Today, I salute Harry S. Truman, who was born on May 8, 1884. One of the first politicians to propose universal health care, he coined the phrase, “The buck stops here.” He meant it.

Among my favorite Truman quotes:

"The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all."

"I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell."

"I've said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!"

"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

"Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don't ever apologize for anything."

Harry, we can all learn a lot about advocacy from you. To learn more about Harry Truman, read the Wikipedia entry.


Felicia Curran
www.ElderAdvocacyLaw.com

What happens to the elderly residents of a residential care facility when the facility decides to close? Do existing laws provide adequate legal protection to elders in those situations? Look at what's happening in Oakland, California to 105-year-old Josephine Dukes, as reported by the Oakland Tribune.

Mrs. Dukes surely thought that the Matilda Brown Home would be her home for the rest of her life when she arrived there four years ago. After all, the Matilda Brown Home, in the Temescal district of Oakland, has been operating as an assisted-living facility for low-income women since 1928.

Mrs. Dukes is remarkedly healthy, mentally intact, and still walks with the use of a cane. But, life has thrown her some curve balls the last few years.

Josephine Dukes was born in 1902 in Mississippi, where she says the doctor told her mother that she was “too small and weak to survive.” That's a good one! She graduated from college and was a teacher for many years. She and her husband moved to California during World War II, where she and her husband had an income tax business and owned rental properties. “She was very active in the West Oakland community helping other people” according to her legal guardian, Tommie Lindsie.

In the 1990s, her home and rental properties were sold after her husband passed away. She should have been sitting pretty, but she was the victim of financial elder abuse. She lost most of her life savings when she loaned a “friend” money to pay off a lien in the 1990s. But, as she says, “I was a victim of a rip-off scheme.”

So, at 97 years of age, she went back to work, working 20 hours a week at the Housing Authority telephoning other seniors to check on their well being. She retired from that job at age 100. She now relies only on her late husband’s Army pension of $700 a month.

Mrs. Dukes and 16 other residents of the Matilda Brown Home were notified on March 10, 2007 that the home will be closing its doors June 15, 2007. The nonprofit Ladies Home Society, which runs the home, says that dwindling finances and escalating expenses are forcing the closure. They are expecting Mrs. Dukes’ legal guardian, Tommy Lindsey, to find her a place to live, but with her limited finances, it is not easy, and certainly not with just 90 days notice.

Says Tommy Lindsey, “This [closure notice] all came about so fast. Here we thought she was settled for life. They’ve given us an organization we can contact, and I’m trying to get the paperwork together. But, gosh, Mrs. Dukes being 105 and having to be moved back and forth like a vagabond - this shouldn’t happen.”

Yes, why the big rush when evidently the home has had financial problems going back to 2002? The head of the Ladies Home Society told the Tribune reporter, “There’s obviously the question of whether three months notice was enough . . . If it had been five or six months, we would have lost our best employees, and would have been operating at a greater and greater loss as residents moved out. We thought three months would give everybody ample time to find another place.”

Does this sound like they decided that if someone’s ox needed to be gored, it would be the elderly residents', such as Josephine Dukes, and NOT the nonprofit corporation's? I hate to criticize a nonprofit with such a great history of community service (they even provided a subsidy of $2,000 a month to Mrs. Dukes so that she could live there on her monthly pension), but that's what it sounds like to me. Given that the residents are low income, the nonprofit knows that it will not be easy for them to relocate.

Imagine what happens to residents of assisted living facilities run by FOR-PROFIT CORPORATIONS that are closing. Very often the residents get a few weeks notice.

Mrs. Dukes’ situation may be the kick in the pants the California legislature needs in order to pass laws guaranteeing elders legal protections when assisted living facilities close. Assembly Bill 949 (Paul Krekorian) is coming before the California Assembly Human Services Committee on April 24, 2007. The proposed legislation would require residential care facilities for the elderly to prepare an evaluation of the relocation needs of each resident PRIOR to giving the residents 90 days notice of closure of the facility. The evaluation would have to include "a listing of other facilities that are available and adequate to meet the resident’s needs" per the text of the bill. The closing facility would have to pay a relocation fee of $2,500 to each resident, to help defray moving costs. The closing facility will be subject to daily fines if they don’t follow the relocation requirements.

To read the text of AB 949, click here.

