A Southwestern Ontario retirement home where police say some residents were victims of fraud has announced it’s closing its doors in two weeks, leaving its residents’ futures uncertain.
Miranda Guitard’s husband’s elderly grandmother is a resident at Trillium Norwich Retirement Home in Norwich, south of Woodstock. She received an email Saturday afternoon from staff alerting her of an “urgent and unexpected development,” noting “the home is scheduled to officially close its doors on November 11, 2024.”
“Due to an emergency lack of financial resources necessary to sustain daily operations, we must close the facility,” the email read. “This decision was not made lightly, and every effort was explored to prevent this outcome.”
The impending shutdown leaves Guitard’s grandmother-in-law with an uncertain future.
Guitard previously told The Free Press she was in the process of trying to move the 90-year-old woman, who has been diagnosed with dementia, to a nursing facility after Trillium informed them it was raising her monthly rent to $3,920 from $1,500.
“I was hoping to get her out before the Dec. 16 date of when the rent was tripled,” Guitard said, “but now we only have a few weeks to go in there, empty out her room and get her relocated.