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"content": "\u003cp>Charlie Edwards, 76, is a retired gardener who loves trains, and in his Alameda apartment he has built an amazing model layout that covers his entire living room and dining area. But over the past year, the future of his model train has come to be in doubt, since new owners of the building where he lives raised his rent 24 percent last June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Edwards now pays $1,300 a month, and says he spends most of his retirement benefits and Social Security on rent. After that, he’s left with just a few hundred dollars for the remainder of his monthly costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rent hike has changed his life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[soundcloud url=\"https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/248538791\" params=\"color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" iframe=\"true\" /]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I go to the food bank and right now it’s very stressful,” said Edwards. “I’m just kind of beside myself because I didn’t move in here with a sleeping bag and backpack, you know? And I just don’t know what to do now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the battle for affordable housing in Alameda, some of the residents on the front line are seniors. The City Council recently gave preliminary approval to a measure limiting rent hikes to once a year. For increases above 5 percent, landlords must notify a city review committee for mediation. Landlords are also required to assist tenants with moving costs in certain types of evictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a study from \u003ca href=\"http://www.scribd.com/doc/287597315/bae-urban-economics-City-of-Alameda-Rent-Study#scribd\">BAE Urban Economics\u003c/a>, more than half of Alameda’s households are rentals. Google recently announced a plan to expand its office on Alameda’s former naval base and bring 150 more jobs to the island. Some tenants fear rents will go even higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seniors like Edwards say that moving is a lot tougher when you get old. There are health issues. Finding work this late in life is a challenge. Moving costs are high. Getting assistance to pack and transport their things is another obstacle. This goes especially for people who are both elderly and living with disabilities. Plus, there’s been no increase in Social Security benefits this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tight-Knit Community Threatened\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>April Squires is a retired schoolteacher. She is part of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.thealamedarenterscoalition.org\">Alameda Renters Coalition\u003c/a>, a group of tenants fighting for rent stabilization. Squires sits on the Senior and Disability Action Committee. I met with her and other committee members. Many of them have lived in Alameda for decades. They said some of the perks to living here in their golden years are the flat terrain that makes navigating the island easier on their bodies, and the small, tight-knit community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At this time of our lives we have chosen the community we want to be in for the rest of our lives,” Squires said. “The whole psychological upheaval can be crushing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even more crushing is sleeping on the streets. According to a \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/how-the-homeless-population-is-changing-its-older-and-sicker-50632\">UCSF study\u003c/a>, more than 50 percent of America’s homeless are over 50. Many elderly spend more than half of their income on rent. Struggling to pay for housing, along with other needs, puts seniors at greater risk for homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Subsidized housing is an option in Alameda, but in this market the competition is astounding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We opened our Section 8 voucher program list for the first time in 11 years and we got 36,000 applications,” said Vanessa Cooper, executive director for the City of Alameda Housing Authority. “We actually could only take 750 of those individuals onto the list. The vast majority of those applications were from the Oakland/Alameda area. We know that the need is very high. “\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cooper described five affordable housing developments that are in the works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said, “The difficulty, of course, is that they won’t help people who are searching now because it takes two to three years to actually build those units.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city of Alameda requires new developers to designate 15 percent of their units for people with very low to moderate incomes. But Charlie Edwards doesn’t have a few years to wait. I asked him if he had a backup plan and he responded, “No. One lady I talked to said, ‘Where am I supposed to move, the ocean? There are other places doing the same thing they’re doing here.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Alameda Renters Coalition is working to get a rent stabilization measure on the November ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Charlie Edwards, 76, is a retired gardener who loves trains, and in his Alameda apartment he has built an amazing model layout that covers his entire living room and dining area. But over the past year, the future of his model train has come to be in doubt, since new owners of the building where he lives raised his rent 24 percent last June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Edwards now pays $1,300 a month, and says he spends most of his retirement benefits and Social Security on rent. After that, he’s left with just a few hundred dollars for the remainder of his monthly costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rent hike has changed his life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe width='100%' height='166'\n scrolling='no' frameborder='no'\n src='https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/248538791&visual=true&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false'\n title='https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/248538791'>\n \u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I go to the food bank and right now it’s very stressful,” said Edwards. “I’m just kind of beside myself because I didn’t move in here with a sleeping bag and backpack, you know? And I just don’t know what to do now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the battle for affordable housing in Alameda, some of the residents on the front line are seniors. The City Council recently gave preliminary approval to a measure limiting rent hikes to once a year. For increases above 5 percent, landlords must notify a city review committee for mediation. Landlords are also required to assist tenants with moving costs in certain types of evictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a study from \u003ca href=\"http://www.scribd.com/doc/287597315/bae-urban-economics-City-of-Alameda-Rent-Study#scribd\">BAE Urban Economics\u003c/a>, more than half of Alameda’s households are rentals. Google recently announced a plan to expand its office on Alameda’s former naval base and bring 150 more jobs to the island. Some tenants fear rents will go even higher.