From pending closure to Christmas in July: Following the fight to save the Edgar P. Benjamin Healthcare Center

Staff, residents and other advocates have expressed concerns that the loss of the Edgar Benjamin, which was founded in 1927 as Rest Haven Nursing Home, would be a major blow to a community organization with a lasting legacy.

“The Benjamin has been there,” said Leslie Henderson, director of admissions and a nurse who has worked at the facility for 24 years. “It has been a beacon of hope in the community for 100 years.”

Kathy Blicker, who has worked at the center in accounts receivable for nine years, said the closure announcement from Tony Francis, president and CEO of the center, came suddenly for staff.

“You didn’t even give us a chance to try and save it,” said Blicker, whose mother used to live in the facility. “It’s like we’re open today and closing tomorrow.”

That abrupt news has left the center in chaos, Henderson said.

“Every day the residents are like, ‘Do we have to leave today like?’” she said. “They’re afraid. This is their home.”

Many nearby facilities don’t have openings as residents of the Edgar Benjamin seek to transfer, Henderson said.

In the announcement of his intent to close the center, Francis cited “insurmountable” financial challenges.

In an email to the Banner, he said the economic climate for long-term care facilities like the Edgar Benjamin is “dismal,” making continued operation unsustainable.

This claim raises concerns for staff and officials. Between 2015 and 2021, Francis’ salary increased over four times, from about $156,200 to nearly $628,600, according to financial records filed with the IRS. According to reporting from Boston 25 TV station, his total compensation, including pension, insurance and payroll taxes, is over $900,000.

According to minutes from the center’s board meetings, Francis started taking loans out of his personal account to fund payroll for staff. In January of last year, he requested 12% interest when taking money out of his account for payroll. As of the end of September, he had used approximately $150,000 in supporting payroll.

Advocates point to other troubling financial incidents in recent years. At the end of 2023, staff at the center went weeks without receiving paychecks, according to reporting from Boston 25, which broke the story.

The center also lost $100,000 in a cryptocurrency exchange, according to the minutes for the nursing home’s April 27, 2023, board meeting obtained by the Banner. According to those minutes, the center tried to get the money back but would have had to pay an additional $20,000. In the same meeting, Francis asked for an annual 5% raise and a bonus of $70,000.

Minutes from the board’s meetings across the past year document the financial challenges of paying for insurance, worker compensation, pharmacy, dietary, linens and union dues, in addition to a union settlement. In October, according to the meeting’s minutes, the center was behind on payments, as all its income was going toward payroll.

According to the Edgar Benjamin’s financial records, between 2014 and 2021, the center’s revenue averaged $12.65 million annually.

Blicker, who interacts with much of the center’s income through her role working with accounts receivable, said money has been coming into the center regularly.

Though she said she doesn’t have access to information about the center’s expenditures, based on its income she was surprised it would have to shut down for financial reasons.

Delroy McDonald, who formerly worked as a bookkeeper for the Edgar Benjamin for nine years, said he was on the committee that selected Francis to take over as president and CEO. At the time, McDonald said Francis looked good on paper, but now he blames Francis for the situation the facility is in.

Many of the concerns of residents and staff were expected to be brought up at a March 12 hearing with the state Department of Public Health, which occurred after the Banner’s press deadline.

The Department of Public Health runs hearings for the closure of centers like the Edgar Benjamin and can offer feedback on the closure plan proposed by a center’s leadership.

The pending closure comes as yet another pull on Roxbury’s resources, following the closure of yet another Walgreens in January, ongoing municipal development proposals in Franklin Park and the state’s tapping of the Melnea A. Cass Recreation Complex to house migrants.

“It just seems like, ‘if it ain’t one thing, it’s another,’” said Joyce Ferriabough Bolling, a veteran political strategist and Roxbury resident.

For Ferriabough Bolling, the closure of the Benjamin marks another instance in which the community’s most vulnerable residents are the most strongly impacted.

