Lamar Odom launches affordable housing venture for seniors

Lamar Odom has had an unlikely (and sometimes rocky) path through the limelight, from his career as an NBA superstar to the tabloid fodder of his marriage and breakup with Khloe Kardashian. But his latest venture might be the most unlikely yet: On Wednesday, Odom announced on social media the launch of Odom Senior Care, an initiative aimed at helping the elderly find affordable residential care.

This short video, posted to both his Instagram and the Odom Recovery YouTube channel, shows the former L.A. Laker greeting residents of a senior facility in California.

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“Happy to announce my new venture @odomseniorcare Providing Affordable and Best-In-Class Care for Seniors,” reads the Instagram caption.

Odom Senior Care’s website provides a little more detail about the nascent business. Odom is currently partnering with Regency Palms, an established senior care facility with locations in Long Beach and Oxnard. But according to the site, Odom Senior Care has ambitions well beyond southern California. The stated goal is “to provide seniors with pre-negotiated rates for a thousand communities nationwide.”

The site offers to find seniors help with memory care, independent living and both short- and long-term stays. According to TMZ, the venture is a personal one for Odom. His 96 year-old grandmother Florence still lives in the Bronx, New York, apartment that she’s had for 70 years. Odom has been trying to find her a new place, but it has been a struggle — both because of the sky-high price of senior living and his grandmother’s reluctance to leave her longtime home.

The announcement of the venture is the latest in a string of happy turnarounds for Odom. In April of this year, he launched the Odom Recovery Group with the aim of connecting people fighting addiction to treatment and care facilities, seven years after his own drug-related hospitalization and coma.

“When God had saved me from that accident, I was trying to find my purpose — and I think I may have found it,” he told TMZ Live at the time, Yahoo reports.