Sale of assisted living home sends families scrambling to find care
Joyce Gantt, 82, had been living at the Landing of Silver Spring for 13 days when management called a meeting to tell residents the assisted-living and memory-care facility would close in 45 days.
Her family had worked hard to ensure the Landing would be a good fit for Gantt, paid the $3,000 community fee and rent through October, and spent thousands of dollars on moving fees to get her settled in what they thought would be her home for the rest of her life, until the news Monday, said her son, Derrick Gantt-Bey.
“Why would they have us go through that entire process if they knew they were in the process of closing?” Gantt-Bey said in an interview just days after the owners told his mother and the 52 other residents at the facility they had to be out by Nov. 15.
As families scrambled to find new care, Montgomery County officials took issue with the state law setting a minimum notice of 45 days, saying demographic shifts are expected to strain a system that already struggles to keep pace with demand, across the nation and in the county, where the number of people over 65 is projected to grow to nearly 250,000 by 2040, more than double the size of that age group in 2010.
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“This company has no need to give them a 45-day notice to evict. This is all about their bottom dollar,” said Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich (D), who along with council member Kristin Mink (D-District 5) voiced support for changing Maryland law to provide seniors and their families more notice when a long-term care facility closes.
Leisure Care, the management company that operates the Landing, informed residents in a letter first reported by WUSA9. That letter directed families to a password-protected website for resources to help with relocation, but the password does not work.
Omega Healthcare Investors and CommuniCare Health Services bought the property from Columbia Wegman Acquisition and is planning to spend the next year turning the property into a skilled nursing facility that will take care of patients with complicated medical needs, according to the letter.
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Michael Juno, vice president of operations for Leisure Care, said in an email that the building owner decided to sell “after several years of not sustaining financial stability.” He said the company informed residents about the closure “as soon as legally allowed,” which coincided with the mandated 45 days, but did not explain what law prevented more advance notice to the seniors.
“We understand that this leaves a short time frame for residents and families to make important decisions,” Juno said. A spokesman for the new building owners reiterated in a statement that residents were notified of the closure in compliance with state law. “The law is not sufficient,” said D. Michael Bennett, whose mother has lived at the Landing since May. “This is the most vulnerable population in our society.”
Elrich said that the county will work with the state to provide some resources to support relocation, but that it does not directly provide housing or services needed by the 53 individuals coming from the Landing. Mink, who represents the district where the Landing is located, said county data shows it has 3,236 beds in large assisted-living facilities that offer memory care, but the number of available beds is not tracked.
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Mink said she spoke to the general manager of the Landing, who works directly with residents, and confirmed that efforts were underway to connect the residents with new spaces at similar facilities in and around Montgomery County. “The primary task here is ensuring continuity of care for the residents,” she said.
The county provides some services for seniors through the long-term care ombudsman program, where staff and volunteers address concerns and complaints from residents of long-term care facilities and their families. While the agency cannot place residents in new facilities, county spokeswoman Mary Anderson said the ombudsman program can aid them in finding options for new living arrangements and can respond to concerns about their treatment that may crop up in the weeks before the Landing closes.
By Thursday, Juno said that about one-quarter of residents had found new living arrangements and that the company was working with the Montgomery County ombudsman and connecting with each resident and family “on a daily basis.”
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But some residents said the efforts from Leisure Care to help them find new places to live has been lacking. “This is a disaster,” Bennett said as he sat with his 93-year-old mother, Johnnie Bennett Evans, outside the Landing on Thursday. “There was no plan. They called us into a meeting and had no answers to any questions.”
Bennett said he left multiple messages with the ombudsman but has not yet heard back. He also said Leisure Care had not provided resources to help him find a new home for his mother, except for a list of moving companies for hire. He worries about the quality of care declining as staff facing unemployment in November leave for new jobs, so he wants to move his mother to a new facility as swiftly as possible.
At least three representatives from other assisted-living communities came by to pass out fliers advertising their facilities as Bennett sat outside with his mother, who said she was still reeling from the announcement. Residents had formed walking groups, took rides around town, played games like bingo and regularly attended events put on by the staff, she said, crediting them for doing whatever they could to make residents happy. “I feel real bad because I like the place a lot,” she said.
This article was updated to indicate that Montgomery County can help residents of long-term care facilities find new living arrangements.
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