Patient-care woes forced this Boise nursing home to close. It may reopen as something else

Leap Housing, a nonprofit that develops and preserves affordable housing, plans to convert a Boise nursing home that closed three years ago into affordable housing mostly for seniors.

Leap bought the Good Samaritan Society nursing home at 3115 N. Sycamore Drive in Boise’s Collister neighborhood. It plans to rehabilitate its living units into 77 apartments.

The home closed in 2021 when a federal agency stopped paying it to care for Medicare and Medicaid patients after inspectors reported persistent safety problems.

Leap plans to rehabilitate the 66,000-square-foot building to serve low-income Boiseans. In its development application, LEAP said it hopes to serve people making 80% or below area median income, or AMI, which is $49,950 for a single person and $57,050 for a couple.

Leap’s Sycamore Commons would have 77 apartments: 41 studios and 36 one-bedrooms, according to the application.

The application said 36 apartments would be available for people whose income is at or below 80% AMI, 30 units for people at or below 60% of AMI, and the remaining 11 for people who are even poorer, at or below 50% of AMI.

1 person

$1,722

$1,966

$2,213

$2,458

$37,440

$42,780

$53,460

$936

$1,070

$1,203

$1,337

$18,750

$21,400

$24,100

$26,750

$469

$535

$603

$669

Source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

According to the application, LEAP plans to dedicate 62 affordable apartments for seniors ages 55 and older.

Leap wrote in the application that Leap and the Good Samaritan Society are “mission-aligned,” and both want to “provide income-based senior rental housing in Boise.”

Leap wrote that each unit will be updated to include a kitchenette and a bathroom.

With the Good Samaritan Society home’s backbones, Leap plans to include common areas like a library, a computer lab, an exercise room, a chapel, a craft room, a party room, a social-services room, shared laundry and parking spaces.

Leap wants to dedicate most homes in the Sycamore Commons to tenants with special needs and those exiting homelessness, the application said.

Cochran said it is too early in the process to determine the total cost or a projected timeline to open.

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