PACE Center in Grants Pass, with services for seniors, will close at the end of the year

PACE Center in Grants Pass, with services for seniors, will close at the end of the year 
Jefferson Public Radio, Ashland, OR; by Jane Vaughan; 11/12/24 
PACE stands for Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly and is part of a national program. It provides medical services, socialization activities, home care and other resources to low-income adults aged 55 and over in Southern Oregon. The Grants Pass location opened in 2020. Josh Balloch, vice president of AllCare Health, which administers the PACE program, said that opening as the COVID pandemic began was one of the problems the program faced. "With the COVID pandemic happening at the start of our program, along with increase in provider costs and the dropping of the number of providers all across the entire country, it just made it very, very difficult to have a small program based in Grants Pass pencil out financially," he said. He said the program also struggled to recruit and retain service providers and suffered a lack of awareness about its existence.