At age 88, World War II veteran Robert Kroll moved to Friendship Village of Schaumburg, a retirement community where he would be taken care of until death, and so his children would get their inheritance after he died. He paid an entrance fee of $124,000, plus about $2,400 a month, to guarantee that he would always get housing and medical care even if he ran out of money, with the understanding that his family would get 90% of his remaining entrance fee after expenses upon his passing. Kroll died in 2019, but his family still hasn’t gotten their money back. In June, Friendship Village, citing problems caused by the COVID pandemic, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, in which officials say operations will continue as usual, but with some debts unpaid, the Chicago Tribune reported. A company has bid $115 million to buy the facility, but the bankruptcy proposal includes only $2 million to pay back families of former residents — about 10% of what is owed. The Kroll's dispute is over Friendship Village’s policy of only paying back entry fees upon the resale of a resident’s unit. The facility — the largest not-for-profit retirement community in Illinois, with 815 units — didn’t resell Kroll’s one-bedroom unit, so hadn’t paid his family back. Now that Friendship Village has entered bankruptcy, families of former residents are unlikely to ever receive full repayment, which Barnes and other families see as a betrayal of what they were promised. Friendship Village officials say that the contracts were clear about the arrangement, which had worked well for decades since the retirement community opened in 1977. “We never expected this to happen,” CEO Mike Flynn said.
