Court Opinion

ID: 8041384
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-09-09 03:34:31.612618+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:37:19.670597
License: Public Domain

Buckley, D. J.,
dissenting.
I cannot agree with the majority opinion that the primary use of the independent living units (apartments) was low-cost housing. Hospitals and nursing homes which have tax-exempt *143status house their residents while performing their primary purpose of caring for the sick and elderly. Here, the independent living units are used to care for the elderly who do not require the more institutionalized care of the adjacent nursing home, but who nonetheless are in need of a sheltered environment, and many of whom alternatively would have to be placed in a nursing home. The village moved eight former Army barracks units onto its campus, located them close to its nursing home, and converted them into apartment units, with the combined nursing home and living units designed to be an integrated multilevel facility offering supportive services to all its residents.
The majority opinion describes many of the health care facilities available to the apartment residents and further acknowledges the testimony of gerontologist Dr. James A. Thorsen that the apartment units provide a sheltered environment, that they are integrated with the nursing home facilities, and that in addition to the medical services provided, they help the senior citizen to be free from fear and anxiety.
Dr. Thorsen specifically stated:
The research in the field of gerontology supports the contention that living in such a setting [i.e., St. Luke’s Good Samaritan Village] is of positive benefit in a variety of ways to older people. Especially frail, elderly people. You see the point of such a facility is to try to keep [them] as independent as possible so long as possible and essentially as an alternative to nursing home placement. Being situated such as it is, this facility is able to provide a range of services integrated into a continuum of care. And the research would indicate that this does in fact have a positive value in terms of both social well being and in terms of their morale and psychological well being, in terms of being a positive predictor [of] mental health.
(Emphasis supplied.)
He considered the village as an integrated facility for the care of the elderly.
There is ample evidence that many of the residents, though able to care for themselves in a physical sense, would not be able to function independently but for the support and proximity of *144the nursing center nearby.
The majority opinion describes the services to the residents as “favorable and beneficial,” but concludes that they do not change the primary use of the units as providing low-cost apartments. I am compelled to the opposite conclusion. The units are a part of the multilevel integrated facility of the Village. I agree with the trial court’s finding that the units were operated in connection with the care facility and were a “logical extension” of the purpose of the care facility.
The trial court’s decision was correct, and I would affirm.