Senior Community Forcing 62 Seniors to Relocate Within 90 Days in Beverly, Massachusetts

Seacoast senior facilities, or anyone connected to one, we need your help.

In just three months, over 60 seniors at Monarch Communities in Beverly, Massachusetts, will be displaced, according to an NECN article.

In other words, in less than 90 days, over 60 elders will be without a home.

Monarch Communities' building is over 100 years old. Apparently there is a laundry list of items that need fixing.

The plan is to close down the building, and once all 62 senior citizens are out, begin renovating the broken elevator, backup generator, sprinkler system, roof leak, and rodent infestation, according to NECN.

This situation is unideal. Systems need fixing, but people need a place to live.

"We recognize this is terrible for these families to deal with," said Ross Dingman, the company's managing partner to NECN. "We just felt it was in the residents' best interest to evacuate the building, to close it down so we could update all these systems."

The main issue I see is the 90-day notice. Some may say that is adequate time; however, I would say that for someone in a senior living facility, ample time would be at least double (180 days).

The community in Beverly is not too happy.

"It clearly lacks dignity," said Paul Lanzikos, the state's former elder affairs secretary to NECN. "This is where very frail, vulnerable people are living. They're being dislocated from their homes. At the very least, they need the time for themselves and families to make careful decisions."

And now, I turn to the rest of the Seacoast. What can we do? What can other senior living homes in Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire do to take some of these people in temporarily or permanently?

Perhaps it is not the greater community's responsibility, and should be up to every individual family.

I write this with a call to action: if someone is connected to/works at a facility that can help transition these people into new homes, let's do it.