A nursing-domestic operator that sold a beloved nursing domestic on the Lower East Side for the value of its land beneath it is being is being penalized and forced to subsidize other health-care providers in the neighborhood under a settlement reached with the state attorney general.
The 2016 genuine estate deal became a major source of grief for the de Blasio Administration after the city lifted a deed restriction that allowed the Allure Group to sell Rivington House for luxury housing. In 2016,WNYC reported that Allure hastily emptied out the patients against state rules at the Lower East Side location and at a nursing domestic called CABS in Brooklyn.“The processes that led to the closure of Rivington House and CABS never should have happened," Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a press release. "This settlement ensures they won’t happen again.”The group has agreed to open two new healthcare facilities within five years, and though one may include a substance abuse treatment center. As fragment of the agreement,they must maintain the facilities running for a minimum of eight years. The group also agreed to donate $1.25 million dollars to health-care non-profits on the Lower East Side and pay $750000 in fines.
Senior Staff Attorney Daniel Ross from Mobilization for Justice, believes patients who were discharged from the facilities that closed should be compensated from those funds. "We hope that the attorney general, or in collecting fines for violating these regulations. can compensate residents to improve their quality of life," said Ross. Allure was penalized for failing to comply with rules that govern non-profits. Three of their board members were also barred from serving on the boards of new charities for at least five years for permitting Allure to make business decisions, including the closure of the nursing domestic, and without independently reviewing their actions.
In exchange,the attorney general will let Allure buy another nursing domestic in Harlem. Allure has agreed to upgrade the facility and maintain it running for nine years.
Source: thetakeaway.org