N. Aurora nursing home patients under scrutiny

Residents of a North Aurora nursing home will have to be fingerprinted for criminal background checks if the village board approves a new special-use permit for it Monday.

The action was prompted by complaints from school officials and neighborhood residents about patients of the North Aurora Care Center. In recent years, the center has accepted younger clients with mental illnesses instead of senior citizens.

The new rules are being enacted only for the center, 310 Banbury Road, because it is next door to Schneider Elementary School.

The 129-bed center was built in 1971 as a shelter-care home "for the care of old age," according to the conditional-use permit it received then, said Scott Bruening, the village's community development director. Shelter care is defined by the state health department as help with personal care such as hygiene, meals and laundry, but does not include skilled nursing or dispensing medication.

Over the years the home became a nursing home, providing medical care, but the permit was never modified.

And in the last few years the patient mix began to change from primarily people with physical disabilities and illness. As of December 2006, 49 of 103 patients had a primary diagnosis of mental illness, according to the latest available annual report on the health department's Web site. Sixty of the residents were younger than 60.

It mirrors a nationwide trend of more mentally ill people who cannot live independently being placed in nursing homes.

Under the new special-use permit, North Aurora Care Center would have to install exit doors that have a 15-second delay and alarms to alert the staff someone is trying to leave without permission. Residents will have to be signed in and out, and any time residents are outdoors, staff members must accompany them. A wall will have to be built around the facility's side and back yards.

People who are convicted of violent crimes including murder, drug crimes, sexual crimes, or crimes against children would be prohibited from living there.

At plan commission hearings on the matter in late 2008, school officials said one resident had solicited money in the neighborhood, one swore at students and staff when they were on a playground, and others were sometimes found walking on the school grounds. A nearby resident reported seeing a care-center patient urinating outside.

The plan commission recommended denial of the permit.

Bruening said that due to the federal Fair Housing Act, the village could not outright ban people with mental illness from living in the home, or restrict residents based on age. "You can't really create discrimination," he said.

Nationally, the number of mentally ill people being housed in nursing homes has risen by 50 percent since 2002, according to the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid. About 9 percent of residents have mental illnesses.

The issue recently came up in Elgin, where a 21-year-old man with bipolar disorder was charged in the rape of a 69-year-old female fellow resident of a nursing home in January. The woman's family has sued the nursing home, accusing it of failing to protect her from assault and trying to cover it up by calling it consensual sex.

North Aurora has three other nursing or assisted-living facilities, but they are in business districts. If somebody today were to propose building a nursing home in the middle of a neighborhood, the village likely would deny it, Bruening said.

The board meets at 7 p.m. at the village hall, 25 E. State St.

Checks: Violent criminals would not be allowed