Municipal officials have expressed concerns about the closure. District 6 City Councilor Benjamin Weber, alongside at-large Councilor Henry Santana, led a resolution in that body to “strongly urge” leadership at the Benjamin to improve communication with residents and staff around the closure and the push for alternate plans. That order passed unanimously Feb. 28.

“What we’ve seen from the CEO Tony Francis is that the residents have not been put first,” Weber said. “My concern is that as they move toward closure, the residents will get even less care.”

Weber said he’s also concerned that leadership at the Edgar Benjamin seems to be intentionally keeping people out of the facility. His office’s staff wanted to meet with residents at the center but were kept out.

In a statement to the Banner, Francis said state Sen. Liz Miranda toured the facility Friday morning and leadership from the facility met with city officials Friday afternoon.

He said he has heard currently unsubstantiated concerns from community members that the closure of the Edgar Benjamin could lead to the construction of luxury housing in its place.

In his statement, Francis said the board of the facility “hopes to keep the building and site as a community use” once the Edgar Benjamin closes.

Others at City Hall are also concerned. Emily Shea, who heads the Age Strong Commission and has been serving as point person for the city’s response to the closure, said the commission and the mayor’s staff are doing all that’s in their power to address the situation.

But that power is limited. Regulation of nursing homes is a state responsibility, run through the Department of Public Health. Shea said the Age Strong Commission has been working to communicate the staff and resident’s concerns they’ve been hearing to Francis and state entities like the Department of Public Health and the Executive Office of Elder Affairs, but that is largely the extent of what they can do.

Decisions regarding the closure must go through the Department of Public Health, and concerns about the financial situation at the Edgar Benjamin should be directed to the attorney general, she said.

The City Council, too, has limited control. Beyond the Feb. 28 resolution, Weber said he sees the body’s role largely as an advocacy-focused one.

A spokesperson from the attorney general’s office said that while the office doesn’t have a designated role in the closure process, it will stay in touch with state and local leaders about the issue. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, in an email statement, expressed concern about displacement of “critical nursing home space” and said she hopes her office can be helpful in helping residents of the Edgar Benjamin continue to find care within the community.

But community members feel not enough is being done. McDonald said he feels like no one is really trying to maintain the facility’s legacy in Boston’s Black community. Ferriabough Bolling said she thinks officials should consider new solutions.

“I would just hope that all of the powers that be would put their heads together to see how the Benjamin can be helped so that our seniors who are fragile are not displaced,” Ferriabough Bolling said. “I think there’s too much emphasis on the system and what you can or cannot do rather than thinking outside of the box here.”■

However, days before the case’s April 2 hearing, the attorney general’s office and DPH voiced their support for the action, following months of declining to petition the court for receivership. Receivership would lead to a state takeover and the ouster of the Edgar Benjamin’s controversial management team but not necessarily ensure the center’s survival.

The receivership case was heard in the Suffolk County Superior Court. The day after the civil hearing, Judge Katie Rayburn ruled that an emergency exists at the Edgar Benjamin — the standard Min state law required to appoint a receiver — and approved the petition that will put attorney Joseph Feaster in charge of the facility.

When residents and staff at the center learned a receiver had been appointed, there was clapping and hugging throughout the building. The staff was ecstatic and some people were brought to tears, said Leslie Henderson, the center’s director of admissions.

“It’s like a dark cloud over you, and you’re in the midst of this storm and you don’t see your way out and then it’s like an awakening,” Henderson said.

She looked to the center’s almost 100-year history and said she’s hopeful the appointment of a receiver will offer a chance for that legacy to go on.

Oren Sellstrom, the attorney who represented the two guardians of Edgar Benjamin residents, said he is very pleased with the ruling.

“We are gratified that the judge recognized the emergency nature of the situation and acted quickly to appoint a receiver to stabilize the organization and ensure the safety and wellbeing of the patients and residents,” he said.

The suit for receivership comes after the Edgar Benjamin’s administration announced in February its intent to close the facility, which currently serves about 70 residents, most of whom are people of color.

Ahead of the hearing, former state Sen. Dianne Wilkerson said she was “delighted” the case is being heard in court. Supporters hope that the receivership will offer a chance for new leadership to try to get the facility back on track.

