By Paul Post
A $340,000 renovation is positioning Southern Adirondack Independent Living (SAIL) to better serve the more than 7,000 clients it serves each year.
Project highlights include a new roof; a re-milled, regraded and resurfaced parking lot and a totally revamped grand entryway at the non-profit agency’s building, at 71 Glenwood Avenue in Queensbury.
“We’re really working to make SAIL a regular household name that promotes inclusivity, belonging and welcomeness,” Executive Director Tyler Whitney said. “This brand new, nice looking, welcoming environment really lends itself to our spirit right now.”
During construction, scheduled for completion by late June, SAIL continues to serve people at Aviation Mall, in a temporary space adjacent to Auntie Anne’s.
Founded almost 40 years ago, SAIL’s mission is to help people live more independently, and demand has grown almost exponentially in recent years because Warren County has one of the state’s oldest populations age-wise.
“As people are aging, they have more temporary disabilities and are using our services a lot more,” Whitney said.
Equipment loans for things such as wheelchairs, crutches and walkers is one of SAIL’s most well-known and popular services, totally free to eligible clients. But it’s one of just 15 services the agency provides in a territory stretching from Columbia and Greene counties north to the Canadian border.
In addition to Queensbury, SAIL has satellite offices in Plattsburgh and at Wilton Mall. Other services run the gamut from health insurance to advocacy, education about disability and health-related topics, and helping families understand options to avoid long-term nursing home stays.
“As state and federal programs evolve, people need advice and counseling on how to move forward,” Whitney said. “Our goal is always to keep a person living safely and independently for as long as possible in their community. We give them all the tools and resources needed for them to make that choice.”
“We can help people enroll in any type of insurance in the New York State marketplace, and assist with Medicaid or Medicare issues,” Whitney said. “We also help people applying for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits and we can advise people who have Social Security questions such as, What will the impact be if I go back to work?”
SAIL continues to provide all of these things while operating out of Aviation Mall. The only thing it can’t do for now is take back equipment loans as sanitizing apparatus couldn’t be moved to the mall.
The agency provides more than 23,000 services annually because quite often, many of its 7,000 clients need more than one thing.
One of SAIL’s most unique aspects is that more than half its 40-person staff and board members have some type of disability themselves. So when clients need help, they’re assisted by someone who can genuinely empathize with their situation.
“Whenever you’re sitting with someone at the center, while they may not understand the exact challenges you face, they also understand what it means to be a person who has a disability,” Whitney said.
SAIL’s $3.1 million budget is comprised of state and federal funds and grants from private donations. The current renovation, by Argyle-based Hunt Companies, was made possible by a state grant dedicated specifically to capital improvements.
“We’ve been in our building since the late 1980s and we’ve never redone our roof or parking lot,” Whitney said. “We’ve had to piece together small fixes over the years. We saw this as a wonderful opportunity so we applied for a grant and were awarded it.”
“It couldn’t have come at a better time,” he said. “It’s an incredible opportunity for us to do things our center has really needed and focus on longevity. We hope to stay in the community as long as we can and provide these incredibly necessary services to people with disabilities in all the regions we serve.”