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seniors like Edwards say that moving is a lot tougher when you get old. There are health issues. Finding work this late in life is a challenge. Moving costs are high. Getting assistance to pack and transport their things is another obstacle. This goes especially for people who are both elderly and living with disabilities. Plus, there’s been no increase in Social Security benefits this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Tight-Knit Community Threatened\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>April Squires is a retired schoolteacher. She is part of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.thealamedarenterscoalition.org\">Alameda Renters Coalition\u003c/a>, a group of tenants fighting for rent stabilization. Squires sits on the Senior and Disability Action Committee. I met with her and other committee members. Many of them have lived in Alameda for decades. They said some of the perks to living here in their golden years are the flat terrain that makes navigating the island easier on their bodies, and the small, tight-knit community.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At this time of our lives we have chosen the community we want to be in for the rest of our lives,” Squires said. “The whole psychological upheaval can be crushing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even more crushing is sleeping on the streets. According to a \u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/how-the-homeless-population-is-changing-its-older-and-sicker-50632\">UCSF study\u003c/a>, more than 50 percent of America’s homeless are over 50. Many elderly spend more than half of their income on rent. Struggling to pay for housing, along with other needs, puts seniors at greater risk for homelessness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Subsidized housing is an option in Alameda, but in this market the competition is astounding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We opened our Section 8 voucher program list for the first time in 11 years and we got 36,000 applications,” said Vanessa Cooper, executive director for the City of Alameda Housing Authority. “We actually could only take 750 of those individuals onto the list. The vast majority of those applications were from the Oakland/Alameda area. We know that the need is very high. “\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cooper described five affordable housing developments that are in the works.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said, “The difficulty, of course, is that they won’t help people who are searching now because it takes two to three years to actually build those units.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city of Alameda requires new developers to designate 15 percent of their units for people with very low to moderate incomes. But Charlie Edwards doesn’t have a few years to wait. I asked him if he had a backup plan and he responded, “No. One lady I talked to said, ‘Where am I supposed to move, the ocean? There are other places doing the same thing they’re doing here.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Alameda Renters Coalition is working to get a rent stabilization measure on the November ballot.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Aging Workers Find Flexibility But Not Peace of Mind in 'Gig Economy'",
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"content": "\u003cp>As a business reporter, I've heard the term \"gig economy\" a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I've reported a number of stories that relate to it, from the rise of Uber and Lyft to the push by some port truck drivers to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors by the companies they drive for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[soundcloud url=\"https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/247947912\" params=\"color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" iframe=\"true\" /]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I've worked full time for the same company for the last 12 years, so my own professional exposure to the gig economy is limited. But clearly, more people are turning to \"gigs\" — freelancing, working as independent contractors — to make a living, or at least some extra money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Who are these people, how many are there, and why have they chosen \"gigs\" over steady employment? My attempt to answer these questions has put me in touch with some smart and interesting people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"oQ8yHlWU3xS5D6VRvYzJtgyAMFh9vk0o\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My first image of gig-economy workers might be downright stereotypical: an army of millennials who love the freedom and flexibility of Uber driving or freelance coding from their couches. But the two gig workers I hung out with recently are both in their 60s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David James: Handyman, Apartment Manager, Uber driver\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I can’t see at this stage in my life where having just one job is going to meet all of my needs,\" 61-year-old David James told me. He was sitting in his backyard in Sunland, where he recently started renting a home with some roommates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his past professional life, James has worked full time as a bus driver and as a manager of convenience stores and a Big Boy restaurant. He is also a licensed funeral director with 20 years' experience in the funeral industry. But now, he manages an apartment building, does handyman work and drives about 30 hours a week for Uber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/02/01/57124/gig-economy-offers-aging-workers-a-flexible-place/\" target=\"_blank\">Read the full story via KPCC\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As a business reporter, I've heard the term \"gig economy\" a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I've reported a number of stories that relate to it, from the rise of Uber and Lyft to the push by some port truck drivers to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors by the companies they drive for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe width='100%' height='166'\n scrolling='no' frameborder='no'\n src='https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/247947912&visual=true&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false'\n title='https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/247947912'>\n \u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I've worked full time for the same company for the last 12 years, so my own professional exposure to the gig economy is limited. But clearly, more people are turning to \"gigs\" — freelancing, working as independent contractors — to make a living, or at least some extra money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Who are these people, how many are there, and why have they chosen \"gigs\" over steady employment? My attempt to answer these questions has put me in touch with some smart and interesting people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My first image of gig-economy workers might be downright stereotypical: an army of millennials who love the freedom and flexibility of Uber driving or freelance coding from their couches. But the two gig workers I hung out with recently are both in their 60s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>David James: Handyman, Apartment Manager, Uber driver\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"I can’t see at this stage in my life where having just one job is going to meet all of my needs,\" 61-year-old David James told me. He was sitting in his backyard in Sunland, where he recently started renting a home with some roommates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his past professional life, James has worked full time as a bus driver and as a manager of convenience stores and a Big Boy restaurant. He is also a licensed funeral director with 20 years' experience in the funeral industry. But now, he manages an apartment building, does handyman work and drives about 30 hours a week for Uber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"http://www.scpr.org/news/2016/02/01/57124/gig-economy-offers-aging-workers-a-flexible-place/\" target=\"_blank\">Read the full story via KPCC\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Advocates Hope Oakland's New Rapid Bus Line Will Help Seniors Age In Place",
