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Longtime residents of The Parkwood facility displaced in business deal

Posted at 11:02 PM, Dec 13, 2016
and last updated 2016-12-14 00:08:42-05

RICHMOND, Va. -- Residents of The Parkwood, an assisted living facility in Carytown, need to find new housing after Richmond’s City Council voted unanimously Monday to allow the property’s new owner to convert it into 32 apartments.

Krishan Shani lives at The Parkwood and said he loves living in Carytown.

“I go to One -Eyed Jacques, I go to McDonalds, I go to the library,” Shani said, but in just two days, he will have to leave.

“We’re going to make sure everything is ok,” Shani’s sister Anita Goblinger said.

Goblinger is scrambling to find him a new home.

“He can walk everywhere, and he enjoys that, it is a wonderful location, it’s too bad,” Goblinger said.

resident

Krishan Shani

Yet, many in the neighborhood said it’s about time The Parkwood closed.

“For over a decade they have repeatedly shown that they can’t take care of that population of people, and they deserve something better in my opinion,” Camille Bird, the head of the Carytown Merchant’s Association and owner of Sacred Waters Holistic Spa and Boutique, said.

A look at the Virginia Department of Social Services website shows the state cited The Parkwood over and over again for not properly caring for its residents.

“We are also very attached to them,” Bird said.

Bird said improper care led to some unfortunate situations in Carytown, which involved the residents.

She hopes the changes will allow residents like Shani to find a new caring home.

“Any movement that we tried to do to support the new project was with the heart and in the thought and hope that they would be allowed a better life and something better,” Bird said.

CBS 6 reporter Melissa Hipolit talked to the man who owns The Parkwood over the phone, but he would not comment on the changes and referred her to Chris Jenkins with Commonwealth Commercial.

Jenkins said confidentiality agreements prohibited him from answering any questions.

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