Rally held to keep Our Lady of Angels Retirement Home open

Almost 10 people braved the freezing weather on Monday for a rally to keep Our Lady of Angels Retirement Home open.

Kate Azo was among those showed up to the Joliet nursing home in support of the union. She carried a sign that said, “My mother is not a business transaction.”

Azo’s 88-year-old mother has been a resident at Our Lady of Angels for five years. She said the news of the building’s closure on Feb. 28 has “really been rough.”

“It has not been handled in a way that was conducive to anybody’s comfort or well being,” Azo said.

The Illinois Nurses Association is hoping to keep the nursing home alive after it was announced in November the facility would close next year. The facility’s closure was announced a few months after more than 70 employees at the Our Lady of Angels unionized.

The INA, some of the facility’s employees and a few community members participated in the rally. Nine people, including Joliet mayoral candidate Tycee Bell, showed up during the rally.

“We’ve presented multiple solutions, what we think can be great solutions to keep the facility open and they’ve all just been turned down,” said Jessica Prewitt, an INA organizer.

Those solutions included increasing pay to retain and attract staff, which would reduce the reliance on costly agency staff, open the shuttered skilled nursing medicare floor to increase revenue and fundraising, according to the INA.

Prewitt said INA is “not going to back down.”

“The workers aren’t going to back down,” she said.

Our Lady of Angels is owned by a nonprofit created by the Joliet-based Sisters of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate. The order announced the nursing home would close because it is losing money and does not have the funds needed for improvements to the building.

The nursing home lost $2.5 million in its last fiscal year alone, according to Sister Jeanne Bessette, president of the Sisters of St. Francis of Mary Immaculate.

Bessette did not immediately respond to a message on Monday about the INA’s statement about their rally to keep the building open.

According to INA, their bargaining team requested to management that they wait until next June to close the building in order to allow more time to find ways to keep it open and for residents to find alternate places to live if that wasn’t possible.

Prewitt said closure of the building is a humanitarian issue. She said there are still elderly residents who haven’t found a new facility to live in.

“This final move could kill them. So it’s very simple, don’t move them,” Prewitt said.

Emily Delgado, a certified nursing assistant at Our Lady of Angels, said there’s been mistreatment of employees by CSJ Initiatives, a company that manages the nursing home.

“It’s just not fair. They need to be called out for what they’ve done,” Delgado said.

Jeff Peterson showed up in support of the rally because his grandparents and parents were once residents of Our Lady of Angels. Peterson is known as the “Cookie Man” because he brings cookies to the nurses and residents at the facility.

“I would like to see it stay open, not only for myself but for everyone else in the city of Joliet to enjoy,” Peterson said.

Peterson said the nurses “take care of people inside like they’re their parents.”

“There’s a mutual bond that grows here. I’ve seen nurses leave here saying ‘I’m going someplace else,’ and within a month they’re right back because of the family orientation,” Peterson said.