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"content": "\u003cp>As AC Transit begins construction on \u003ca href=\"http://www.actransit.org/planning-focus/your-guide-to-bus-rapid-transit/brt-in-the-east-bay/\" target=\"_blank\">Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)\u003c/a> on \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Boulevard_%28Oakland,_California%29\" target=\"_blank\">International Boulevard\u003c/a> in Oakland, we wanted to take a moment to consider the impact of the new transit design on one population that relies heavily on the bus system: seniors, particularly low-income seniors, many of whom travel along this corridor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One commonly voiced fear about the new BRT line is that better transit will raise \u003ca href=\"http://oaklandlocal.com/2014/06/oakland-real-estate-prices-surge-for-a-second-year-still-below-2007-peak/\" target=\"_blank\">real estate prices\u003c/a> in an area of historically lower-income residents. Low-income seniors living in rapidly changing neighborhoods are in gentrification’s crosshairs. Safe access to reliable transit is one of the most important factors that allows them to age in place and stay in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">'It gives [seniors] independence, especially when they have to give up their car.'\u003ccite>Chonita Chew, travel trainer with USOAC\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The BRT line will replace the 1 and 1R lines on International Boulevard, providing connections from San Leandro to downtown Oakland. Stops on the new line will be spaced one-third of a mile apart (about the distance to walk from 12th Street BART across Broadway and Frank Ogawa Plaza to Oakland City Hall).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BRT is projected to increase ridership along this corridor from 25,000 trips per day to 36,000. “I’m really, really happy about that,” said Chonita Chew, a travel trainer with \u003ca href=\"http://www.usoac.org/\" target=\"_blank\">United Seniors of Oakland and Alameda County (USOAC)\u003c/a>, which helps seniors 55 and older transition from driving to taking transit.. “I’m happy about the BRT. It’s going to make my job easier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The BRT route is heavily traveled by seniors and people with disabilities,” said Joel Ramos, regional planning director at \u003ca href=\"http://www.transformca.org/\" target=\"_blank\">TransForm\u003c/a>. Planners put together a list of about 100 senior destinations along the proposed route when they first started working on the BRT project eight years ago. Those destinations helped determine the locations of many of the BRT stops. Ramos said that seniors and senior advocates played an important role in shaping the services that will be offered by BRT in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Transit] cuts back on isolation,” said Chew. “It’s the benefits of going somewhere and getting around. It gives [seniors] independence, especially when they have to give up their car.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea of this project is to make mobility, particularly along that corridor, much easier,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.actransit.org/\" target=\"_blank\">AC Transit\u003c/a> spokesman Clarence Johnson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To make sure the design of the stations is age- and disability-friendly, AC Transit brought on some of the same designers behind the \u003ca href=\"http://www.edrobertscampus.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Ed Roberts Campus\u003c/a> in Berkeley, which is an icon of \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design\" target=\"_blank\">universal design\u003c/a> (a design philosophy that aims to make spaces equally accessible to people of all ages and abilities). Station features that benefit seniors, such as level boarding from a raised platform, make access seamless for baby strollers as well as wheelchairs by eliminating the need to climb stairs to get on the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The major [problem] I hear is crossing International,” Chew said. BRT will provide a safe place to stop in the middle of the street for seniors who need two signal cycles to make it across. “It’s just going to increase ridership,” she added. “And I think it’s going to take a lot more cars off the road.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we heard from a lot of seniors,” said Ramos, is “we just want to get places safely and comfortably.” He added, “Nobody likes waiting around for a bus … standing around effectively exposing yourself to crime and any kind of danger.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well-lit and sheltered BRT stations and buses scheduled to arrive every five minutes will enhance safety for seniors and all riders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Community input into the design process drilled down to the fine points of user experience. Sidewalks near BRT stations will be textured, to alert blind residents that they are close to the bus stop. Based on input from seniors, the texture won’t be so bumpy that it is hard to navigate with a walker. “Little things like that are being put into the station design so that universal accessibility designs are not just met but exceeded,” said Ramos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland riders of all ages will get a chance to compare the operation of the BRT to its potential sometime in 2017 when work is completed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more information about USOAC’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.usoac.org/?page_id=69\" target=\"_blank\">travel training\u003c/a> for older adults, you can contact travel trainer Chonita Chew at (510) 729-0851.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Laura McCamy wrote this article with support from the Journalists in Aging Fellows Program of the Gerontological Society of America and New America Media, sponsored by AARP. This is the first in a series about the effect of gentrification on seniors in Oakland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This article originally appeared on \u003ca href=\"http://oaklandlocal.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Oakland Local\u003c/a>, a KQED News Associate site.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As AC Transit begins construction on \u003ca href=\"http://www.actransit.org/planning-focus/your-guide-to-bus-rapid-transit/brt-in-the-east-bay/\" target=\"_blank\">Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)\u003c/a> on \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Boulevard_%28Oakland,_California%29\" target=\"_blank\">International Boulevard\u003c/a> in Oakland, we wanted to take a moment to consider the impact of the new transit design on one population that relies heavily on the bus system: seniors, particularly low-income seniors, many of whom travel along this corridor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One commonly voiced fear about the new BRT line is that better transit will raise \u003ca href=\"http://oaklandlocal.com/2014/06/oakland-real-estate-prices-surge-for-a-second-year-still-below-2007-peak/\" target=\"_blank\">real estate prices\u003c/a> in an area of historically lower-income residents. Low-income seniors living in rapidly changing neighborhoods are in gentrification’s crosshairs. Safe access to reliable transit is one of the most important factors that allows them to age in place and stay in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignright\">'It gives [seniors] independence, especially when they have to give up their car.'