“The answer can’t be to throw the whole baby out,” Wilkerson said. “You’ve got to run some new bathwater.”

In a letter to families Feb. 14, Tony Francis, executive director of the center, said the closure was due to “insurmountable financial difficulties.”

Since Francis took over as director in 2014, his salary rose by more than four times to nearly $628,000 in 2021, according to financial records filed with the IRS.

In its history, the Edgar Benjamin has twice before been put under receivership, and both times, the change in leadership allowed the center to bounce back and continue operations.

“It’s critical that the person at the helm be someone who can manage finances properly and steer the institution in the right direction,” said Sellstrom, who serves as litigation director at Lawyers for Civil Rights.

In the filing, attorneys from Lawyers for Civil Rights pointed to inadequate supplies, staff shortages and center mismanagement in their lawsuit filed to ask the Massachusetts Superior Court to grant receivership.

Francis and the facility declined to comment.

According to the suit, residents at the Benjamin have faced declining care. As of 2020, the center had a doctor on site. Now the doctor comes in only on Saturdays and doesn’t meet with residents. The facility’s dietician doesn’t come in regularly and is allowed to work remotely. Risk assessment meetings with the doctor, dietitian and nursing staff, which are supposed to happen weekly, haven’t occurred since January, even as patients have experienced significant weight loss.

Affidavits from staff at the facility paint a picture of limited supplies and equipment. As of February, the center’s supply of colostomy bags ran out and staff had to wrap a resident in a towel before they could borrow some from another facility. About 10 call lights — used to signal when a resident is having an emergency or needs help — were nonfunctional.

In response to the allegations, during the hearing, the attorney representing the Edgar Benjamin pointed to an affidavit from Stephen Davis, director of the state’s Department of Facility Licensure and Certification, describing a visit to the center at which time, he found no shortages of supplies.

During the same visit, staff said that was not always the case. For instance, the cook said that budget issues sometimes lead to insufficient food supplies.

According to the affidavits, vendors who used to work with the facility have cut ties due to non-payment. This has left residents with broken wheelchairs and equipment, like the lifts used to help get heavier residents out of bed. Residents can’t be weighed correctly because the scales used are inaccurate and uncalibrated, and computers at the facility are left vulnerable to cyberattacks and hacking without updates.

The center’s van, used to transport residents to medical appointments, hasn’t been used in months because the insurance hasn’t been paid on it, said Henderson in her affidavit.

Utilities, too, have gone unpaid, resulting in a past-due water bill of $175,000 and an electric bill of $339,000 as of February.

The facility failed to pay staff paychecks in November 2023 and again in December — with Francis citing financial issues both times. In December, staff also started receiving paper checks after the payroll provider stopped processing paychecks because of nonpayment. When several employees attempted to deposit their checks, the checks bounced.

Francis allegedly said he would pay for banking fees and late fees resulting from the bounced checks, said Kathy Blicker, who works in accounts receivable at the Edgar Benjamin, in her affidavit. To her knowledge, that hasn’t happened.

During periods when staff went unpaid, the center saw decreased staffing numbers as nurses called out of work. According to an affidavit from Marise Colsoul, the Edgar Benjamin’s director of nursing, understaffing often left each of the three units with one nurse only, and nurses sometimes had to work double shifts.

Blicker said that when the facility was especially understaffed, she and other office staff would go in on weekends to perform tasks that would normally be done by a certified nursing assistant.

Following the filing of the lawsuit, staff again went unpaid as checks bounced Friday. In response, two nurses called out from the Saturday night shift, leaving the facility understaffed.

During the hearing, an attorney for the state said the most recent round of bounced checks is what pushed both the DPH and the attorney general’s office to sign onto the petition for receivership.

If appointed, they said, the receiver could ensure payment of staff and care of residents while also determining if the closure plan should continue or if the facility could be kept open.

The lawsuit brings into question the financial hardship the nursing home is allegedly facing.

According to Blicker, the facility continues to receive significant income and revenue.

