Editor's note:
If you would like to contact impacted residents of the Daughters of Divine Charity’s Highland Square residence, Marc Cook can be reached at marccook7@icloud.com.
Marc Cook said he’s not worried about himself. He can find another place to live.
Cook’s concerned about his vulnerable neighbors. They live with him at Francesca Residence, a senior independent living facility operated by the Daughters of Divine Charity. Residents were told last Wednesday a decision was made to close the facility, as well as Leonora Hall, which is also on the Highland Square property at 39 N. Portage Path.
In a letter dated Oct. 17, tenants were asked to relocate no later than Dec. 1. (Cook maintains he and other residents didn’t receive the written correspondence until Oct. 22.) The letter from Sister Mary Coffelt, Sister Martin Green and Katarina Zefic, an administrator, states that despite their best efforts, the facility “has continued to face financial challenges. While expenses and major repair needs have increased, revenue has not.”
The building is inhabited by dozens of seniors, many of whom don’t have any family, Cook said, or enough savings to live elsewhere.
“You shouldn’t be playing hardball with peoples’ lives. That’s offensive,” said Cook, 64, a 1979 graduate of St. Vincent-St. Mary High School. Cook said he’s lived in the facility since August — he’s on a month-to-month lease that can be canceled with 30 days’ notice, and he suspects many of his neighbors are too.
Akron real estate agent suggests requesting more time: ‘All they can do is ask’
The situation underscores the challenge with month-to-month lease agreements. While they offer tenants the flexibility to move out with relatively short notice without penalty, they also create instability. Tenants are sometimes at risk of landlords raising the price of leases, or ending leases with the same, 30-day short notice.
Barb Snyder, who has worked in Akron real estate for 41 years, said she found it disturbing that tenants weren’t given more time to move. But Snyder added that, legally, she didn’t think their month-to-month leases gave them legal recourse.
“I think all they can do is just ask,” she said. “Write a letter from all the tenants. ‘Because of our circumstances, it’s not going to be an easy thing for us to go out and find suitable housing. You’re asking us to move and not giving us a lot of time.’”
The Daughters of Divine Charity did not return multiple phone calls for comment.
Cook said he pays $1,020 a month for rent of a one-bedroom efficiency plus utilities and two to three meals a day.
Cook is hoping for one of two scenarios: Attention to their plight leads to a buyer — if one or both of the buildings are put up for sale. Or, if residents must move, they can successfully lobby for more time to do so, and, during that span, the Akron community wraps services around them.
That could include hands-on volunteer support and donation of moving supplies and equipment to programs that cover the costs of downsizing, cleaning or accessibility modifications, neighborhood “welcome committees” that check in with new inhabitants and food supplies that are delivered before, during and after moves.
Said Cook: “These are 80- and 90-year-olds. And this is what they have at the end [of life]?”
It’s unknown whether the nuns who live on the property in a convent building behind Francesca Residence will continue living there.
Who are the Daughters of Divine Charity?
The Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Charity was founded in 1868 by Mother Franziska Lechner in Vienna, Austria. She felt it important to protect young women from physical and moral dangers in European cities of the 19th century. Within a short time, her religious order began opening schools throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as well as retirement homes for the poor.
Sisters currently work in Europe, South America, Africa and North America. At least five convents are located in the United States.
The Daughters of Divine Charity arrived in Akron in 1943, providing housing for “working girls” beginning in 1946 in the former Kerch Mansion, now Leonora Hall, a familiar sight at the corner of North Portage Path and Edgerton Road in Highland Square.