SELMA – After a recent changing of hands, a longstanding senior living facility now finds itself on stronger footing.
On July 10, local senior living facility Bethel Lutheran Home celebrated the start of a new era and a new name: Bethel Senior Living. Now under the ownership of Jericho Care Group, a Fresno-based company that owns a number of living facilities in Fresno and Madera counties, Bethel Senior Living will continue to bring new improvements to residents while upholding its nearly century-long legacy within Selma.
“We are actually really glad that Jericho came in and helped the community, because if the sale didn’t happen, Bethel Lutheran Home might have ceased to exist and could have been closing its doors,” said Jasdeep Dhariwal, licensed administrator at Bethel Senior Living. “I think having Jericho Care Group come in and bring some financial influx, help get things financially stable and steer the ship to make sure that we continue the course has really helped.”
Dhariwal said that Jericho officially took ownership of the facility on July 1, following a “long, drawn-out process” as the facility shifted from a nonprofit to a for-profit location. Despite the switch to a for-profit status, Dhariwal said he does not anticipate any upcoming increases to costs for residents.
After recovering from its past financial hardships, Dhariwal believes that the new profit-driven direction for the facility will generally improve Bethel’s financial monitoring.
“(As a for-profit entity) you are more prone to being financially astute, more prone to making the right decisions and more prone to continuously looking at the market niche to see how we can stand out and get more market share,” Dhariwal said. “It gives you more of an aggressive outlook toward financial stability.”
Bethel Senior Living is the most recent facility to come under the ownership of Jericho Care Group, which was founded in 2022 and now owns a total of nine skilled nursing, assisted living and independent living facilities.
Other facilities under Jericho ownership include:
- Covenant Post Acute in Fresno
- Cornerstone Care Center in Sanger
- Foundation Skilled Nursing in Fresno
- Keystone Post Acute in Fresno
- Majestic Mountain Care Center in Oakhurst
- Morning Star Post Acute in Clovis
- Stonehaven Senior Living in Fresno
- Vineyard Care Center in Reedley
Benjamin Carter, co-owner of Jericho Care Group, said in an interview that the company’s overarching goal is to “enrich the lives” of both residents and staff. In pursuit of this mission, the group has expanded its reach across the Valley by acquiring struggling facilities and stabilizing them through strong leadership and financial guidance.
One of Jericho’s most significant turnarounds came with the Vineyard Care Center, which the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services rated one-out-of-five stars overall, and two stars for quality measures, when first acquired by the company a couple of years ago. As of July 16, 2026, the Reedley facility is now rated four stars overall and five stars for quality measures.
Carter pointed to this facility as one filled with passionate staff, but in need of some additional guidance.
“There are a lot of wonderful nurses, CNAs and other support staff in all of the facilities that we acquire,” said Carter. “The problem is, even though those wonderful staff members existed before we got there, they don’t have strong, capable leaders who have the vision and the tools to truly direct everyone to provide strong clinical care.”
In the case of Bethel Senior Living, Carter reported a strong culture and good motives from the facility even before Jericho took ownership, but said the main focus was to get its finances back on track.
Although Jericho took ownership of Bethel Senior Living and legally changed its status to for-profit on July 1, the process took about one year to get approved by the attorney general. In that time, Carter said the company worked with Bethel’s board of directors to make the site financially solvent.
Since Jericho’s involvement at the facility about a year ago, Dhariwal has reported a number of recent facility upgrades like new signage and landscape beautification, and said there are plans to eventually begin some interior beautification as well.
Looking to the future of the facility, Dhariwal said that the current vision is to expand beyond Bethel’s reputation as a primarily long-term facility, and open it up to more complex patients. He hopes to make Bethel known as a site that can accept patients needing physical rehabilitation, in addition to more high-acuity patients.
Having begun his work at Bethel in August 2025, and seeing the development of the facility since then, Dhariwal expressed confidence for the days ahead.
“Our census focus has changed, our facility’s financial health has changed a lot and overall, I believe the staff is much happier because they see the direction … and it’s just very reassuring that we’re moving in the right direction,” Dhariwal said.
