Category Archives: Nursing Home

Call to Action – Ask County Board to fund skilled nursing facility!

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August 11, 2026

I apologize for the short notice on this, but our friends at Advocates for Aging Care (AAC) are asking for the community’s support to seek funding from the Champaign County Board in support of the new skilled nursing facility that we are trying to bring to Champaign County.

Please see the message below from AAC. The call to action is for anyone who is available and in support of their efforts to attend TONIGHT’s County Board Meeting, if possible.

If you cannot attend tonight, you will still have opportunities to advocate to the County Board and to support this request. We will send you another email next week to let you know how you can help with this effort.

Here is the message and call to action from our friends at AAC:

We need your voice and your support.

Advocates for Aging Care is asking community members and supporters to attend the upcoming Champaign County Board meeting and stand with us as we request a $1 million investment toward the start-up operational costs of a new skilled nursing facility.

For more than two decades, Champaign County residents have supported skilled nursing care through a voter-approved property tax levy established in 2002, which currently generates approximately $1.7 million annually. That investment reflected a community commitment: caring for older adults and ensuring access to skilled nursing care is a priority.

We need advocates, families, healthcare supporters, and community members to attend the County Board meeting, show their support, and make clear that our County Board needs to commit these funds.

Meeting details:
Date: Tuesday, August 11, 2026
Time: 6:30 pm
Location: Scott Bennett Administrative Center
102 E. Main Street, Urbana
Additional Details: If you wish to speak, please arrive by 6:15 to sign in.
 
Your presence matters. A strong turnout will demonstrate that Champaign County residents believe that their tax dollars should be used, as approved in the 2002 referendum, to help ensure that residents can receive the skilled nursing care they need close to home.

Thank you for standing with Advocates for Aging Care and helping us build a stronger future for healthcare in our community.

Please join CCHCC in supporting the efforts of Advocates for Aging Care!

Sincerely,
Claudia Lennhoff
Executive Director
Champaign County Health Care Consumers

Help bring more skilled nursing beds to Champaign County!

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May 28, 2026

Dear friend,

Our friends at Advocates for Aging Care (AAC) in here in Champaign County have done a tremendous amount of work to try to help remedy the situation regarding the lack of skilled nursing beds in Champaign County.

This amazing grassroots organization has announced a new possibility for a senior living community that they hope to bring to Champaign County. And they need our support!

Cottage-style senior living!

The small-home, cottage-style model is inspired by the nationally recognized Green House Cottages approach.

According to our friends at AAC, this innovative project will include 10 cottages, thoughtfully arranged within a neighborhood setting, complete with front yards and back patios. Each cottage will be home to just 12 residents, creating a close-knit environment that feels more personal and truly residential – as opposed to yet another large congregate institution.

This model center on intimate homes with private beds and baths, and shared living spaces including a kitchen. The design foster comfort and familiarity, while supporting meaningful relationships among residents and caregivers.

Advocacy is needed in order to make this new senior living option a reality!

READ ON!

Take action on nursing home care in Champaign County

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As you know, the former Champaign County Nursing Home has been totally shuttered. The County Board sold the nursing home to Avi Rothner and his company, which then renamed it University Rehab. Mr. Rothner was to operate the nursing home – as a nursing home – for a minimum of 10 years. Four years into the operation, Mr. Rothner shut down the nursing home, after also failing to pay the bank loan, interest, and taxes for the purchase of the nursing home (despite providing proof from his bank at the time of purchase that he could have paid cash for the purchase of the nursing home).

The bank that issued the loan for the nursing home now wants to sell the nursing home, but needs the County Board to lift the deed restriction in order to allow the sale.

The sad story of this valuable community health asset continues, and the most tragic aspect is that Champaign County is severely underserved in terms of nursing home beds. Too many individuals in need of long term care or post-hospitalization rehab care are having to travel to communities far away in order to get the care that they need. This is a hardship for them and their families, as ease of visiting and supporting a loved one in a nursing facility is made more challenging by distance.

An amazing group of advocates, activists, health care providers, and local agencies have banded together to form a group called Advocates for Aging Care (AAC) and are working to create solutions for this health care crisis in our county. CCHCC is proud to be a member of the AAC. This is community health planning at its best!

To try to address the problem of lack of nursing care and aging care resources in our community, AAC has created a survey to try gather information on our community’s needs, and they will also be participating in the County Board’s Study Session, to be held TOMORROW at 6 p.m.

If you would like to help with , there are a couple of ways to do so.

READ ON!

Take Action TODAY! The Rothner’s are requesting to sell off the nursing home AGAIN!

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March 14, 2023

Tonight, the Champaign County Board will meet as the Committee of the Whole, and, as part of the meeting, will consider another request from the Rothners to be allowed to sell the former Champaign County Nursing Home to an entity that would use the space to create a drug and alcohol treatment center.
 
The Rothners are asking the County Board, once again, to let them out of the covenant where they promised to continue to operate the nursing home for at least 10 years. The Rothners have only operated the former County Nursing Home, now called University Rehabilitation Services of C-U, for less than four years.

CCHCC isurging community members to contact their County Board Members, or the County Board as a whole, to oppose the Rothner’s request to sell the nursing home. And/or, people can speak during public participation at tonight’s County Board Committee of the Whole Meeting, which starts at 6:30 p.m. The Agenda Packet for tonight’s meeting is posted here.

There has been some coverage about this in the news, which you can see here.

The Rothners are claiming that no harm would come to the community as a result of selling the former County Nursing Home and converting it to another type of treatment facility. But this is false. Right now, many community members who need nursing home or rehab care are being sent to facilities away from our community, where it is hard for their families and friends to visit them regularly. If this nursing home goes away, our community will have lost a total of three nursing homes, thanks to the Rothners.

The Rothners should NOT be allowed to sell the nursing home, and they MUST be made to abide by the covenant they signed when they were given permission to buy the former County Nursing Home.

READ ON FOR Q&A!