Laid off from Brookdale Senior Living.

What Brookdale Senior Living layoffs have meant for employees

Emeritus ran its company from Seattle, and in the months after the 2014 merger Brookdale shrank that headquarters to a small office, Senior Housing News reported. Separately, Brookdale had said in June 2014 that its Nashville-area headquarters would add 162 jobs over five years, and that those jobs would include former Emeritus employees transitioning there. If Brookdale offers you a move to its Nashville-area headquarters, the cost of relocating belongs in that decision as much as the job does.

The 2016 cuts included the regional layer between headquarters and the communities. Brookdale's portfolio had shrunk about 10% since the Emeritus deal, Senior Housing News noted, and a Jefferies analyst told the outlet that the changes to regional management might reflect that smaller portfolio and that the layoffs looked tied to a push to cut G&A by at least $25 million. Brookdale said it had given as much advance notice as possible and had been able to offer some transfers within the company.

The 2020 office closing showed one way Brookdale has handled a cut when it had other jobs to offer. The affected staff were to keep working through the transition while Brookdale encouraged them to apply for openings elsewhere in the company, and it said it expected some to land one, the outlet's February 2020 report said. If Brookdale gives you a transition period and points you to openings, as it did in 2020, applying while you're still on staff is one option to weigh before your last day, and you can take questions about an opening's pay and transfer terms to Brookdale.

Brookdale has also gotten smaller by giving up leased buildings. In December 2024 it decided not to renew 55 communities it leased from Ventas, a group its December 2024 release said had run about $31 million of negative cash flow over the prior year, with handovers planned for September through December 2025. Brookdale expected its cash flow to improve as those communities were sold or handed off, the release said. By May 2026 the company had transitioned out of more than 100 communities since the start of 2025, Senior Housing News reported. CBS Chicago was told new operators were taking over 54 of the Ventas communities, and neither that report nor the release says whether those operators kept Brookdale's staff. If your community is one of the handovers, any offer from the incoming operator and any proposal from Brookdale are separate things to weigh side by side.

At San Pablo, California, and at Lake View, a community had to empty because its owner wanted the building for something other than senior living. San Pablo's owners heard in the spring of 2019 that Brookdale wouldn't renew a lease that no longer fit its strategy to own rather than lease, then wanted to sell the building for another use, and residents were given until January 31, 2020 to move out, KTVU reported in December 2019. At Lake View it was Ventas's sale of the building for apartments, as CBS described. If you work at a leased Brookdale community and the owner puts the building up for some other use, that's the situation both closings came out of.

The filer names to look under in our WARN tracker include Brookdale Senior Living, Brookdale Senior, Emeritus Senior Living and Emeritus at Vickery Towers. Brookdale's two most recent notices there went to Illinois, for Lake View, and to Tennessee, for the Brentwood-area office, while Emeritus Senior Living's five Seattle filings went to Washington and the Vickery Towers notice to Texas. For workers in Illinois and Tennessee, our Illinois unemployment benefits page and its Tennessee counterpart describe each state's claim process.

A sourced history of Brookdale Senior Living layoffs

• September 2025, Lake View closing notice in Chicago

  Brookdale's notice in Illinois's WARN report, received September 19, 2025, listed 117 union-represented workers and a first layoff date of November 17. Residents of the 256-unit Sheridan Road community had already received a letter that it was closing, CBS Chicago reported in August.

• February 2020, health care services office closing near Brentwood

  A Feb. 20 notice to Tennessee covered 58 intake and document-tracking jobs and listed changes from April 6 through April 20, Senior Housing News reported. Brookdale urged those affected to apply for 42 open positions in the Nashville area.

• November 2016, about 100 jobs cut in reorganization

  Brookdale laid off about 100 workers to cut costs, Senior Housing News reported; a source told the outlet they included regional dining services directors, regional maintenance techs and several regional vice presidents. Some got internal jobs, Brookdale said.

• April 2015, Emeritus headquarters layoffs in Seattle

  Forty-one Emeritus employees were being laid off effective April 2, what Senior Housing News called the final step in cutting the headquarters from about 300 staff to 50. A Brookdale spokeswoman confirmed the layoffs.

• April 2014, Emeritus's Vickery Towers closing in Dallas

  Before the Brookdale merger closed, Emeritus said it would close the 277-unit community on July 15, citing building code updates, Senior Housing News reported. Staff it couldn't place elsewhere would get severance packages based on their years of service, it said.

What to do if you're laid off from Brookdale Senior Living

• File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Brookdale Senior Living's biggest hubs: Illinois, Tennessee, Washington, Texas. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
• Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Brookdale Senior Living's hub states run: Illinois, Tennessee, Washington, Texas, and every other state is here.
• Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
• Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
• Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.