Pandemic Profiteers
The connection between long-term care deaths and a Toronto landlord
Ranee Management Ltd and LTC deaths
Ranee Management Limited is a privately held corporate landlord with over 7,500 residential units in the GTA. Phyllis and Ben Friedman – the daughter and son-in-law of Ranee’s founder Morris Zolty – own several buildings under Ranee Management, including Goodwood Park, Fountainhead Road and 90 Tyndall in Parkdale. Ben Friedman is also the owner of Rykka Care Centres, a long-term care provider that has recently been the target of a lawsuit from the Ontario Nurses’ Association because of Rykka Care Centres’ negligence.
Three of Rykka centres – Hawthorne Place, Eatonville and Anson Place – have come under intense scrutiny for allowing the spread of COVID-19 amongst its residents. The Eatonville home, for example, recorded 104 cases of COVID-19 among its staff (the most in the province) and 182 cases among its patients. By the end of April 2020, 84 patients had died as result and the military had to be sent into Eatonville and Hawthorne. Rykka refused to put in place basic health and safety measures; sick patients were not isolated, while PPE was restricted and denied to staff, resulting in some of the highest rates of COVID-19 infection in the province.
“We know the covid crisis is not just about rent.” said a PSW living in Goodwood Park, who is also on rent strike. “It broke my heart to read about the conditions the residents of Hawthorne were living in. We will be going there to show our support and condolences to those who have been affected by our landlord's greed. None of us should suffer through this. None of us are alone in this.”
Tenants in properties owned by Ranee Management, including those owned by Phyllis and Ben Friedman, have also experienced the corporate avarice of the Ranee/Rykka brand. Amid the global crisis, tenants throughout Ranee properties have received N4 Notices of Eviction. Some were told to “pay 80% now, the rest will be tacked-on to rent over the next few months.” Unemployed tenants were told to use CERB and EI, or take out loans, to come up with the money.
Tenants unable to pay have been frequently reminded any non-payment would result in evictions by Ranee Management after the pandemic. Tenants of nine buildings across Goodwood Park and Fountainhead Road have been on a rent strike since April 2020. They are calling for rent relief due to job and wage loss caused by COVID-19.
“The notion that people should go into debt and empty their emergency funds to maintain a multi-million dollar company’s profit margins can only exist in the same minds that see the death of grandparents as preferable to paying for extra PPE, sanitation and staff”, said tenant Carly Tisdall.
Tenants in Ranee buildings have refused to accept the threats and intimidation of Ranee Management. They are collectively withholding their rent money until Ranee and Friedman stop threatening people with eviction, and act like the “responsible landlord” the company claims to be, by sitting down and negotiating with tenants. Tenants in Goodwood and Fountainhead will continue their rent strike into June, spreading it to other Ranee buildings, while working to build solidarity with residents and workers at Rykka LTCs.
“The insistence by Ranee and the Zolty family to protect their profit margins during this global pandemic is guaranteed to result in either the homelessness or crushing debt of hundreds of families that have been devastated by job losses in the last months.”
“We know the COVID crisis is not just about rent. It broke my heart to read about the conditions the residents of Hawthorne were living in. We will be going there to show our support and condolences to those who have been affected by our landlord's greed. None of us should suffer through this.
None of us are alone in this.”
— Personal Support Worker on rent strike in a Ranee building
Ben Friedman
Director, Rykka Care Centres
Ben Friedman is the director of Rykka Care Centres. Ben Friedman is a chair of the Zolty Charitable Foundation, as is Phyllis, Dov and David Zolty. Ben is the owner of the Fountainhead apartments and 90 Tyndall Avenue among others. While under his directorship, Rykka long-term care homes produced among the worst concentrations of COVID infections and deaths in the country.
Phyllis Friedman
Director, Goodwood Apts.
Phyllis Friedman is married to Ben Friedman and is the director of the Goodwood Apartments. Phyllis and Ben are the directors of the Chaim Moshe Memorial Fund. Both are located at 3200 Dufferin Street, Unit 407. The Zolty Charitable Foundation gave its largest gift - $1.9 million to the Chaim Moshe Memorial Fund while Phyllis and Ben were directors of both.
