BLUE HILL— Friendship Cottage adult day care center in Blue Hill has to buy back its own facility if it’s going to continue providing services to adults with mental and physical disabilities. Supporters of the organization are, for the second time since its founding, starting a fundraising campaign to purchase the small property on Ellsworth Road that has housed the care center for over two decades.
Friendship Cottage used to operate under the umbrella of Downeast Community Partners, the nonprofit social service provider for Washington and Hancock counties. After years of financial trouble, DCP formally ceased operation in October, turning over most of its programs to an adjacent agency, the Aroostook County Action Program.
But DCP owes the Maine Department of Health and Human Services over $4 million, according to liens filed in the Hancock and Washington County Registry of Deeds in October. The state has issued liens on four of DCP’s properties, including its headquarters, its child care center in Ellsworth, its offices in Machias and, Friendship Cottage in Blue Hill. The properties are being sold as part of the nonprofit’s liquidation.
Friendship Cottage provides nursing home-like day care for people from across Hancock County with physical and mental disabilities. Participants are dropped off during the day, where they receive medications and other kinds of care, then return home in the evening. The center also provides hot meals, wheelchair accessible showers and community activities.
Many of the center’s participants are usually taken care of by a family member or caregiver. The day program allows families to ensure their loved ones receive high quality care while they are at work during the day. Blue Hill resident Dede Johnson has been bringing her husband Steve to Friendship Cottage for over a year. Johnson and her two daughters work during the day.
“If Friendship Cottage wasn’t here, someone would have to quit their job to come take care of my husband,” Johnson said. “We couldn’t survive in our household without it.”
Friendship Cottage Executive Director Ann Ossanna has been involved in the organization since the beginning. She remembers raising $1.4 million to purchase and renovate the Friendship Cottage building, a former cafe, in 2005. When Ossanna found out that they would have to purchase the property again, it hit her hard.
“I was devastated, to be honest. I was devastated,” Ossanna said.
In a November 17 press release, a group called the Friends of Friendship Cottage announced they were starting a fundraising campaign to purchase the property once again. Friendship Cottage continues to operate with the Aroostook County organization as its fiscal sponsor, but the release states that “the future of the facility depends on securing ownership of the property.”
Barbra Clark, a longtime volunteer at Friendship Cottage and one of the campaign’s organizers, said the fundraising group and Aroostook County Action Program are negotiating with Bernstein Shur, the legal firm tasked with liquidating DCP’s assets. Clark said the property hasn’t been listed and was unsure how much they’ll need to raise to purchase it.
“We don’t know how much they’re going to ask for it,” Clark said in an interview.
Jason Parent, Executive Director of Aroostook County Action Program, said it is “unclear” when the Friendship Cottage property will go up for sale.
“We are working with a group of interested community members to hopefully purchase the facility,” Parent said in an interview. “We are looking into alternatives. No solution is off the table at this point.”
Parent’s organization, ACAP, is growing to better support Aroostook, Washington and Hancock Counties, and is also working to make Friendship Cottage more “financially sustainable” as it continues to support the program.
When the building was bought and renovated in 2005, Ossanna said it was specially designed to be an adult day care center. If the fundraising campaign cannot secure the building, Ossanna said it would be almost impossible to relocate the program.
“I’ve looked into other spaces and it’s just not going to happen,’ Ossanna said.
Similarly, if Friendship Cottage has to pay rent or mortgage payments, Ossanna said it could seriously affect the organization’s already stretched finances. Ossanna hopes the Friendship Cottage property can be purchased outright and held by a trust or other, more permanent, entity that would ensure it stays open into the future.
Friendship Cottage currently has 11 participants in its program, five of which require nursing home level care. With the closing of the Island Nursing Home in 2021, Friendship Cottage is one of the only adult care facilities still open in Hancock County. To Ossanna, Friendship Cottage is more than just a care facility, it’s a place where people come to find community and family.
“It feels like family,” Ossanna said. “That’s what we hear again and again from caregivers, ‘you treat our loved ones like you would your own family.’”
