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The Somerville Home has been serving the needs of area seniors for 120 years.
The Somerville Home, a licensed residential care facility for senior citizens, today announced the difficult decision to discontinue operations and close the building by the end of the year. The decision to close is voluntary and due to financial reasons.
The Somerville Home, a private, nonprofit organization incorporated in 1898, operates a 59-bed Level IV rest home located at 117 Summer St. in Somerville. The current building was constructed in 1927. There are 46 residents currently in the facility and most have their care paid for by the state.
“The state’s rate of reimbursement, which is far below the cost of delivering care, has led the Board of Directors to conclude that the rest home model is no longer financially sustainable for this organization,” said Edwin Smith, Chairman of the Somerville Home’s Board of Directors. “After such a long history serving the community, we are deeply saddened to have reached this juncture. We are in the process of finding new homes for our residents and, working in close collaboration with families and the community, we are committed to ensuring a smooth transition for all.”
The Somerville Home has filed a notice of intent to close with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, proposing to close by Dec. 31, 2018. A public hearing on the closure, as required by DPH regulations, is expected to be held at least 90 days prior to the proposed closure date.
“We will ensure that all of our residents have found an appropriate place and are successfully transitioned before we close,” said Kelley Sferrazza, Executive Director of The Somerville Home
The 26 employees of the Somerville Home will receive assistance in transitioning to new jobs. The Board of Directors is currently exploring options for the future use of the building that will be beneficial to the community and is committed to working closely with neighbors and city officials.
For 120 years, the Somerville Home has provided residential services to the elderly and individuals with disabilities. Each resident receives a private bedroom, three meals a day, personalized housekeeping and 24-hour supervision.
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In the late 80’s, early 90’s my father, Sam Grunko, was a resident there. He had suffered a stroke that left him with limited speech. He spend his last five years there, just around the corner from his family. It is a fine place. Too bad it is closing.
So many units…a developer somewhere just fainted after reading this.
Sadly at a time when we need it even more than ever before.
Is there any plan to try and raise funds/funding to keep it open or have another non-profit run it with increased state resources from DMH/DPH, etc.?
This facility has provided excellent home-like care for 120 years. To
let this fall into the hands of a private developer and become expensive housing would be a huge failure of civic responsibility.
You know City Hall is just salivating at the chance to finally demolish this property and cram as many luxury condos onto the parcel as will fit . .
It’s just disgusting that our government officials in this city allow this kind of thing to happen, while at the same time allowing developers to come in and continue to spread over this city like those invasive weeds we are told to get rid of.
Is this “progress,” closing down much-needed places for seniors to live out their lives, while creating more spaces for younger people who have more financial resources to come in? No doubt the Somerville Home will be converted into yet more apartments that we don’t need.
Somerville is just as much about its senior community as it is its youth. Everyone will follow this same road throughout their lifetime. It’s disheartening to think that those who live in this city today as young people will most likely have to move out of Somerville at some point, even if they do want to stay here, which many don’t.
It’s the seniors of Somerville who made this City what it was, and could continue to be, were it not for greedy developers and officials who place making money over caring for those that have served as the City’s foundation.
If we can be a Sanctuary city to immigrants, why can’t we be one to our seniors, too?
Linda, looking around Somerville has always lagged behind other places for helping the homeless which include seniors which has increased over the years. Never mind others. We have kids going to school here who are homeless. I had hoped they would have put the Powder House school to use for this. This is probably going to be another missed opportunity to do what is right.I am living here with 4 houses side by side all of us seniors and less able bodied and all of us are looking for where to move to where we can get around and have access to things. Taking this place away is just another nail in the coffin.
Why can’t anyone match the Tufts’ shortfall of PILOT payments with in-kind services to residents of the Somerville Home and save both sides lots of cash, benefiting both seniors and caregiving, credit earning, co-resident students? Harvard Innovation Labs has NeighborGOOD which trains caregivers, and would lust after some housing options for it’s best students; MIT has Nesterly, which places trained grad students to care for the same seniors now living at the HOME, in return for low rents. Stop ignoring the huge and immediate resources of our “community.”
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts spends 1.8 billion dollars a year on services and benefits to illegal immigrants.
Can’t we divert some of those funds to keep this facility open? THe residents and hard working employees at the Home deserve some financial aid.
A city that replaces park benches with flimsy chairs or benches split in half with an iron bar to ‘discourage’ homeless from sleeping there doesn’t care about anything but $$.
Steve, sorry, but lets get a fact check on those numbers. I assume your numbers come from the “FAIR” report, which was torn apart by think tanks across the political spectrum, the CATO institute went so far as to say: “The authors of the FAIR study concocted their own methodology that is uninfluenced by the vast empirical, theoretical, and peer-reviewed economics literature that estimates the fiscal cost of immigration.”
But lets focus back on the main topic.
The Somerville Home is a private organization run largely on state subsidy. If they want to sell, its up to them – If you want the city or the state to bail them out, just say so. I think we could use some of the CPA funds to support a historic building and affordable housing for seniors. Its a great opportunity for a public private partnership. The city could buy the land and the building, dedicate it to working with seniors of limited means and then contract the nursing services out to a 3rd party like the current owners.
There is plenty of opportunity for the city to work to improve the situation that this private organization got itself into. But let’s not forget who created the issue in the first place.