Monthly, it receives about $720,000 from sources like private and public insurance, as well as an additional $75,000 in rental income from Roxbury Prep’s Mission Hill Campus, which rents the building’s third floor. In 2021, the facility received over $1.6 million in Paycheck Protection Program support from the federal government, according to the federal Pandemic Oversight program.

Royal Bolling Jr., who previously served on the board of directors at the Edgar Benjamin until he was removed after questioning financial decisions at the facility, said that during his tenure at the organization, the center frequently faced financial challenges, but they were never insurmountable.

Sellstrom said there’s a series of red flags that indicate the need for a change in leadership, including a rapidly shrinking board that went from about 12 individuals prior to Francis’s tenure to three, as of March 21.

“For a nonprofit organization like the Benjamin, the board of directors are key to maintaining accountability and transparency,” Sellstrom said.

Staff at the Edgar Benjamin alleged that any board members who raised issues about management of the facility were removed, and that no board member, save for Francis, who serves as president, has set foot in the building.

Sellstrom also pointed to a “highly unorthodox” interchange of Francis’s personal money to pay for things like payroll with a 12% interest rate.

A series of request forms for checks cut by the facility in 2023 to reimburse Francis for personal money used to pay the Edgar Benjamin’s payroll and other expenses show a total of at least $660,000 given back to Francis, including interest.

Separately, bank statements obtained by the Banner show payments of large bills on an American Express card for Francis. In March 2023, the bill was $100,000. In July, it was $85,000.

Francis’ alleged financial mismanagement came under fire at a public hearing on March 26, held by the Department of Public Health.

“If we’re in such financial distress, and if we’re still able to pay a salary in excess of $625,000, maybe you are the financial distress,” said Henderson, the admissions director.

At that hearing on the closure process, which took place at the Thelma D. Burns Building in Roxbury, a crowd of residents, staff, guardians and community members voiced strong support for Francis to step down or be removed from his role, and for a receiver, if appointed, to figure out how to keep the facility running.

That public hearing is part of a process to inform the department’s response to the Edgar Benjamin’s closure plan. It has until April 9 to approve or provide comments on the plan.

Sellstrom said the community’s goal is to keep the facility open but that, once appointed, a receiver would be able to assess all options and determine if that is feasible.

“The community is strongly behind keeping the Benjamin as the premier institution that it is in the community,” Sellstrom said. “We believe that with the appointment of a receiver that will be the first order of business, to examine how to make that a reality.”

Specifics around what happens next and when remain to be seen. As of Wednesday, when the ruling immediately went into effect, the appointed receiver Feaster has the authority to manage and operate the facility. Sellstrom said he expects the top priority to be to ensure safety and stability for residents and staff. After that, it will be up to the receiver to determine if the closure goes on.

Ahead of the ruling, Feaster said he didn’t know much about what the circumstances are at the Edgar Benjamin, but said he believes he can bring a sense of order to the process, given his career as an attorney, his longstanding community connections, and a previous five-year stint as a receiver at the Roxbury Comprehensive Community Health Center.

In 2013, Feaster was tapped by then-Attorney General Martha Coakley to take over the Roxbury health center and guide it through a tumultuous closure, helping to transition patients to other facilities and assess the financial situation that had led to that health center’s collapse.

Bolling said that if a receiver were appointed, that person would be one part of the puzzle but would have to turn to someone with nursing home administration expertise to keep the facility open long-term.

Feaster said he would want to be able to provide another set of eyes on the situation.

“You want to look at whether you can stabilize the organization such that it can continue,” he said “That’s the threshold determination, in my view.”■

Feaster took leadership of the Edgar Benjamin April 3, after a Suffolk Superior Court judge found a state of emergency at the facility and ruled in favor of a receiver.

“I’m going to take the responsibility but not take the blame,” Feaster said of the center’s current situation.

The ruling came in response to allegations of mismanagement at the facility, including financial mishandling that resulted in multiple instances of missed payroll since November, most recently at the end of March when employee checks bounced. In addition, two staff called out on the night shift, leaving the facility understaffed, and not for the first time in recent months.

