Volume 16, No. 3, Summer 2008
Custom Providers
When the opportunity presents itself, To Your Good Health, A Healthcare Newsletter, is happy to pass along information concerning local companies or organizations that provide a new or unusual service for consumers and professional caregivers on the Cape.
The challenges may have changed during the last near-century. But the mission of helping Cape Codders in need of long-term care and assistance has remained the same, even in the latest incarnation of Barnstable County Hospital as Cape Cod Senior Residences at Pocasset.
In the words of Executive Director Michael G. LeBrun, the three-year-old facility “serves folks with limited incomes and/or assets with below market rates as the only 100 percent affordable assisted and independent living community for seniors on the Cape.”
He also cites their “unique public/private history.”
Barnstable County Hospital was established in 1918 as a tuberculosis sanitarium. As this threat waned, the county-owned facility shifted its emphasis to deal with the growing incidence of polio. And, when vaccines pretty much eliminated this scourge, Cape Codders suffering from long-term disabilities caused by strokes and head injuries made up the bulk of the patient census.
Eventually, however, maintaining this specialized facility proved too much of a drain on County resources. After years of financial losses, the County Hospital was closed and 8.5 acres of the 70-acre property was sold to a unique consortium for development as a senior assisted and independent living residence.
The sale was ramrodded by the Barnstable County Commissioners to Cape Cod Senior Residences, a public-private partnership consisting of the non-profit Housing Assistance Corporation of Hyannis and Realty Resources Chartered, a private developer based in Maine. Senior Living Residences of Boston, whose many properties throughout New England include several on the Cape, was hired to manage the new facility.
Following construction of a new 84-unit facility, this extended process culminated three years ago with the opening of Cape Cod Senior Residences at Pocasset.
The new facility filled to capacity in two years and currently has a waiting list. All applicants must be at least 65 years of age with gross income (plus 2 percent of assets) not to exceed $31,080 for individuals and $35,520 for a couple. Rent for the 24 independent living units is less than $1,000 a month even for the two-bedroom suites. Rent for the remaining 60 assisted living is under $4,000 for one person, under $5,000 for a couple.
Mr. LeBrun says the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development determines the rates, which helps assure investors the major tax credits they need to make the affordable concept viable. He also points out that Cape Cod Senior Residences participates in “other senior housing programs” that can provide additional assistance. Medicaid also can be a factor.
Cape Cod Senior Residences at Pocasset is not a bare-bones facility. It has all the amenities and programs of full-pay private institutions.
But there is one major difference.
“In private pay facilities, when you’re out of money, you’re out,” Mr. LeBrun declares, “That doesn’t happen here!”
The ghosts of the old County Hospital would be proud