GREYSTONE NURSING HOMES, WHOSE EXECUTIVES GAVE $800,000 TO TRUMP, ARE EPICENTERS OF COVID-19 DEATHS
Nursing homes operated by Greystone have some of the nation’s highest reported death counts, federal data shows.
Matthew Cunningham-Cook
September 4 2020, 7:00 a.m.
IN AUGUST OF 2018, the Department of Housing and Urban Development faced the biggest default in its history. Rosewood Homes, which operated a chain of nursing homes in Illinois, defaulted on a $146 million mortgage that was backed by HUD. The Greystone-backed owner had to pay over $3 million in fines to HUD and the Securities and Exchange Commission for failing to file financial statements and defrauding investors. The mortgage on the homes had been serviced by Greystone, the No. 1 lender in HUD-backed nursing homes.
Then HUD took them over and spent $30 million maintaining and upgrading the facilities, and appointed a receiver to administer the homes. When the homes were ready to go back on the market, the buyer was Greystone, which had already managed over 30 nursing homes in Florida. HUD has refused to disclose the asking price, according to the New York Times.
Greystone also apparently maintained close ties to President Donald Trump. On the same day that bids were due in a federal government auction of the troubled $95 million Rosewood nursing home chain — May 31, 2019 — Greystone’s CEO donated $360,600 to the president’s reelection fund, Trump Victory, using a shell company that omitted his name. Over the next few weeks, a Greystone managing director and his wife followed up with another $360,000 to the Trump Victory Fund, and in November, a Greystone executive donated $100,000 to the president’s Super PAC, America First Action, for a total of over $820,000.
Greystone’s nursing homes have now become epicenters of death in the coronavirus crisis. Federal data shows that 51 deaths have occurred at University Rehab at Northmoor in Peoria, Illinois, while 16 deaths have occurred at Greystone’s Apollo Health and Rehab in Saint Petersburg, Florida, putting both homes among the worst in the country for Covid-19 deaths. The Rockledge Health and Rehab Center in Florida has 24 deaths, the Lake Cook Rehab and Healthcare Center in suburban Chicago has 20 deaths, and the Riverside Rehab and Healthcare Center in Alton, Illinois, has 21 deaths. Despite the deaths, money from the federal government has flowed, as Greystone facilities have received at minimum $15 million in Covid-19 grants and loans since the pandemic began.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Health, described the donations from Greystone executives to Trump funds as “another tale from Trump’s corruption playbook. He again puts special-interest wealth over public health."
https://theintercept.com/2020/09/04/nursing-homes-coronavirus-deaths-greystone/
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