PBN 2020 Leaders & Achievers Awards
Steven Horowitz | Retired CEO and president, Saint Elizabeth Community
SAINT ELIZABETH COMMUNITY saw exponential growth under Steven Horowitz’s leadership during the former CEO and president’s tenure with the organization.
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Horowitz, who retired June 26, joined the nonsectarian nonprofit entity in 1985 as Saint Elizabeth Community’s administrator. With nine locations, the East Greenwich-based agency provides diverse services to elders and individuals with physical disabilities.
Raised in New York by a single mother and looked after by his grandparents, from whom he learned Yiddish, Horowitz was comfortable with seniors from a young age. The agency has evolved to serve the changing needs of residents, who, Horowitz said, “are entirely different than they were back in 1985. It’s now a much sicker and frailer population.”
Saint Elizabeth had 150 employees caring for 250 seniors, with an annual $4 million budget, when Horowitz arrived more than three decades ago. Today, the organization now cares for more than 2,500 seniors – 70% of whom are indigent – with close to 800 employees on staff and a $40 million annual budget.
“Making investments in elders will save us money in the long run,” Horowitz said.
Horowitz championed the creation of four Green House Homes, each a home to 12 elders who receive equivalent care to that in Saint Elizabeth’s nursing facilities. Each Green House has 12 private bedrooms and bathrooms, a large living room and a kitchen. As a group, residents decide what they want to eat and help with food preparation. These are among 325 such properties nationwide.
With a bachelor’s degree in economics from The State University of New York at Stony Brook, a master’s degree from Long Island University and a postgraduate course at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Horowitz is as committed to the people he serves as he is to the bottom line.
In 1990, the agency decided, “We’re not just in the nursing home business, we’re in the elder care business,” said Horowitz, who launched the Saint Elizabeth Haven for Elder Justice Program in 2009, even absent Medicaid reimbursement.
“We’ve sheltered some 40 elders and have case managed an additional 40 elders. Most perpetrators of elder abuse are the children [of such elders],” he said.
