(Photo by Josh)

Residents of a nursing home in Northwest filed a lawsuit last week to block the Sidwell Friends School from purchasing the facility, arguing they should have been given the opportunity to buy it first under D.C. law.

The non-profit Washington Home announced the sale back in 2015. Residents said they didn’t find out about the deal until after it was signed, prompting an outcry (some alumni of the Quaker school even joined in and expressed concerns about the purchase). The deal is scheduled to close in December, and would allow Sidwell to consolidate its upper and lower schools onto one campus.

Malia Obama recently graduated from Sidwell, which seeks to join a number of private schools in expanding their campuses in recent years.

Leaders of the non-profit Washington Home say that residents have been given ample time to find another facility. “The notice allowed 15 months to residents and families to relocate. According to the D.C. Department of Health, this is the longest period that a nursing home in D.C. has provided prior to closure,” Washington Home CEO Tim Cox and nursing home administrator Janine Finck-Boyle wrote in an op-ed in the Northwest Current last month.

Under D.C.’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, otherwise known as TOPA, residents of a rental must be given the right to purchase the property before its sale to a third party. In the newly filed suit, residents of the nursing home say they should have been given that opportunity.

“Two of our clients have lived at the Washington Home for over 20 years and the other two for almost a decade. The Washington Home is all of our clients’ literal home,” said Norrinda Brown Hayat, director of the University of the District of Columbia’s Housing & Consumer Law Clinic, which is bringing the case on behalf of the residents. “The Washington Home, instead of offering the notice as required under the law, intentionally hid the fact of the sale and denied our clients their rights under D.C. law.”