Across Minnesota nursing homes are in serious trouble. With expenses coming in higher than income month after month a significant number of nursing homes are facing the very real possibility of being forced to close.

As the population of elderly grows many are asking who is going to care for them when they're sick and in need.

Tonight in a special report Barbara Reyelts looks at a looming "Elder care crisis."

"The Twins are playing Chicago today, who do you thinks gonna win? The Twins or Chicago White Sox."

Tyson: "Chicago."

John: "You think they will huh? We're supposed to be pulling for the Twins, ya know!"

Tyson Thoemke is 93 years old. He lives in the Shalom Nursing Home in St. Paul. He can't walk and has dementia, but can almost always discuss sports with his son John.

"You're probably right the Twins just aren't playing as well as they should."

It has been a rough couple of years for Tyson. John has had to move his dad three times in the last two years.

Dad is mostly blind and mostly deaf so it's very hard for him to get to know people.

Tyson's health declined a little more with each move and his confusion increased.

John said Tyson wondered if he were doing something wrong.

"I told him that it had nothing to do with him or the people at the facility, that everybody was doing their job, unfortunately financially they just could not continue."

In each case, finances were the deciding factor in forcing the nursing homes to close.

It's a pattern that's being repeated across Minnesota and experts say it is expected to get much worse.

The problem is that the cost of living increases have not kept up with the rate of inflation.

Senator Yvonne Prettner-Solon of Duluth calls it a crisis.

"Right now 50% of the nursing homes in northeastern Minnesota are in crisis. And that means that they're in danger of closing."

Over the past eight years, 48 nursing homes have closed in Minnesota with a loss of more than 600 beds.

Across the country, 4000 nursing homes have closed losing more than 10,000 beds.

Senator Prettner-Solon says it's a matter of money.

Cost of living increases have simply not kept up with the rate of inflation.

In 2007, the Bureau of Labor Statistics put the cost of living at 2.85%. Minnesota nursing homes were reimbursed at a rate of 1.87%.

"This has created a real crisis for the nursing homes and I think that we are going to have some very difficult times ahead, unless we can find a way to spend more for our nursing homes."

Paul Libbon, the executive director of Lakeshore Living in Duluth knows the crisis well. In 2004, Lakeshore Lutheran transitioned to an assisted-living facility - moving some of its "high needs" residents to Bayshore Nursing Home on Duluth's Park Point. Libbon says it's extremely hard for nursing homes to make ends meet.

Most of the facilities over the last five years have received increases of only four percent cumulative over the last four years. And increase costs have been up to fifteen percent.

Libbon says the nursing home crisis is not just a problem for our aging citizens but entire communities.

"As soon as a facility in a community closes, it not only affects the seniors that live there but, in the rural areas, a lot of these facilities are the main employer in town."

But for families forced to move their aging loved ones from one sinking ship to another, the problem hits not the pocketbook, but the heart.

Tyson Thoemke has already lived through three traumatic home closures. Now in less than a year his new home, the Shalom Home is also set to close.

Shalom is facing budget problems owners say it can't survive. Senator Prettner-Solon says this trend must be stopped.

"We cannot afford to let our nursing homes close."

Barbara Reyelts, the Northland's News Center.