Parties say they’re pursuing a senior center solution

The Clayton Center for Active Aging makes its home in a building on the grounds of a senior housing complex on Dairy Road.

Community & Senior Services of Johnston County, a nonprofit, operates the housing complex. So the senior center “has only been our responsibility,” said Josh Jensen, the agency’s director.

CSS operates the Clayton senior center and the handful of others in Johnston County, using money that comes mostly from the federal government, Jensen noted.

“It is funded federally,” he said of the Clayton senior center. “So the only local money going towards its operation is a portion of the match the county provides for all our senior services,” he explained.

The space worked fine until Clayton’s population began to boom and an influx of seniors found the center, Jensen said. “There has been a major increase in attendance in the past few years, which has put this issue on the radar of the both the town and county,” he said, referring to the need for a new, larger space.

Jensen put growth in Clayton’s senior center attendance in perspective. “All of our centers have kiosks where people sign in when attending,” he said. “In January of 2022, we had just under 400 check-ins in Clayton. In January of 2024, it was nearly 1,600, and in April of this year, we had 1,800.”

Other senior centers in Johnston have fewer participants but more space, Jensen said. “It is by far our most attended center but has the smallest space,’ he said.

Federal rules require a minimum square footage for senior centers; the Clayton space falls short.

“We have been operating under a waiver,” Jensen said.

Community & Senior Services is working with the county and town on a solution, he said. “The biggest impediment is the purchase of a building large enough to meet the demand and the cost of the utilities to operate it,” he added.

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