Families who have loved ones in a Lower East Side nursing home are scrambling to find them new homes as the facility they currently live in has announced it’s shutting down. Gus Rosendale reports.
The Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation on the Lower East Side will be closing after more than 20 years in operation, the center announced Friday.
In a statement, the nursing home leaders said they "deeply regret that after nearly 20 years serving this community, we must close our doors."
The building is reported to have been sold to a real estate developer for $20 million.
The organization said it is "committed" to relocating 240 residents and transitioning its 290 employees.
Family members of residents found out this week that they would have to make other arrangements once the East Fifth Street home closes, likely in July. The Cabrini Center has another nursing home facility in Westchester.
"My mother is in a wheelchair," said Malanke Savanovic, of Bayside, Queens. "We don't know where to put her."
Joe Torre, who lives nearby in Gramercy, makes daily visits to his mom in the nearby home and now fears he'll have to move her to another borough, further away.
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"You need to be in there to see the love in there," he said.
On its website, the organization said it is "proud to continue the legacy" of the organization's founder, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, who founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Italy. Cabrini traveled to New York with other religious sisters in 1889 to work with the many Italian immigrants on the Lower East Side.
Elizabeth Herring, who lives nearby and whose father lives in the home -- and has spent his whole life on the Lower East Side -- vowed to fight the sale of the building.
"This is not over by a long shot, and we are in it for the long haul," she said.
