Feds Forgave Troubled Northview Village’s $1.9M PPP Loan

What a difference a few years can make.

In April 2020, the federal government awarded a Paycheck Protection Program loan worth $1,970,487 to the partnership group that ran Northview Village Nursing Home in St. Louis.

The following year, federal regulators awarded Northview its lowest rating, a single star — “much below average” — on a five-star rating system, citing the facility for severe staff shortages. 

Regulators also documented two abuse and neglect complaints at Northview, and nine quality of life complaints, resulting in eight separate fines totalling $86,373, Medicare records show.

Nonetheless, the U.S. Treasury Department in that year forgave the nearly $2 million PPP loan to Northview Village, federal records show.

Flash forward to December 15, 2023. 

That afternoon, as Northview Village workers prepared for their annual Holiday party, several were notified that Chicago businessman Maklouf “Mark” Suissa, the leader of the partnership group that owns and operates Northview, would be shutting down the nursing home, located at 2415 North Kingshighway.

That decision touched a frantic overnight scramble to move the facility’s 170 residents to other nursing homes.

The result: chaos. 

Many family members spent days looking for loved ones. Police found one mentally ill patient walking on a nearby street three days later. It took three weeks to locate the final missing resident, and the personal belongings for many, if not most, are still missing.

And the facility's 180 workers were stiffed out of their final paychecks and vacation pay one week before Christmas, forcing many to wonder how they would be able to pay their rent and utility bills.

For Lenny Jones, the vice-president and Missouri state director of the healthcare division of the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, nothing about the closure of Northview Village makes sense — except greed.

“Their argument…that it’s a financial thing and the state needs to pay them more is bullshit,” Jones said.

Jones noted that the federal government, through the Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security programs, paid nearly every dime of patient expenses. The forgiven PPP loan was just free money.

Northview’s sudden closure was “a premeditated act that’s just a sign of how these owners milk the system so they can pad their pockets,” Jones said. “They can give a rat’s ass about what happens to residents, what happens to the workers.”

Maklouf Suissa did not return several messages left Tuesday at the offices of Healthcare Service Accounting, the Brentwood-based health facility management firm that Suissa owns and that operates Northview, along with other nursing homes.

Sharon Tyus, the Ward 12 alderman who represents the district where Northview is located, has already authored a resolution calling for the Board of Aldermen to conduct its own investigation into Northview’s closure.

Tyus reserved judgment as who’s to blame for the nursing home’s closure and the chaos that followed. But news that Northview’s owners received nearly $2 million in the form of a forgiven PPP loan “angers me,” Tyus says. “It angers me how he treats the patients.”

Tyus is especially incensed over the fact that Northview’s workers are still waiting for their paychecks.

“And they can’t get anything from a strike fund because they’re not on strike,” says Tyus, who says she contributed $5,000 of her own money to a fund to compensate laid-off Northview employees.

During a rally held outside Northview on December 19 and sponsored by SEIU, long-time employees such as Marvetta Harrison expressed outrage over how they could lose their jobs while still being owed weeks’ worth of back pay and vacation time.

“I think it’s a disgrace the way things were done,” said Harrison, who worked 37 years at Northview. “It was just terrible the way it went.”

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services opened an investigation into the nursing home closure on December 15, according to department spokeswoman Lisa Cox.

Over the last three years, nursing homes connected to Maklouf and his wife, Lorraine Suissa, have shown a knack for two things: winning big PPP loans that are later forgiven and racking up big fines under the federal Medicare inspection program.

Consider Cori Manor in Fenton, whose ownership is split 50-50 between the Suissas, Medicare records show. 

Cori Manor in April 2020 won $704,555 in the form of a PPP loan that the feds forgave more than a year later.

Meanwhile, Cori Manor rated a two-star average — “below average” — and was fined 13 separate times in 2021 and 2022, for a total of $48,038, according to data compiled by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS.

Or consider the case of Elmwood Nursing and Rehab Center, in Maryville, Illinois, located a short drive east of St. Louis in Madison County.

Elmwood collected $458,535 in a PPP loan in 2020. Medicare awarded it the lowest overall rating, one star — “much below average” — and gave one-star ratings for health inspections and staffing, CMS records show.

Maklouf Suissa owns a 42 percent share of Elmwood, by far the largest amount of any shareholder, CMS records show, while the facility is run by Suissa’s firm, Healthcare Accounting Service.

Elmwood was cited repeatedly for health, fire and emergency deficiencies. On March 15, 2023, the nursing home was ordered to pay a fine of $109,980, and ordered to pay a series of other fines ranging between nearly $12,000 and nearly $80,000. 

Between December 2020 and March 2023, Elmwood was ordered to pay a combined $331,567 in fines, CMS records show.