Andy Levinsky
Mar 2026
If you ask Lasell Village residents whether they made the right decision to move there, the vast majority will say yes. Until the end of our mother’s 13 years there, we would have agreed enthusiastically. In November 2025, our mom, a Lasell Village resident since 2013, died after a fall that could have been prevented had a safety protocol for staff been in place. It was only following this avoidable tragedy that we discovered there really are two sides to Lasell Village.<br><br>The first is the exceptional front line staff: housekeeping, dining, facilities, I.T., fitness, transportation, wellness; those who interact directly with residents on a day-to-day basis are uniformly caring, dedicated, skillful and willing to go above and beyond.<br><br>The second is the leadership whose president’s previous experience was with a publicly traded senior living conglomerate whose investors included BlackRock and Vanguard. Her background seemed like an unlikely fit for a non-profit that used to be affiliated with a college, but it makes sense in light of the corporate direction she has taken Lasell Village in since her arrival.<br><br>While acknowledging that our mother’s death prompted them to address the gaps in their safety protocol, she rejected our request to participate in the process of developing a comprehensive plan because we were no longer customers. Apparently, the reason we are no longer customers didn’t earn us a seat at the table.<br><br>It is obviously too late for our family to benefit from a comprehensive safety policy. At this stage, our sole motivation is the interests of the front-line staff and residents of Lasell Village. In sharing our experience, we hope to prompt leadership including the board and president to be more transparent and focused on the safety of its residents. We also want prospective residents to be able to make a fully informed decision.<br><br>There remain many positive aspects of living at Lasell Village--primarily its front-line staff--but they need to be weighed against the bottom-line focus of its leadership.