\u003ccite>Chonita Chew, travel trainer with USOAC\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The BRT line will replace the 1 and 1R lines on International Boulevard, providing connections from San Leandro to downtown Oakland. Stops on the new line will be spaced one-third of a mile apart (about the distance to walk from 12th Street BART across Broadway and Frank Ogawa Plaza to Oakland City Hall).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>BRT is projected to increase ridership along this corridor from 25,000 trips per day to 36,000. “I’m really, really happy about that,” said Chonita Chew, a travel trainer with \u003ca href=\"http://www.usoac.org/\" target=\"_blank\">United Seniors of Oakland and Alameda County (USOAC)\u003c/a>, which helps seniors 55 and older transition from driving to taking transit.. “I’m happy about the BRT. It’s going to make my job easier.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The BRT route is heavily traveled by seniors and people with disabilities,” said Joel Ramos, regional planning director at \u003ca href=\"http://www.transformca.org/\" target=\"_blank\">TransForm\u003c/a>. Planners put together a list of about 100 senior destinations along the proposed route when they first started working on the BRT project eight years ago. Those destinations helped determine the locations of many of the BRT stops. Ramos said that seniors and senior advocates played an important role in shaping the services that will be offered by BRT in Oakland.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Transit] cuts back on isolation,” said Chew. “It’s the benefits of going somewhere and getting around. It gives [seniors] independence, especially when they have to give up their car.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The idea of this project is to make mobility, particularly along that corridor, much easier,” said \u003ca href=\"http://www.actransit.org/\" target=\"_blank\">AC Transit\u003c/a> spokesman Clarence Johnson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To make sure the design of the stations is age- and disability-friendly, AC Transit brought on some of the same designers behind the \u003ca href=\"http://www.edrobertscampus.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Ed Roberts Campus\u003c/a> in Berkeley, which is an icon of \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_design\" target=\"_blank\">universal design\u003c/a> (a design philosophy that aims to make spaces equally accessible to people of all ages and abilities). Station features that benefit seniors, such as level boarding from a raised platform, make access seamless for baby strollers as well as wheelchairs by eliminating the need to climb stairs to get on the bus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The major [problem] I hear is crossing International,” Chew said. BRT will provide a safe place to stop in the middle of the street for seniors who need two signal cycles to make it across. “It’s just going to increase ridership,” she added. “And I think it’s going to take a lot more cars off the road.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we heard from a lot of seniors,” said Ramos, is “we just want to get places safely and comfortably.” He added, “Nobody likes waiting around for a bus … standing around effectively exposing yourself to crime and any kind of danger.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Well-lit and sheltered BRT stations and buses scheduled to arrive every five minutes will enhance safety for seniors and all riders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Community input into the design process drilled down to the fine points of user experience. Sidewalks near BRT stations will be textured, to alert blind residents that they are close to the bus stop. Based on input from seniors, the texture won’t be so bumpy that it is hard to navigate with a walker. “Little things like that are being put into the station design so that universal accessibility designs are not just met but exceeded,” said Ramos.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland riders of all ages will get a chance to compare the operation of the BRT to its potential sometime in 2017 when work is completed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For more information about USOAC’s \u003ca href=\"http://www.usoac.org/?page_id=69\" target=\"_blank\">travel training\u003c/a> for older adults, you can contact travel trainer Chonita Chew at (510) 729-0851.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Laura McCamy wrote this article with support from the Journalists in Aging Fellows Program of the Gerontological Society of America and New America Media, sponsored by AARP. This is the first in a series about the effect of gentrification on seniors in Oakland.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This article originally appeared on \u003ca href=\"http://oaklandlocal.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Oakland Local\u003c/a>, a KQED News Associate site.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "San Francisco's Elderly Chinese Suffer from Nursing Home Closure",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18602\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/stateofhealth/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2014/04/MissionBay-e1396976031755.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-18602\" title=\"\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/stateofhealth/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2014/04/MissionBay-640x480.jpg\" alt=\"Mission Bay Convalescent Hospital closed in February. (Vinnie Tong/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Mission Bay Convalescent Hospital was home to 35 elderly Chinese immigrants. Only two found a new place in San Francisco. Some have passed away since the move. (Vinnie Tong/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Vinnee Tong\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Too often people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about who’s going to take care of them at the end of their life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not hard to imagine why: It’s scary and stirs up all kinds of emotion.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">People appreciated Mission Bay because it was familiar, geared to its Chinese-speaking residents.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>At the same time, financial pressures can make the whole topic even harder to deal with. For starters, if you need a bed in a home with full-time care, the decent ones are hard to find and cost a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why the closure of one small place in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood is being felt so acutely. The Mission Bay Convalescent Hospital served a community of elderly Chinese, most of whom didn't speak English. Now the building’s been sold, its occupants scattered, and the city’s supply of affordable nursing home beds is even smaller.