In the early morning hours of August 20, I can only describe what I felt as “gobsmacked.” The news was atrociously reported as a callous leak, unbeknownst to the staff, residents and family members of those in the Care Center at Sunset Lake (also known as the Adult Care Center). The nursing home was closing, and all 93 residents had to be displaced and farmed out to other facilities like cattle. 

We all know how well nursing homes are currently doing in the United States. Many are owned by private equity; nursing homes are not properly staffed, overcrowded and suffering from neglect as investors line their own pockets.

I belong to a group of concerned county citizens who have been working to support this county-owned nursing home since 2020, a year in which the world was plunged into a pandemic. We braved all sorts of inclement weather to make the case to leave our county nursing home in the hands of the county. 

My colleagues pored through contracts and RFPs, and FOILed tirelessly for information. We showed up at public comment at the legislature meetings for six years.

The prior legislature, which contains some of the same legislators today, voted to start the decimation of this facility. They finagled in so many different ways. The result was a consulting group, not the county, running the nursing home. Services for the facility, which were provided in the county, were sent to neighboring counties, denying  Sullivan County’s residents respected medical and laboratory services and removing the doctors and providers that the residents knew and trusted. 

Are there millions of dollars owed to the county by the consulting group? Repairs to the facility were not done in a timely manner—A/C, kitchen, elevators, roof, etc.—thus exacerbating what needed to be done. 

These are the same legislators who cry out about shortfalls and lower sales tax revenues, etc.

The most disgusting aspect of this whole debacle is that the vote to close the nursing home was made in an executive session in March 2026 with no nursing home proposal on the agenda. It was a backroom deal, once again made with a questionable vote. There was no public referendum. No survey about the hardship of displacing nursing home residents from their home. A rushed decision that has decimated the lives of many people. 

I question whether the Department of Health was given the correct information, which will be pursued. There was a very convenient “gag order” placed, which allowed the legislators to hide behind after their disastrous, cruel decision to close the nursing home. 

Shame on each and every one of them, even those who voted against closing the facility. As far as I am concerned, this is so egregious that it must be investigated.

You are probably wondering why I titled this letter “Growing Old Together.”

That is because on August 20, the legislature celebrated a nonprofit that supports seniors, and I am sure that it is well deserved. But this is the same legislature that voted to literally throw our seniors out of their homes in the Adult Care Center at Sunset Lake in March 2026.  This audacity and cruelty will never be forgotten.

JoAnne Omar lives in Liberty, NY.