Former Colorado Senator and Gilpin County Commissioner Jeanne Nicholson is still working on projects for Gilpin County. She is working on a health clinic, senior housing and a better way to pay for health care.

Nicholson served on the Gilpin County Commission from 2003 to 2011 and in the Colorado State Senate from 2011 to 2015. Nicholson has been a full-time resident of the district for 43 years.

Nicholson told The Mountain-Ear: “I believe a civilized society provides certain services to all its residents. including a public library, a public education system, secure elections, safe, stimulating and reliable child care, health care, a recreation area preferably with a swimming pool, and specific services for senior citizens including safe, affordable housing.

“We are fortunate to have all of those things in our community except senior safe affordable housing and primary health care. Fortunately, sometime this summer, we will have primary health care all residents can access regardless of their insurance status.”

Nicholson said Clinica Family Health plans to open a clinic in Gilpin County in early July. The County received funds from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), which will help Clinica get started in our community.

Nicholson was one of two local advocates who put together a team of local leaders to do a complete assessment for access to health care and the desire to have a clinic. She and Claudia Schauffler interviewed about 40 people for the assessment, which indicated a clinic was needed. One office will be in Nederland and one in mid-Gilpin County.

They tried to find good locations where they could house clinics and settled on NedHub in Nederland and the Professional Building on Highway 46 in Gilpin County. “It’s important to have that service in the community,” Nicholson said.

Clinica Family Health is a community health center, a medical safety net for those who otherwise might fall through the cracks of the American Health care system. For more than 40 years, Clinica has existed to provide health care to the individuals and families in our community at a price they can afford. To find out more go to https://www.clinica.org/.

Nicholson said we still don’t have affordable, safe senior housing. “I think we should provide one-level homes for our senior citizens that they can rent for an amount based on their individual income. I think it should be next to the Gilpin County Community Center so that can walk to the community center for congregate meals, walk the inside track and the outside trail, play pickleball, go swimming or any other activity the community center has to offer.”

Staying socially connected is especially important for seniors because they often are less mobile and have difficulty staying in touch with their friends and family, which can lead to depression. Having 16 small homes on the Justice Center campus would make it possible for seniors to live in our community much longer.

Some of our seniors live in old Victorian homes in Central City and Black Hawk with the bathroom upstairs and the kitchen downstairs. If they can’t climb the stairs safely anymore, they are not in a safe environment. The same can be true of our seniors who live in homes spread out in the county where the home was built on two or three levels to capture the mountain view.

Now those stairs to get from one level to another become a safety hazard. Many of our seniors leave Gilpin County because they can’t stay in the home they have been living in and they can’t find a suitable alternative here in the county.

“We could change that. It would be more affordable if the county would set aside five acres of land the County already owns, so we would only need to raise money for the construction of the new homes and hook up to existing sewer and water lines that already exist on the Justice Center campus.

The Gilpin County Senior living Organization is a 501(c)3 organization with a local community board. Nicholson has been vice chair of the board for about five years. “We are very close to getting a land lease signed with the County so we don’t have to buy land.”

They plan on building eight residences of four duplexes that will be compatible with the neighborhood, and seniors could walk to the Community Center. “We have a senior van through Senior Services to take seniors to the store and doctor appointments for those 60 years or older, so they don’t need a car.”

Seniors also can have meals delivered. Any senior citizen, no matter their income level, race or religion is welcome. They don’t want to turn anyone away. Some can pay the full rent, over $1,000 a month or only pay 30 percent of their income.

At some point, they plan to build four more duplexes with one as a manager’s residence to have someone living on site. The organization hired a company and did an assessment, which said there is a need for this kind of housing.

They did a market study two years ago that said it would be a viable operation. They hope to hook up to an existing well and get permission from the Black Hawk Central City Sanitation district for sewer services. They hope the lease will come before the County Commission, late July.

“I hope the county commissioners will sign a lease with Gilpin County Senior Living very soon so we can secure the land. I also hope we can get state grants to pay for water rights and construction along with the money the Gilpin County Senior Living group has already raised,” Nicholson said.

Nicholson also is working on accessible health care for everyone in the state, but she has encountered so much resistance to changing the way we pay for health care. Americans pay twice as much than other countries, and people can’t afford health care.

Nicholson is working with a group of people to figure out how we might achieve that. They are starting at the state level in states more supportive of changing such as Colorado, California, Vermont, Washington State and Oregon.

That’s how they did it in Canada, province by province. “We need to learn from Canada,” Nicholson said.

According to her website, while in the Senate, she sponsored and passed 18 bills during the 2011 legislative session, 15 bills in 2012, 16 bills in 2013 and 19 bills in 2014. She has served on several committees including Local Government, Appropriations, Education, Legislative Council, Health and Human Services and Judiciary, according to her website.

Nicholson has been a two-time Florence Nightingale finalist and received the Children’s Champion Award in 2009 for her work in promoting the importance of early childhood development. Among her accomplishments as a County Commissioner, Nicholson provided the political leadership to build a “green” Road and Bridge building in Gilpin County. Heated with wood chips, the building saves money on utilities, reduces the county’s carbon footprint and provides jobs for local loggers.

A former public health nurse, Nicholson also spearheaded efforts to provide a childcare center and after school program. She supported an expanded recycling program to include recycling of hazardous waste materials. She initiated a property tax work-off program for senior citizens and disabled citizens

Nicholson served on Colorado Counties, Inc. (CCI) Board of Directors and the Colorado Child Welfare Allocation Committee. She served as the chair of the Health and Human Services Steering committee for CCI and chaired the Colorado Commission on Family Medicine. She was named Colorado Commissioner of the Year in 2005.

For more information about Jeanne Nicholson, go to http://www.senatorjeannenicholson.com/bio/.