Recent action around the nursing home started earlier this year when former CEO Tony Francis, who was removed with the receivership order, announced the administration’s intention to close the facility in mid-February.

At last week’s press conference, Feaster said that understanding and stabilizing the center’s finances are his primary focus. In the coming weeks and months, he also has to hire a licensed administrator for the facility and plans to review all the facility’s contracts and make other hires, like bringing on a security guard for the facility.

He’s also looking to find another company to handle payroll, after the facility’s former vendor, ADP, stopped working with the Benjamin.

According to affidavits in the lawsuit that led to Feaster’s appointment, a number of vendors that had worked with the center cut ties or stopped offering services in recent months due to non-payment. That left residents’ wheelchairs broken, scales uncalibrated and computers not updated.

As he does the work, Feaster said, he intends to cooperate and do what he can to help the attorney general’s office, which is taking its own look into the center’s financial management in recent years.

In an emailed statement to the Banner, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said her office will “continue to look into allegations of financial mismanagement and non-compliance with its nonprofit filing obligations.”

Feaster said the tangled finances stem from the place being “run like a dictatorship.”

“When one person controls all the finances within an organization, that’s troubling,” Feaster said. “That results in things happening, and so I’ve got to get through all of those things and to find out if there were any improprieties that were done.”

The appointment of a receiver doesn’t immediately fix the center’s financial situation, nor does it guarantee the facility’s ongoing survival.

Currently, there is no money in the Benjamin’s till, Feaster said, not even enough to make payroll on April 5 or April 12. Some outside organizations, like MassHealth and Upham’s Community Care, offered to support advances for payroll, he said.

In remarks at the press conference, he said that the question of whether the Benjamin can continue to operate can’t be answered yet, but said he is approaching the situation with an intent to keep the facility running.

“I’m not coming here in order to look to dissolve this organization. I’m looking to come here to see whether this organization can be sustained,” Feaster said.

Supporters and elected officials at the conference were optimistic that under new leadership, the facility will be able to continue its operations.

“We believe that there’s a clear path forward towards stabilization at this facility. We can save the Benjamin,” said state Sen. Liz Miranda, whose 2nd Suffolk district includes the facility.

For those elected officials, as well as about 30 assembled residents and staff, Friday’s press conference was a celebration of a milestone in a fight that they said didn’t always receive votes of confidence.

“[When] we started this fight, everyone, including those that are now on our side but initially on the other side, said that the appointment of a receiver was impossible,” Miranda said.

Officials also used the moment to praise the Edgar Benjamin community for their continued fight for the facility.

Oren Sellstrom, an attorney with Lawyers for Civil Rights, said the residents, as well as staff members, many of whom continued to show up for work even when they weren’t paid, were the “real heroes and heroines of this story.”

State Rep. Sam Montaño, who represents Mission Hill, called the fight a “real community effort” and encouraged the staff and residents to bask in the moment.

“There’s got to be a lot of work to happen, but for now it’s a victory, and there’s joy,” Montaño said.

Amid the celebration, supporters of the longstanding facility also looked forward to another milestone they’re hoping to mark at the Benjamin in few years.

“Our direction is to do all that we can in order to make sure that the Benjamin continues and makes it to that 100th anniversary in 2027,” Feaster said.■

“When some of the staff reached out to me about the Benjamin, I said, ‘You know what, I need to come home to help them out,’” Mark said.

Her appointment is the latest step as the facility moves forward with a court-ordered receivership that ousted the center’s previous administrator, Tony Francis, amid allegations of financial mismanagement.

For the past decade, since she left the Edgar Benjamin, Mark has worked in administration at healthcare facilities, mostly in the Greater Boston area. In her most recent role, she served as executive director of the Brighton House Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, a position she is wrapping up to take her new role.

In applying for the role at the Mission Hill facility, she impressed a hiring team comprised of veteran staffers. Joseph Feaster, the Roxbury attorney appointed as receiver April 3, said the team was “head over heels” for Mark.

