissioners in mid-June to ask officials to at least come look at the house that the county owns. There hasn’t been a written lease on the property since the last one expired in 1999, the letter says.

“As our county commissioners, you have set precedent by spending taxpayer money on repairing and renovating a rented building for the Agency on Aging,” the letter reads.  “Improving a building that the county does not own but refusing to address the numerous safety and accessibility issues in the county-owned Senior Center property baffles us.”  

Despite the muted reaction from the county on the buildings, some members of the senior board have faith positive things will happen.

“I know that you’ve given up on [the commissioners], but this is their property,” said Brenda Talbert, senior center board director. “It’s not our property. Is this really what we want to spend our savings on?”

The estimated $25,000 bill to renovate the house would exhaust the center’s savings, and Talbert, speaking for the board, was reluctant to do it.

“What if we fix it up and something happens over here?” she said.

The county has made no decision about relocating the senior center and the Agency on Aging, leaving the expensive project to relocate or renovate the difficult-to-access buildings (which the seniors lease for $1 a year from the county) in limbo.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.