\u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the families of these elders are helping their loved ones adjust to new and unfamiliar surroundings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Huey’s mom, Chu Huey, is 80 years old and now lives in Oakland at the McClure Convalescent Hospital. She has dementia and a slew of other medical problems. She lives her life bed-bound, so everything about her existence is determined by the care she gets at McClure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chu Huey moved from Mission Bay late last year. She’s one of 35 patients who left before the home closed its doors in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shrinking Supply of Beds for Low-Income San Franciscans \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents like Chu Huey appreciated Mission Bay partly because it was familiar: There were bulletin boards with handwritten notices in Chinese, wall calendars in the good-luck colors of red and gold, and when families brought Chinese food with them, patients were surrounded with the smells of home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Mission Bay was housed in an aging building -- first built in 1917 -- and it needed major upgrades, like fire sprinklers and disabled access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mission Bay housed only Medi-Cal patients, so its revenue was limited to the reimbursement it could get, which in 2013 was $185.39 per patient per day according to the state Department of Health Care Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, costs were growing faster than the reimbursements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lawyer for the owner, Bill Price, declined an interview request from KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/143767118&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benson Nadell is director of the San Francisco Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, a federally-funded patient advocate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nadell says San Francisco is steadily losing low-income nursing home beds. He estimates 900 Medi-Cal beds have disappeared over the last 20 years -- about a third of the supply. None are being added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>I was hoping when I first got contacted by the facility about closing, that somehow the city could have rallied around to save these beds,” Nadell said. “Because everyone in there is frail elderly from San Francisco, with families living in San Francisco.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Nadell said families had already received written notice early last fall that they’d have to leave. Given the demand for affordable beds, it became a real race to secure a spot elsewhere. The residents ended up quickly dispersing. Most of the patients at Mission Bay wanted to stay in the city. But out of 35 patients, only two were able to secure a spot in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elderly Often Suffer \"Transfer Trauma\"\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After moving, family members now have to travel farther to see loved ones, which means fewer visits. And some Mission Bay patients moved into nursing homes where few other patients or caregivers spoke their language.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there’s what’s called \"transfer trauma\" -- when a patient’s health suffers just from being moved. Jennifer Huey’s mother made half a dozen trips to the emergency room in the early weeks after her move out of Mission Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two other patients died shortly after they moved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One is a 94-year-old woman who spoke only Cantonese and moved to a Kindred nursing home in Oakland at the end of October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her oldest son is still reeling with guilt. Tam, who only wanted to use his last name, is 74. He described getting a call from the new nursing home two weeks after his mom moved in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the morning, they called and said she had a urinary tract infection,\" he said. \"The doctor had given her medicine and she had taken it. But then that night, they called and said they had to send her to the hospital.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was November 11th.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two days later, Tam went to Oakland to visit his mom in the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early November 14th, she died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tam says Mission Bay’s closure affected his mother's health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once she moved to Oakland, it was not as convenient for me to visit, so I couldn’t go as often,” he said. “My mom was close to me, more attached to me than my other siblings. Being that far away from me affected her mood.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Huey says the move has taken a real toll on patients like her mom, too. And she says Mission Bay’s closure is a loss for the city as a whole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>The heart of it is, there has been nothing to replace what Mission Bay was to the Chinese community,” Huey said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nadell, the patient advocate, hopes the city has a way to prevent more nursing homes from closing or leaving the city, based on financial pressure alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>I feel that individuals should not be squeezed out of the system based solely on the financial profile,” he said. “San Francisco has an obligation to its old people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the building itself, a local real estate dealer bought it for $2.7 million dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=\"FvoQj4Yjo4Qq9zcRdDb4AitBrLkGU822\"]\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_18602\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/stateofhealth/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2014/04/MissionBay-e1396976031755.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-large wp-image-18602\" title=\"\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/stateofhealth/wp-content/uploads/sites/27/2014/04/MissionBay-640x480.jpg\" alt=\"Mission Bay Convalescent Hospital closed in February. (Vinnie Tong/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Mission Bay Convalescent Hospital was home to 35 elderly Chinese immigrants. Only two found a new place in San Francisco. Some have passed away since the move. (Vinnie Tong/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Vinnee Tong\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Too often people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about who’s going to take care of them at the end of their life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not hard to imagine why: It’s scary and stirs up all kinds of emotion.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">People appreciated Mission Bay because it was familiar, geared to its Chinese-speaking residents.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>At the same time, financial pressures can make the whole topic even harder to deal with. For starters, if you need a bed in a home with full-time care, the decent ones are hard to find and cost a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s why the closure of one small place in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood is being felt so acutely. The Mission Bay Convalescent Hospital served a community of elderly Chinese, most of whom didn't speak English. Now the building’s been sold, its occupants scattered, and the city’s supply of affordable nursing home beds is even smaller.