“She was an ideal candidate that I felt comfortable with to rely upon to provide me what I need in order to [look to make the facility sustainable] and could be creative in finding some financial mechanisms,” Feaster said.

Once in her role, Mark will take over many of the day-to-day leadership responsibilities that had previously fallen on Feaster, as well as a leadership team he had put together, comprised of Leslie Joseph-Henderson, the center’s director of admissions, Marise Colsoul, director of nursing, and Dianne Wilkerson, the former state senator who now is serving as executive assistant. All three were prominent figures during the community fight for receivership.

Feaster will remain as the official point person to the Suffolk County Superior Court.

Mark said she plans to bring the experience she has amassed back to the facility where she got her start with initial goals around greater stability for staff and patients.

She cited increased support for the center’s workers as a key difference between herself and her predecessor. Under his leadership, workers at the facility sometimes went without pay or faced bounced checks, staffing shortages and inadequate supplies.

“I know that it’s been hard, but I want to be the backbone for them, to know that they have somebody standing behind them, to do right by them,” Mark said.

Maintaining and increasing the number of residents at the facility is a priority for her.

The center currently serves 70 residents but can host about 90, and new patients are arriving. During a walkthrough with state Sen. Liz Miranda on Friday, Feaster and Mark paused to greet and welcome one new resident who arrived last week.

Growing — as well as diversifying — the resident census could be an important step in keeping the center operating. Since Francis announced a contentious plan to close the center in February, whether the facility can remain open, and operations can be financially sustainable has been a lingering question.

At the time, Francis said that the decision to shutter the Mission Hill institution was due to “insurmountable financial difficulties.”

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Though the closure plan that Francis filed with the state’s Department of Public Health was suspended as soon as Feaster took over, the long-term viability of the center is still up in the air. Feaster and his team are looking for new avenues to increase revenue streams as it seeks to make continued operations possible.

Part of that sustainability plan includes the possibility of expanding the facility’s role. Feaster said one of the challenges around funding the center is low payment rates from MassHealth, which make up one chunk of the center’s income.

Mark is eyeing renovations to a wing of the building that has long-sat unused. As an alternate stream of income, the space could be used for dialysis treatment or other shorter-term services.

The Edgar Benjamin also receives about $70,000 per month from Roxbury Prep, a charter school that rents the third floor of one of the building’s wings. Feaster said that the agreement is set to expire in 2025.

Since the court order put the center under receivership in April, the path has not been entirely smooth sailing for the facility, and Feaster said that the Edgar Benjamin is “not out of the woods.”

Funds have been tight and some bills for utilities and vendors at the facility continue to go unpaid. A leaky roof in the section of the building utilized by Roxbury Prep Charter School precipitated a $20,000 repair, adding to the center’s financial troubles. Feaster is also still facing lingering financial effects from Francis, the former administrator who was forced out with the receivership.

In April, a $206,000 payment was pulled from the center’s Rockland Trust bank account to pay an American Express bill on a card that Feaster was told only Francis could cancel. On Friday, Feaster was served with a wage-an-hour claim by Francis’ attorneys for the former administrator’s last paycheck that Feaster didn’t pay — the latest in a series of “suspect” problems he and his team have been uncovering.

He said, however, that he is ready to face challenges brought by the former administration.

“If you want to play a hardball game, you got the right person on this side,” Feaster said.

Even with all of the pitfalls, there has been progress. About a week after taking leadership of the Edgar Benjamin, Feaster made sure all staff were receiving their paychecks.

In the last five months of Francis’ tenure, the facility failed to pay staff repeatedly, the last instance of which happened days after the suit requesting a receiver was filed in March. This was a defining factor in convincing the attorney general and Department of Public Health to sign onto the receivership petition after months of declining to get involved.

Feaster ironed out details with ADP, the payroll vendor that stopped working with the facility under Francis’ leadership due to non-payment. For now, Feaster is left signing paychecks by hand, but ADP is slated to pick duties back up starting in July.

Feaster and his team have made efforts to make the center more welcoming as well. The Edgar Benjamin’s lobby has been refurbished — now it’s brighter and more inviting, a change that Joseph-Henderson, the facility’s director of admissions, said makes a big difference in mood.

