ITHACA, NY (CortacaToday) — Starting downtown on Quarry Street, Longview has come a long way since its humble beginnings.

Celebrating their 50th anniversary of serving the community, Longview started out as a licensed adult home. Outgrowing its starting point downtown, the current location was built for Longview to have a designated space and be able to expand. They bought the land their current location is on from Ithaca College for one dollar, under the premise that they wouldn’t change their priorities.

“Offering different types of senior living care based on what’s needed for the people who live here has always been our overarching goal, and we have only been able to adapt more as the years have gone on. We want to make sure that those who can no longer live on their own have opportunities to live comfortably. We’re a nonprofit, so any money that we get goes right back into the organization and isn’t spread across different facilities, which helps us really prioritize putting funding into making necessary upgrades for our members,” says Longview Director of Marketing and Sales Kim Owen.

Longview offers independent living, assisted living, and short-term stay options, as well as various living spaces including apartments, patio homes, and assisted studio living. Keeping up with what is most suitable for those in need of senior living care has been top priority for them, making upgrades such as adding washers and dryers to apartments, updating appliances, renovating common spaces, and more.

Additionally, they try to make their services as accessible as possible with programs that accommodate different levels of income. Offering different rates for those whose only form of income is social security and also providing a moderate-income program that reduces rates for assisted living based on the person’s income, Longview aims to help anyone they can.

As far as the partnership with Ithaca College, it came to be after a professor at the school was researching the phenomena of bringing younger students and older people together and how the intermingling proves to be beneficial for both age groups. From there, Ithaca College dedicated a classroom specifically to the Longview/Ithaca College program. Over the twenty-five years the partnership has been alive, it has seen tremendous growth.

“Members of Longview can go to IC and take classes as a student for no charge and can use the resources there. As far as IC students coming here, the program has grown to over 700 students annually that come to the Center for Life Skills a couple times a week. Speech language pathology, occupational therapy, and physical therapy students get to come here and interact with Longview members and get real-life experience with people who are recovering from a stroke for example. It gives a different perspective to both sides and lots of students and Longview members stay in contact even after they’re done at school,” says Director of Recreation and Community Partnerships Bree Nash.

In talks with the music school at IC to hold pre-concert rehearsals at Longview, the partnership continues to flourish and see expansion. Hoping to spur interaction between Longview and all five schools at IC is a goal that Nash would like to see come to fruition.

“We’d like to connect everyone at IC with Longview as much as possible and make sure that everyone is aware of the partnership and the positive impact it has and can have in the future for both IC students and members of Longview,” Nash says.

Holding a celebration on October 25th from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. at Longview, there will be guest speakers from Longview and Ithaca College alike. To learn more about the event, visit Ithaca College’s website here. For more information about Longview, be sure to visit their website here.