\u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the families of these elders are helping their loved ones adjust to new and unfamiliar surroundings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Huey’s mom, Chu Huey, is 80 years old and now lives in Oakland at the McClure Convalescent Hospital. She has dementia and a slew of other medical problems. She lives her life bed-bound, so everything about her existence is determined by the care she gets at McClure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chu Huey moved from Mission Bay late last year. She’s one of 35 patients who left before the home closed its doors in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Shrinking Supply of Beds for Low-Income San Franciscans \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents like Chu Huey appreciated Mission Bay partly because it was familiar: There were bulletin boards with handwritten notices in Chinese, wall calendars in the good-luck colors of red and gold, and when families brought Chinese food with them, patients were surrounded with the smells of home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Mission Bay was housed in an aging building -- first built in 1917 -- and it needed major upgrades, like fire sprinklers and disabled access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mission Bay housed only Medi-Cal patients, so its revenue was limited to the reimbursement it could get, which in 2013 was $185.39 per patient per day according to the state Department of Health Care Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In short, costs were growing faster than the reimbursements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lawyer for the owner, Bill Price, declined an interview request from KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/143767118&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benson Nadell is director of the San Francisco Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, a federally-funded patient advocate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nadell says San Francisco is steadily losing low-income nursing home beds. He estimates 900 Medi-Cal beds have disappeared over the last 20 years -- about a third of the supply. None are being added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>I was hoping when I first got contacted by the facility about closing, that somehow the city could have rallied around to save these beds,” Nadell said. “Because everyone in there is frail elderly from San Francisco, with families living in San Francisco.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, Nadell said families had already received written notice early last fall that they’d have to leave. Given the demand for affordable beds, it became a real race to secure a spot elsewhere. The residents ended up quickly dispersing. Most of the patients at Mission Bay wanted to stay in the city. But out of 35 patients, only two were able to secure a spot in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Elderly Often Suffer \"Transfer Trauma\"\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After moving, family members now have to travel farther to see loved ones, which means fewer visits. And some Mission Bay patients moved into nursing homes where few other patients or caregivers spoke their language.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there’s what’s called \"transfer trauma\" -- when a patient’s health suffers just from being moved. Jennifer Huey’s mother made half a dozen trips to the emergency room in the early weeks after her move out of Mission Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two other patients died shortly after they moved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One is a 94-year-old woman who spoke only Cantonese and moved to a Kindred nursing home in Oakland at the end of October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her oldest son is still reeling with guilt. Tam, who only wanted to use his last name, is 74. He described getting a call from the new nursing home two weeks after his mom moved in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the morning, they called and said she had a urinary tract infection,\" he said. \"The doctor had given her medicine and she had taken it. But then that night, they called and said they had to send her to the hospital.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was November 11th.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two days later, Tam went to Oakland to visit his mom in the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Early November 14th, she died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tam says Mission Bay’s closure affected his mother's health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once she moved to Oakland, it was not as convenient for me to visit, so I couldn’t go as often,” he said. “My mom was close to me, more attached to me than my other siblings. Being that far away from me affected her mood.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jennifer Huey says the move has taken a real toll on patients like her mom, too. And she says Mission Bay’s closure is a loss for the city as a whole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>The heart of it is, there has been nothing to replace what Mission Bay was to the Chinese community,” Huey said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nadell, the patient advocate, hopes the city has a way to prevent more nursing homes from closing or leaving the city, based on financial pressure alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>I feel that individuals should not be squeezed out of the system based solely on the financial profile,” he said. “San Francisco has an obligation to its old people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As for the building itself, a local real estate dealer bought it for $2.7 million dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_auto_sidebar id=\"FvoQj4Yjo4Qq9zcRdDb4AitBrLkGU822\"]\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Photo Essay: Seniors Fight Eviction From Affordable San Jose Homes",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_128450\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4298-copy.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-128450\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4298-copy-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"David Tripp and his neighbors printed signs to protest the closure of the Winchester Ranch mobile home park (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Tripp and his neighbors printed signs to protest the closure of Winchester Ranch mobile home park. (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When David Tripp moved to the Winchester Ranch mobile home community in the mid-1970s, it was only dirt. In the decades that followed, he watched it develop into one of San Jose's most popular senior communities, with lush gardens, manicured yards and rows of small, colorful homes. But now Tripp and Winchester Ranch's other 145 residents are fighting to stay there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>West San Jose has become one of the city's hottest real estate markets, and rising property values have developers eyeing Winchester Ranch. \"What you see in the area there is just an increase in property values,\" said City Councilman Pete Constant. \"That creates an environment where you have a piece of land that has appreciated at a far higher rate than any other mobile home park in the area.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/141754655&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The landowner, Cali-Arioto Properties, revealed last year that it wants to sell the land to developer Pulte Homes. Residents of the park don't want to leave, but they might not have a choice. Even though they own their homes, Winchester Ranch residents rent the land on which they stand. That puts them in a vulnerable position, but they haven't given up hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_128451\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4576-copy.