Mark said that updates and touch-ups to patient areas are next. But those changes can take longer, especially as patients must be moved around to make updates in individual rooms.

The clean-up isn’t just aesthetic — morale is up too, Feaster said, though he is also leading with a firm hand. At a meeting Friday, which he called a “heart-to-heart,” he laid down the gauntlet, reminding staff that they have to show up on time and follow all the center’s policies.

“I grew up with the cowboys and stuff,” he said. “I told them, ‘You can call me Wyatt Earp; this is Dodge City; I’m here to clean up the town.’

Mark, too, listed growing and maintaining employee morale as a priority as she enters her new role. And it was an ongoing change that Miranda noted as well during her tour of the center, saying that the energy at the Edgar Benjamin is different than it was under Francis’ tenure.

During Department of Public Health hearings, family and guardians of residents alleged Francis didn’t know the names of patients at the facility, but Feaster, as he made rounds during a walkthrough of the facility with Miranda, paused to greet people hanging out in the hallways or sitting in their rooms, passing along messages and picking up half-finished conversations.

And as she prepares to enter the facility’s top role, Mark has a head start. During the walkthrough, she also paused to greet patients some of whom, to her, were familiar faces: long-term residents whose stay at the Edgar Benjamin stretches from before she left about a decade ago.

Work to clean up the center’s appearance remains on the to-do list, including some basics like having the windows washed.

Wilkerson, in her role as executive assistant at the Edgar Benjamin, is working to organize a “Christmas in July” fundraiser with local businesses with a focus on maintenance goals like replacing a stove in the kitchen.

“We want to make things more comfortable for our residents,” Feaster said.

The official court order put Feaster in charge of the facility for 90 days, but he said he is ready to settle in for a longer haul if necessary, pointing to his last experience as a receiver, where he took over and headed the closure at Roxbury Comprehensive Community Health Center in 2013, a process that took close to a decade.

Feaster said he was trying to make sure the facility will see its 100th birthday in 2027, a goal that has been top-of-mind for Feaster and other supporters of the center since the push for a receivership started. It was a sentiment he shared with a patient while walking through the facility.

“We’re still here and we’re getting stronger each day,” he told her.■

A list of asks, which was set to be released Wednesday, will solicit donations of things like air conditioning units for patient rooms, improved wi-fi and computers to fix a system that often struggles, and an industrial-sized, six-burner stove for the kitchen, which currently uses the three functional burners of its four-burner stove.

The fundraiser comes as the facility wraps its fourth month under a receivership, following a petition filed in Suffolk County Superior Court at the end of March by the Lawyers for Civil Rights, on behalf of patients and their families.

The petition claimed there was an emergency at the facility borne out by poor leadership by the center’s former management, which led to deferred maintenance and staff going weeks without pay.

Dianne Wilkerson, the center’s executive assistant, said the seed for the drive came following the early-April receivership decision, when community members and business leaders reached out to attorney Joseph Feaster, the court-appointed receiver, looking to support the center as it aimed to bounce back from a then-pending closure announced in February by the center’s old executive director, Tony Francis.

For example, also on the list are two salon chairs to go in the center’s currently unused beauty salon, following an offer from local beauticians to come in and do residents hair.

“One of the positive things that happened as a result of the attention and the focus in the press when they learned about happened at Benjamin with the appointment of the receiver … was people — corporate leaders, political leaders, regular citizens, neighborhood and community folks — were calling saying, ‘What can I do to help?’” Wilkerson said.

The Christmas in July drive is one of a number of developments at the facility as it looks to determine whether long-term operations of the center are financially feasible.

At the end of June, approaching the end of the 90 days the receivership was initially set to last, the court granted a six-month extension, following a request by Feaster and the residents’ family members who initially petitioned for a receivership.

In an official report filed with the court the same day, Feaster called the next six months “critical” to determining the potential longevity of the center. The question of whether the center will be able to stay open long-term has hovered nearby since the receivership was ordered.

