WXXI Story Shares Success of St. John’s Green Houses

Like all nursing homes across the country, the St. John’s Green House homes have been closed to visitors for nearly a year.

As we look ahead to reopening skilled care facilities to visitors while efforts to vaccinate long-term care residents and staff members continue, models of nursing home care that have held up best in the face of COVID-19 are being identified and examined. The Green House Project—the nursing home movement that inspired the design of the St. John’s small nursing homes that opened in Penfield ten years ago this fall—is one of those models of care that is receiving high marks.

Mare Millow’s mother lives at the St. John’s Green House homes. She shared her mindset as a daughter who went from visiting her mother whenever she liked previous to pandemic to being unable to visit, relying solely on staff to keep her comfortable and secure.  “I’ve never felt that she’s not safe,” Millow told WXXI news. “Or that I have to worry about her in ways other than you would worry about any elderly parent.”

“We’re able to really have a sense of ownership,” says Polly Boland, a nurse and guide at the St. John’s Green House homes. She helps oversee the care provided at these smaller-model nursing homes, which she says function more like your typical home than a traditional long-term care facility.

Read and listen to “Green House nursing homes kept COVID cases low via small sizes, private rooms, universal workers” story featuring St. John’s from WXXI news by clicking here.