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A Southwestern Ontario retirement home where police say some residents were victims of fraud has announced it’s closing its doors in two weeks, leaving its residents’ futures uncertain.
Miranda Guitard’s husband’s elderly grandmother is a resident at Trillium Norwich Retirement Home in Norwich, south of Woodstock. She received an email Saturday afternoon from staff alerting her of an “urgent and unexpected development,” noting “the home is scheduled to officially close its doors on November 11, 2024.”
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“Due to an emergency lack of financial resources necessary to sustain daily operations, we must close the facility,” the email read. “This decision was not made lightly, and every effort was explored to prevent this outcome.”
The impending shutdown leaves Guitard’s grandmother-in-law with an uncertain future.
Guitard previously told The Free Press she was in the process of trying to move the 90-year-old woman, who has been diagnosed with dementia, to a nursing facility after Trillium informed them it was raising her monthly rent to $3,920 from $1,500.
“I was hoping to get her out before the Dec. 16 date of when the rent was tripled,” Guitard said, “but now we only have a few weeks to go in there, empty out her room and get her relocated.
“She’s on wait lists for long-term care. So as of right now, she’s got nowhere to go.”
In August, Guitard was told by an employee of the home that $6,000 in rent payments she had made via email transfer was never received by Trillium. Ontario Provincial Police in Oxford County announced in late August they were investigating a Norwich retirement home where several people had lost more than $50,000 in an alleged fraud.
A person who answered the phone at Trillium this weekend declined comment but said they would relay the request for comment to their manager.
“Giving people until Nov. 11 to get their loved ones, it’s not that easy (because) there are no beds anywhere,’ Guitard said.
It’s not clear how many residents live at the retirement home, but a former employee previously told The Free Press recently that just fewer than 30 people lived there in August.
bwilliams@postmedia.com
@BrianWatLFPress
The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada
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