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-128451\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4576-copy-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"Winchester Ranch is no trailer park, said Phyllis Tripp. "They're very different. If you went from one to the other, they would look completely different inside." (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Winchester Ranch is no trailer park, said Phyllis Tripp. \"They're very different. If you went from one to the other, they would look completely different inside.\" (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>San Jose contains almost 60 mobile home communities, and the city has a mobile-home-park conversion ordinance on the books that governs how landowners can close and redevelop them. The ordinance has never been used, but it requires landowners to compensate residents if they close the park. The owners would also have to provide relocation and rental assistance to residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Winchester Ranch residents learned about Cali-Arioto's plan to sell, they formed a homeowners association in hopes of buying the property themselves. That, too, is covered by the ordinance: The law says that residents must be given an opportunity to make an offer on the property and negotiate with the owner. But Cali-Arioto will not be required to sell the property to the residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>James Zahradka, an attorney with the \u003ca href=\"http://www.lawfoundation.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Law Foundation of Silicon Valley\u003c/a>, a community legal services agency, notes that more than 185 mobile home parks across California have converted to residential ownership in the past 40 years. But he acknowledges none of them was located a stone's throw from one of the state's hottest retail markets and that Winchester Ranch residents probably won't be able to match Pulte's offer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_128453\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4540.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-128453\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4540-640x426.jpg\" alt='\"None of us are probably going to be able to stay in this valley,\" said Mari Jo Pokriots. \"We may have to leave as far away as going to the middle part of the state.\" (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)' width=\"640\" height=\"426\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\"None of us are probably going to be able to stay in this valley,\" said Mari Jo Pokriots. \"We may have to leave as far away as going to the middle part of the state.\" (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Margaret Ecker Nanda, an attorney representing Cali-Arioto, said she sympathizes with the residents and that they will be adequately compensated for being relocated. \"I totally understand the reluctance and frustration of people that they have to move. But the ordinance provides protections for the residents.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if residents are compensated for their homes, shutting down Winchester Ranch could have lasting impacts. \"This type of housing is one of the only non-subsidized forms of affordable housing that's out there, particularly where the residents have an ownership interest of any kind,\" the Law Foundation's Zahradka says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He points out that there are intangible costs associated with evicting more than 100 seniors from their homes. \"I don't know if you can value reputational risk, but if I’m Pulte Homes, I don't know if I want to be seen as a company that's relocating hundreds of seniors.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_128455\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4485-copy.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-128455\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4485-copy-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"Barbara Cali, co-founder and resident of Winchester Ranch, stands on the lift at the entrance of her home. (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barbara Cali, co-founder and resident of Winchester Ranch, stands on the lift at the entrance of her home. (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For his part, Constant sounds pretty certain that Winchester Ranch will be sold. The city can't do anything about that, but it does have a say on whether the property is rezoned for a higher-density development. \"(The residents) have been begging me to stop the sale,\" said Constant. \"But legally and morally, that's not the city's role.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The landowner hasn't filed a development application with the city yet, and for now residents and city officials are waiting to see what happens next. \"San Jose has a lot of mobile homes, so we're not only being vigilant about this park, but it may have implications for other mobile home parks,\" said Laurel Prevetti, the city's assistant director of planning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of what makes Winchester Ranch so appealing to seniors is that residents are able to modify their homes for special needs. David Tripp, like several of his neighbors, is disabled. He suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, and he's in remission from lupus, leukemia, fibromyalgia and neuropathy. He isn't very steady on his feet, and after falling down several times, he and his wife decided to modify the front steps to to their home last year. Finding comparable replacement housing in the area will be a challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"By the grace of God, we're not going to end up in the poorhouse, but we're not going to have anything near as nice as this.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_128457\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4362-copy.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-128457\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4362-copy-640x426.jpg\" alt=\""I own this house and rent the space," said David Tripp. "It's way less than it would be to live someplace else, and do you see what I have here?" (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\"I own this house and rent the space,\" said David Tripp. \"It's way less than it would be to live someplace else, and do you see what I have here?\" (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_128450\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4298-copy.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-128450\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4298-copy-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"David Tripp and his neighbors printed signs to protest the closure of the Winchester Ranch mobile home park (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">David Tripp and his neighbors printed signs to protest the closure of Winchester Ranch mobile home park. (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When David Tripp moved to the Winchester Ranch mobile home community in the mid-1970s, it was only dirt. In the decades that followed, he watched it develop into one of San Jose's most popular senior communities, with lush gardens, manicured yards and rows of small, colorful homes. But now Tripp and Winchester Ranch's other 145 residents are fighting to stay there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>West San Jose has become one of the city's hottest real estate markets, and rising property values have developers eyeing Winchester Ranch. \"What you see in the area there is just an increase in property values,\" said City Councilman Pete Constant. \"That creates an environment where you have a piece of land that has appreciated at a far higher rate than any other mobile home park in the area.