[T]he state has taken over three homes for the elderly in Chittenden and Franklin counties after officials say the Texas-based owner failed to carry out basic business practices for months and in recent weeks failed to stock food.
The three residential care facilities, home to about 200 residents, form the Pillsbury Group Residential Care Homes and are owned by East Lake Capital Management, which is based in Dallas. Allenwood at Pillsbury and Pillsbury Manor South are located in South Burlington and Homestead at Pillsbury in St. Albans.
The Vermont Attorney General’s Office and the Vermont Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living announced Friday that they had obtained a court order putting a receiver in charge of managing the facilities after receiving complaints from staff, residents and their family members about inadequate staffing levels, the company not cashing checks, and food scarcity.
DAIL, which regulates the state’s nursing homes, began receiving complaints about the company not cashing checks between two and three months ago, according to Clayton Clark, the director of the department’s division of licensing and protection.
The department cited the company for its business practices in September, but in more recent weeks, it began hearing about food insecurity at the facility. Clark said staff started paying for food for residents out of their own pockets.
“Anecdotally we have heard from staff that when food would become scarce that they would go to Costco and purchase food to make sure that the residents had the basic necessities,” Clark said.
The lack of food is what ultimately led the state to intervene, officials said. “If there was food insecurity 3 months ago, we would have acted 3 months ago,” Clark said.
Residents never went hungry, according to Charity Clark, Attorney General TJ Donovan’s chief of staff, but the facilities’ long-term food supplies were dwindling.
East Lake Capital Management bought the three nursing homes in February of last year. Charity Clark said the Attorney General’s Office began receiving complaints about the company’s business practices, including its failure to return deposits to customers, between March and May of this year.
ELCM is registered with the Secretary of State, but hasn’t filed a report on its activities in Vermont since February. Its next filing deadline is January. The company’s listed address in Vermont is in Barre, at the office of Martin & Delaney Law Group.
Andrew Delaney, a partner at the firm, said they were contracted by CSC, a national corporate services company, to receive and relay service if ELCM is sued, but that was the extent of their relationship. The number listed for ELCM on its website did not allow incoming calls. The company does not appear to have any other Vermont footprint.
The Washington County Superior Court granted the state’s request to place a temporary receiver in charge of the facilities on Wednesday.
The court appointed Douglas Wolinsky, an attorney with experience in estate management to “stabilize the business practices at all three homes and limit interruptions to residents and their families,” the AG’s office said in a press release.
During a hearing next week the state will argue to appoint a permanent receiver in charge of the nursing homes.
The licensing division at the Department of Disabilities, Aging, and Independent Living has conducted a number of investigations into Pillsbury facilities that found various violations this year alone.
During an unannounced visit to the Allenwood facility in June, a DAIL investigator found the residential care home had admitted a patient that needed a level of care the facility wasn’t licensed to provide, that food was inappropriately labeled, stored, and in some cases past-due.
DAIL returned to Allenwood for unannounced visit in August and found that one resident was billed for a much more intensive level of care than was necessary.
Employees also failed to intervene after a patient went 10 days without a bowel movement – until the DAIL investigator pointed out the problem. And the state also found problems with inadequate staffing, with schedules revealing there hadn’t been a nurse on duty at all on one day to oversee how medications were doled out.
At the Pillsbury Manor South facility, DAIL investigators checked in in July and August, where they found former patients weren’t receiving refunds in a timely manner, and that staff weren’t receiving mandatory trainings or undergoing the appropriate background checks.
Sarah Holm, executive director of the Homestead facility in St. Albans, declined to comment on the company’s state of affairs and referred a reporter to Wolinsky, who is senior vice president of Primmer Piper Eggleston & Cramer.
Rose Bacon, business office manager at Pillsbury Senior Communities, said staff would have no comment on the situation and referred questions to Wolinsky.
Wolinsky did not immediately return a call and email seeking comment.
Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify the link between Martin & Delaney Law Group and East Lake Capital Management.