In the news
Companies managing troubled Ontario long-term care homes run dozens more, make millions in profits
“The companies managing long term care homes where the military found rotting food, cockroaches, patients in soiled beds and conditions that allowed COVID-19 to spread, also run dozens of other facilities in the province and have made millions of dollars a year operating them.
On Tuesday, a report military members wrote while helping in the care homes was released publicly, detailing what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called “deeply disturbing” conditions at the five Ontario homes.”
COVID-19 and private care homes – 'the logic of profit is not the same as the logic of care'
“These days, the death tolls in Ontario long-term care are released quietly. Sometimes, the information comes from grieving families. No big headlines. Perhaps we’ve all been numbed by news of so much death.
But with more and more residents dying in privately owned, for-profit seniors’ homes, perhaps it is time to ask whether privatization is the problem rather than the solution.”
3 long-term care homes run by same company report total of 71 deaths from COVID-19
“Three long-term care homes in Ontario that were the subject of a court hearing in Toronto on Wednesday have reported a combined total of 71 deaths of residents.
Eatonville Care Home in Etobicoke has recorded 36 deaths, Anson Place Care Centre in Hagersville has recorded 27 deaths, while Hawthorne Place Care Centre in North York has recorded eight deaths. At Anson, 23 of the deaths are from its care home, while four are from its retirement home.
All three homes … are operated by Rykka Care Centres, an operating partner of Responsive Management Inc., based in Markham, Ont.”
Ontario long-term care nurses make shocking allegations about access to PPE during pandemic
“An association representing Ontario nurses is seeking a court order that would force some long term-care homes to provide staff with personal protective equipment (PPE), including N95 facial respirators, claiming that without urgent intervention residents and staff will continue to transmit COVID-19 and “become infected and possibly die.”
According to court documents, filed by the Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA) in mid-April, four Ontario long-term care homes have been allegedly restricting or denying the use of PPE in their facilities.
The homes named in the application include three owned by Rykka Care Centres Group—Eatonville Care Centre in Toronto, where at least 34 residents have died, Anson Place Centre in Haggersville, Ont., where at least 27 deaths have been attributed to the virus, and Hawthorne Place Care Centre in North York, where at least six residents have contracted COVID-19.”
Court orders four Ontario long-term care homes to provide nurses with PPE
“The Ontario Nurses’ Association says it has won a legal battle that will force four long-term care homes to immediately fix alleged safety issues for health-care workers.
According to court documents, filed by the ONA in mid-April, four Ontario long-term care homes have been allegedly restricting or denying the use of PPE in their facilities.
The homes named in the application include three owned by Rykka Care Centres Group—Eatonville Care Centre in Toronto, where at least 37 residents have died, Anson Place Centre in Haggersville, Ont., where at least 27 deaths have been attributed to the virus, and Hawthorne Place Care Centre in North York, where at least six residents have contracted COVID-19.
In the documents, the ONA says that its members have “not been provided with readily available access to N95 respirators when providing care to residents with confirmed, suspected or presumed COVID-19.”
Proposed class-action lawsuit filed against owner of several Ontario seniors’ homes
“As Mike McCarroll was leaving the hospital after what would turn out to be his final visit to his 95-year-old mother, a nurse stopped to give him the bad news. His mother, Ruby McCarroll, had just tested positive for COVID-19.
That word from a hospital nurse was how Mr. McCarroll first learned that his mother’s retirement home southwest of Hamilton was the site of a coronavirus outbreak that would go on to be one of the worst in Canada.
“I had no communication from them,” Mr. McCarroll said of his mother’s retirement home. “None at all.”
Mr. McCarroll is now the lead plaintiff in a proposed class-action lawsuit filed against Responsive Group Inc., the private, for-profit company that owns several seniors’ homes ravaged by the coronavrius, including Anson Place Care Centre in Hagersville, Ont., where Mrs. McCarroll lived before her death March 30.”
Find out more about Ranee Management.
Share your Ranee or Rykka Care Centres stories with us.
Tenants across the city are organizing together against rent increases, disrepair and disrespect. The reprehensible conditions in Long-term care homes owned by the Zolty/Friedman family has been exposed. Tell us about your experiences as a Ranee tenant or with Rykka Care Centres. Join the organizing.