Korean Canadians rally to save bankrupt Toronto nursing home

The Korean-Canadian community is looking to its youth to help raise the money needed to buy a community nursing home left in limbo when it declared bankruptcy.

The Rose of Sharon retirement residence, located on Maplewood Avenue near Vaughan Road and St. Clair Avenue West, was conceived as a retirement home for Korean-Canadians and featured a 60-bed nursing home for when residents of the building eventually needed long-term care.

Built in 2010, the idea behind the home was to care for the residents and patients in their own language, serve them Korean food, and provide them with Korean cultural activities.

But shortly after construction of the 12-storey complex, the project ran into financial problems and the property has been in receivership since 2011.

The Rose of Sharon, named for the Korean national flower, has been the centre of a long and complicated legal battle, but last spring a court ordered that the 91 residential units in the building be sold as condominiums to the current leaseholders or the general public.

The court also authorized the sale of the nursing home separately. The Korean-Canadian community is concerned they will lose the first and only facility of its kind in the city.

"There is a very real risk," said Susan Han, the lawyer for the coalition working to buy the Rose of Sharon nursing home from the receiver. She says as in any bankruptcy sale the main objective is the same.

"Their primary obligation is to realize the maximum proceeds on sale. In other words, whoever bids the highest."

She says there are rules around the transfer of a licensed nursing home and Ministry of Health and Long Term Care may require the cultural approach to remain the same.

"However, in a receivership where basically the transferor is insolvent — those restrictions do not apply," said Han. "There's no requirement for the transferee to operate the facility as one dedicated to Koreans."

Eunice Kim of the Arirang Age-Friendly Community Centre is spearheading the bid. So far, $3.5 million has been raised mainly by first generation Koreans-Canadians.

She's appealing to the younger generation of Korean-Canadians — the children of the immigrants now entering retirement to step up and help save the Rose of Sharon.

"For the younger generation of Koreans, we have to be more attentive to their needs of our seniors because they are our parents and grandparents," Kim said. "These are things that we need to prepare and have a strategy for our seniors and not just leave it to government." 

While many groups, including the Jewish, Chinese and Italian communities, have culturally sensitive long term care facilities, this is the first and only one for the Korean-Canadian community.

The home currently has a long term care licence and is fully funded by the province.

The Ministry of Health and Long Term Care says it is monitoring the Rose of Sharon receivership sale, which it says is an independent process. 

But a ministry spokesperson says it has made parties aware that it is committed to maintaining long-term beds in the community and has specifically supported operators who have a culturally appropriate approach to delivering care. 

The ministry also says it is aware of the implications for people who have family in the facility if the approach to care were to drastically change.

Kim says even as it operates under receivership, the Rose of Sharon has a 150 person waiting list.

"We are hoping that we will be able to buy the nursing home from the receiver and eventually expand the number of beds in the future," she says. 

The group is waiting for the realtor selected by the receiver to post a listing so they will know how much more money they will have to raise.