If anything, the question is whether the proposed law goes far enough, and whether 90 days notice is enough. 90 days notice isn’t enough unless the closing facility has for each resident that will be displaced the names of comparable facilities that are ready, willing, and able to take on each resident, and which the resident can afford. A list of places that “in principle” are available is meaningless.

Send your thoughts about AB 949 to Jim Beall, Chair Assembly Human Services Committee, State Capitol, Room 4206, Sacramento CA 95814, fax (916) 319-2189, and copy California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), the advocacy group that spearheaded the legislation, at fax (415) 777-2904.

In response to the Tribune’s April 14 article, community members immediately offered Mrs. Dukes spare rooms in their homes, and a neighborhood group Friends of Matilda Brown has been formed to try to stop the home from closing altogether.

Thanks to Angela Hill of the Oakland Tribune, for her excellent coverage, which has brought Mrs. Dukes' situation to light. To read her articles, click here and click here.


Felicia Curran
www.ElderAdvocacyLaw.com

Read the amazing story of elder advocate Helen Karr, as reported in the San Mateo Times. As a hairdresser, Helen Karr found that her clients would tell her things they wouldn’t repeat to anyone else. Her elderly clients often told her stories revealing that strangers and family members were financially exploiting them. Determined to make a difference, on her 64th birthday, Karr enrolled in law school and earned a degree. Says Helen, “Once I passed the bar, I called my mentor in the DA's office and volunteered to help them set up the elder abuse department." Helen Karr now works as an elder abuse specialist in the San Francisco District Attorney's Office.

Besides her work as an elder abuse specialist in the San Francisco D.A.'s office, Karr is a legal research assistant to the State Bar of California's Office of Media and Information Services, where she works on a publication about seniors and the law. Karr also volunteers with San Mateo County's Seniors Against Investment Fraud (SAIF).

"This is a way to go to the people and talk about elder abuse. The only way we are going to stop this horrible crime is for people to understand that it is a crime," she said.

Helen Karr’s testimony before the California legislature led to a 2005 law that requires financial institutions to report financial abuse or unusual activity in a person's bank account. She is also responsible for convincing the legislature to designate May as Elder and Dependent Adult Abuse Month in California.

Helen is also promoting an Elder Abuse Awareness postage stamp.

Victims of financial elder abuse are not only robbed of their money. They are often in danger of losing their homes. Some lose everything, including their life savings. “The worst-case scenario involves a predator who becomes an elder person's "new best friend," Karr said. “The predator uses the elder's money for expensive purchases, including cruises. Eventually they so isolate their victim from family members they claim ‘no one else cares about you, but me.’”

Helen Karr is also a member of San Mateo County Ombudsman's board of directors, which exposes her to a different kind of elder abuse. "I thought this would be a good opportunity to be aware of the neglect happening in nursing homes," she said.

If you ever run dry on inspiration, just remember Helen Karr. At the age when most people are thinking of retiring, she reinvented herself, touching many elderly people’s lives in the process.

To read the San Mateo Times story, click here.


Felicia Curran
www.ElderAdvocacyLaw.com

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks changed the course of history by refusing to move to the back of the bus and give her seat to a Caucasian man. Her refusal triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott, launching Martin Luther King and the modern day civil rights movement.

In San Francisco, a modern day Rosa Parks, Sally Herriot, has also refused to move. Sally is fighting for the right to live in her own home. Sally Herriot, an 88-year-old widow, lives in a spacious one bedroom apartment in Palo Alto, which she has called home for 15 years. Her apartment is part of a continuing care community called Channing House. Channing House has decided that it is time for her to go. They want to kick her out of her apartment and put her in a room that is essentially a hospital bed, saying that she is too old and feeble to live in her own apartment. Sally employs two care givers who help her on a 24/7 basis. They give her all the help she thinks she needs, thank you very much. She is fighting back. She told the San Francisco Chronicle:

“I’m a fighter... I’m sure they think I should shut up... I’ll put something in their way every time they move.”

The article says that Channing House stands to make a huge profit if they can force her out. She and her husband paid a nonrefundable $180,000 entrance fee to move to Channing House, and if she were to vacate the apartment, they could sell it all over again to the highest bidder. Sally’s husband moved to the assisted living part of Channing House, after he broke his pelvis in 2003. He only lasted 18 months after the move.

You can read more about Sally in the Chronicle article: sfgate.com

"I’M AS MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANY MORE!"



Felicia Curran
www.ElderAdvocacyLaw.com