Residents of Ashbourne Assisted Living are in shock after learning the sale of the building means they will have to find a new home come November.
It’s been a difficult few days for Mary Lou Pura and her 98-year-old mother after learning this past week that the facility will be closing. The board of directors said Ashbourne has been struggling financially and it decided to sell the building.
It will be closing at the end of November as the new owner doesn’t want to operate the building as an assisted living facility, said Chris Bruce, Ashbourne board advisor.
The building started operating at 65 per cent capacity during COVID, Bruce explained, and the organization has been dealing with financial challenges related to building operations ever since.
He said the board reached out to the province for funding to no avail. It also tried partnering with other assisted living facilities but weren’t successful.
Pura is frustrated residents, family and staff weren’t informed about the sale earlier and that news residents were accepted into Ashbourne until very recently.
“There’s been residents that have come into this facility probably a week ago and now they have to move again,” she said.
Bruce said a confidentiality agreement prevented the board from disclosing the sale until it was finalized. New residents were being accepted because the plan was that the building would remain an assisted living residence after the sale, he added.
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“It was the intention and the plan, but that plan changed at the very last moment, in the last few weeks,” he said.
Pura worries about the impact the closure will have not just on her mother, but all 87 residents who call Ashbourne home.
“It’s very stressful and overwhelming for her,” she said of her mother. “She has to meet new people, she has to setup a new routine, she has to work with new caregivers. I’m just hoping that they’ll be able to find comparable facilities as well.”
A transition team is helping residents with the impending move.
“It’s not a mass exodus … we are treating people as individuals, looking at their various individual health needs, individual financial needs, and the board is really focused on using all the resources we have,” Bruce said.
— With files from Slav Kornik, Global News
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