A bill created in the wake of some 100 elderly Grand Army Plaza area residents being threatened with eviction after their building went into contract for sale, was approved by the Assembly’s Aging Committee yesterday.
The measure would create a temporary state commission to study the effects of closures of long-term care facilities on residents and their families. No long-term care facility would be able to close, convert to any other use, or reduce staffing levels until one year after the Commission reports its findings and issues recommendations.
Boerum Hill Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon was the prime sponsor of the legislation, and Sheepshead Bay Assemblyman Steve Cymbrowitz, who chairs the Aging Committee co-sponsored it.
If passed, the measure would help avoid the kind of situation that occurred at the Prospect Park Residence when operator Haysha Deitsch announced plans to sell the assisted living facility in January 2014 and gave residents 90 days to relocate.
Families hired lawyers and the sale eventually fell through, but most of the 122 residents ended up leaving reluctantly as living conditions deteriorated. Last week a judge appointed a temporary receiver to run the facility and bring it up to snuff.
“What’s critical here is that the state law didn’t require notice,” said Simon. “With more and more people aging in our society and in Brooklyn, we need more long-term care options and not less. This is a critical time for state to actually look into what are the consequences. What do policy and lawmakers need to know to address these types of situations so these type of nightmares don’t happen.”
Cymbrowitz met with about 10 of the Prospect Park Residence families in his district office this past winter to discuss their ongoing battle. Several of the family members indicated that Assemblywoman Simon’s legislation was important to prevent a similar nightmare from happening to other seniors and loved ones in the future.
“When long term care facilities close, they place a burden on the residents and their families to find a comparable placement at another facility,” said Cymbrowitz. “Seniors who have been living in these facilities for years, especially those who have Alzheimer’s or dementia, can be severely stressed and negatively affected by such an uprooting of their life without adequate time to transition.”
Simon said she was unsure what kind of support the measure would get on the senate side, but called the bill a common sense bipartisan that deals with our naturally aging society.
“We all have parents and people get old no matter what their Party affiliation,” Simon said.
