Saint Elizabeth Home, a not-for-profit, 120 bed skilled nursing facility in East Greenwich, broke ground on four Green House homes today. Partnering with THE GREEN HOUSE Project, Saint Elizabeth Home will introduce an innovative new model of nursing home care. Each home is for 12 residents, adding 48 beds to its current nursing home license. The four homes will be situated on a newly built cul-de-sac next to Saint Elizabeth Home. Each home is self-contained and will be approximately 8, 000 sq. feet, with twelve private bedrooms, with private bathrooms, and shared living space that includes a large kitchen, dining room and hearth area. A front porch, back patio and outdoor space complete each home.
"It has been a long road to get to today, " said Steve J. Horowitz, President and CEO of Saint Elizabeth Community. "We first heard about Green House homes in 2006, but it all began in earnest for our organization in 2009 when we took a group of our nursing home residents on an overnight beach vacation to Cape Cod." Horowitz says, "This showed us how quality of life for nursing hom residents could greatly be enhanced through small home environments and empowered/cross trained employees."
A moratorium on adding licensed nursing home beds to the RI system has been in place since the early 1990s. At the ground breaking, Saint Elizabeth Home Chief Operating Officer Matthew Trimble said, "the unfortunate consequences of the moratorium was the stifling of innovation." In 2010 legislation was passed that would allow for beds from skilled nursing facilities that closed, or that were taken out of use, to be held by the RI Department of Health for potential future use. This opened a door to innovation. The legislation did not increase the total number of beds in the system, but preserved beds for potential future use.
In 2014, the RI Department of Health sent out a "Request for Applications" to current licensed nursing facilities for the licensed beds in reserve, with the stipulation that the applications had to employ an innovative new model of providing care. In May 2014, Saint Elizabeth Home applied for 48 of the 116 beds that were held in reserve by the RI Department of Health. Saint Elizabeth Home was one of the three applicants, and only awarded. Its application was approved on September 16, 2014. Saint Elizabeth Home's Certificate of Need application was unanimously approved by the Rhode Island Health Services Council in March 2015, and the East Greenwich Planning Board approved its application to build in August of 2015.
The construction project is expected to take 14 months. The architectural firm is SWBR and Carlson Construction is the builder. Linda Silveira Real Estate Consulting is the project manager. The project's cost is approximately $12.5 million, and upon completion will create approximately 45 FTE positions within Saint Elizabeth Home. Additionally, Carlson Construction will hire about 30 sub-contractors. the majority will be from Rhode Island, with approximately 150 people working on-site at various times.
The project is being financed through a combination of traditional financing and philanthropy. The Washington Trust Company has agreed to finance this project with a tax exempt bond approved by RIHEBC on October 22, 2015. "A capital campaign is in its early stages and is doing exceptionally well" reported Robert H. Pease, Chair of the Board of Trustees at Saint Elizabeth Community, "the campaign and its goal will be launched soon....so stay tuned," Peace announced.
The application process for residing in one of the "The Green House Homes at Saint Elizabeth Home" has not yet been established. The application will be posted on the Saint Elizabeth Community website www.stelizabethcommunity.org sometime in 2016 as the project nears completion.
