A specialist care home for the elderly near Abingdon is to close after St John’s College, the landowner, raised the rent 900%.
Southmoor House, near Abingdon, which cares for 24 residents with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, cannot afford the financial burden of both the college’s rent rise and the costly building repairs it needs to keep running. A spokesperson said it is “financially impossible” to keep the home open.
The family-run care facility has been open for more than 60 years, with some residents having lived there for more than ten. It employs 25 carers, who have specialist training in caring for dementia patients.
In response to the closure, St John’s College explained it “regrets the loss of any business tenant but, as a charity, the college [has] a duty and legal responsibility to make best use of its assets to support its programmes of education and research.”
According to Julie Dabrowski, a senior carer at the home, staff were given a month’s notice of the closure. However, it is now expected to stay in operation until February. She explained that the home had attempted to renegotiate the deal with St John’s, but this fell through.
Dabrowski went on to say that she was very concerned for the well-being of the patients at the home, given that specialised care of the type offered by Southmoor House is difficult to find. Some of the patients are in the home privately and some through the NHS, and she was particularly worried about the possibility of finding new homes for those on government funding.
In addition, the upheaval is likely to be harmful to some patients – one resident is too frightened to leave the building, and she is anxious the trauma of a move may lead to the death of one or more elderly patients. In light of this, she said losing her job was a “secondary concern”.
A DPhil student at St John’s, Jonah Rosenberg, expressed confidence in the college’s decision, saying that “though it’s certainly not the most pleasant transaction … [I] trust that this will have been a necessary part of keeping the college economically healthy. St John’s academic mission cannot be valued as more or less worthy than the care of the elderly; in an ideal world, both would be feasible.”
He added that he did not believe the ninefold rent increase was arbitrary, “but rather the result of the college not having revalued the property for some time.”
