PONTIAC - A Livingston County group is looking for support within the county as it continues to voice displeasure over recent actions taken concerning the county-run nursing home.

The People's Voice LC (Livingston County) met Thursday night and discussed what it plans to do to try to halt the closing of Livingston Manor, the county-owned nursing home.

The Livingston County Board voted in February to close the home after previous attempts to privatize and build a new facility fell through. The board wanted to get out of the nursing home business for various reasons, including changes in health care that involve more assisted-living centers and more in-home care.

Group members would like the home to stay open to ensure a place for Medicaid and Medicare patients is available.

Studies done by board members indicate there are nursing homes in the county and surrounding areas that do have a good number of Medicaid and Medicare beds available. But some who attended Thursday's meeting said that they think otherwise and told stories of how Livingston Manor was the only nursing home to take in their loved ones.

The organization is looking to collect letters from people who could not find another nursing home besides Livingston Manor to place their loved ones, and it will present those letters at a state hearing as part of the nursing home closing process, People's Voice LC coordinator Stephen Bartley said.

"We need as many letters from as many family members and friends that we can take to this meeting," People's Voice LC member and Livingston County Board member-elect Marty Fannin said.

The group also is looking for donations in order to hire an attorney to look at legal documentation to try to stop the closure. Fannin said they have not found an attorney to take the case pro bono, and Bartley said they would need $10,000 to $15,000 to hire one.

Bartley said that if they do not raise enough money, all collected donations would go to the Livingston Manor Activity Center.

Bartley was so confident that the nursing home would not close that he refused to say it and even corrected people who said it hypothetically.