“I feel very confident that we’re heading in the right direction, such that I will be able, I believe, to answer that question in the time allotted,” he said in an interview.

Under his leadership, the center has also worked to flesh out its full-time leadership staff. In May, the Edgar Benjamin hired a new full-time administrator, Delicia Mark, who had previously worked at the center almost two decades before. The facility also hired Hannah Kromah to work as the center’s human resources director.

And the Edgar Benjamin has pushed beautification efforts of the facility, painting resident rooms and running a flower-planting day with residents and staff, following an earlier refresh of the building’s lobby.

Those efforts could be important steps to increasing the facility’s resident count, one step leadership is hoping will help bring in increased funds and keep it open.

“We know that it makes a big difference when people walk in to determine whether this is a place where they want to have a loved one,” Wilkerson said.

The process hasn’t been without difficulty.

For more than a month following the receivership order, the website for the state’s Division of Health Care Facility Licensure and Certification still said the facility was closing at the start of July, even as the Edgar Benjamin looked to bring in new residents and the increased funding that comes with them.

In May, the Department of Public Health completed an unannounced survey of the facility, which is required for its recertification and had been delayed due to the pending closure, which identified four “low-level” deficiencies.

The center is also still working to catch up on several federal and state requirements like the paying a quarterly provider tax, submitting cost reports and completing for all residents the Preadmission Screening Resident Review, a federally mandated tool used to ensure facilities comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Feaster said that, with full-time leadership now installed at the center, he’s taking a less hands-on approach, but he will continue to work to address the requirements, while also pushing back on some that he said are asking for information the center doesn’t have access to. He said that, if necessary, he expects to be able to get support from the courts, to whom he reports as receiver, to work out any issues.

“Under the receivership, we will attempt to address it, but I have no intentions of our getting a negative hit with regards to that,” he said. “That’s where I will get the court involved in order to say that it’s unreasonable to hold me to a standard in terms of three months when we don’t have the ability or the information to be responsive to that.”

And though the Edgar Benjamin hasn’t missed payroll since early April — one of the key pieces under the former administration that ultimately led to the Attorney General and Department of Public Health supporting the receivership claim — some of those payments were paid through advances on Medicare reimbursement funds paid by the state’s MassHealth Office of Long-Term Services and Supports.

Those advances have racked up over $506,000 due back to the MassHealth office as the facility looks for a way to sustainably support itself in the long term.

“On a financial basis, you’re either going to increase your revenue or decrease your expenses, so that’s one aspect — looking at whether we can stabilize it by doing that,” Feaster said.

He said the center is also working “aggressively” to get payments that were owed to the Edgar Benjamin but never collected, something he said is set to bring in a couple hundred thousand dollars.

As another avenue to increase revenue, the Edgar Benjamin is looking to expand the services it offers, planning a renovation of the currently defunct portion of the building in its eastern wing to convert it into a dialysis treatment facility. Wilkerson said that step could be important in supporting the center financially, while also recognizing the prevalence of diabetes in Boston’s Black and brown communities.

According to city data, 14.6% of Boston’s Black residents had diabetes, compared to 8.8% of city residents overall. In nearby Roxbury, the city’s public health commission found about 15% of residents had diabetes. The disparity put the condition, alongside other cardiometabolic diseases, at the center of the first step in a new city agenda to decrease life expectancy gaps in Boston, announced July 10.

Wilkerson said the center estimates a $2.7 million budget to make the transition but might be on its way to finding some of that funding. On July 11, the state Senate passed its version of a $2.8 billion economic development bill that included an amendment from Sen. Liz Miranda, whose district includes the Edgar Benjamin, to allocate $1 million to the development of the dialysis center.

That bill is now under consideration by a conference committee — a group of six legislators tasked with ironing out differences between the Senate’s version and the House’s before the end of the legislative session at the end of the month.

“We’re going to be lobbying, asking people to weigh in, call the Senate president, call the speaker [of the House] to make sure that that amendment stays in the bond bill that’s delivered to the governor’s desk,” Wilkerson said.■