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/141754655&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The landowner, Cali-Arioto Properties, revealed last year that it wants to sell the land to developer Pulte Homes. Residents of the park don't want to leave, but they might not have a choice. Even though they own their homes, Winchester Ranch residents rent the land on which they stand. That puts them in a vulnerable position, but they haven't given up hope.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_128451\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4576-copy.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-128451\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4576-copy-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"Winchester Ranch is no trailer park, said Phyllis Tripp. "They're very different. If you went from one to the other, they would look completely different inside." (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Winchester Ranch is no trailer park, said Phyllis Tripp. \"They're very different. If you went from one to the other, they would look completely different inside.\" (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>San Jose contains almost 60 mobile home communities, and the city has a mobile-home-park conversion ordinance on the books that governs how landowners can close and redevelop them. The ordinance has never been used, but it requires landowners to compensate residents if they close the park. The owners would also have to provide relocation and rental assistance to residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Winchester Ranch residents learned about Cali-Arioto's plan to sell, they formed a homeowners association in hopes of buying the property themselves. That, too, is covered by the ordinance: The law says that residents must be given an opportunity to make an offer on the property and negotiate with the owner. But Cali-Arioto will not be required to sell the property to the residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>James Zahradka, an attorney with the \u003ca href=\"http://www.lawfoundation.org/\" target=\"_blank\">Law Foundation of Silicon Valley\u003c/a>, a community legal services agency, notes that more than 185 mobile home parks across California have converted to residential ownership in the past 40 years. But he acknowledges none of them was located a stone's throw from one of the state's hottest retail markets and that Winchester Ranch residents probably won't be able to match Pulte's offer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_128453\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4540.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-128453\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4540-640x426.jpg\" alt='\"None of us are probably going to be able to stay in this valley,\" said Mari Jo Pokriots. \"We may have to leave as far away as going to the middle part of the state.\" (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)' width=\"640\" height=\"426\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\"None of us are probably going to be able to stay in this valley,\" said Mari Jo Pokriots. \"We may have to leave as far away as going to the middle part of the state.\" (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Margaret Ecker Nanda, an attorney representing Cali-Arioto, said she sympathizes with the residents and that they will be adequately compensated for being relocated. \"I totally understand the reluctance and frustration of people that they have to move. But the ordinance provides protections for the residents.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even if residents are compensated for their homes, shutting down Winchester Ranch could have lasting impacts. \"This type of housing is one of the only non-subsidized forms of affordable housing that's out there, particularly where the residents have an ownership interest of any kind,\" the Law Foundation's Zahradka says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He points out that there are intangible costs associated with evicting more than 100 seniors from their homes. \"I don't know if you can value reputational risk, but if I’m Pulte Homes, I don't know if I want to be seen as a company that's relocating hundreds of seniors.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_128455\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4485-copy.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-128455\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4485-copy-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"Barbara Cali, co-founder and resident of Winchester Ranch, stands on the lift at the entrance of her home. (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Barbara Cali, co-founder and resident of Winchester Ranch, stands on the lift at the entrance of her home. (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For his part, Constant sounds pretty certain that Winchester Ranch will be sold. The city can't do anything about that, but it does have a say on whether the property is rezoned for a higher-density development. \"(The residents) have been begging me to stop the sale,\" said Constant. \"But legally and morally, that's not the city's role.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The landowner hasn't filed a development application with the city yet, and for now residents and city officials are waiting to see what happens next. \"San Jose has a lot of mobile homes, so we're not only being vigilant about this park, but it may have implications for other mobile home parks,\" said Laurel Prevetti, the city's assistant director of planning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Part of what makes Winchester Ranch so appealing to seniors is that residents are able to modify their homes for special needs. David Tripp, like several of his neighbors, is disabled. He suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, and he's in remission from lupus, leukemia, fibromyalgia and neuropathy. He isn't very steady on his feet, and after falling down several times, he and his wife decided to modify the front steps to to their home last year. Finding comparable replacement housing in the area will be a challenge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"By the grace of God, we're not going to end up in the poorhouse, but we're not going to have anything near as nice as this.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_128457\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4362-copy.jpg\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-128457\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/03/IMG_4362-copy-640x426.jpg\" alt=\""I own this house and rent the space," said David Tripp. "It's way less than it would be to live someplace else, and do you see what I have here?" (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\"I own this house and rent the space,\" said David Tripp. \"It's way less than it would be to live someplace else, and do you see what I have here?\" (Mark Andrew Boyer/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"disqusTitle": "Richmond Public Housing Residents Say They're Plagued With Filth, Vermin, Mold and Raw Sewage",
"title": "Richmond Public Housing Residents Say They're Plagued With Filth, Vermin, Mold and Raw Sewage",
"headTitle": "News Fix | KQED News",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"single-video\">\u003ciframe src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/6Ye6jkqsnCU?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Amy Julia Harris, The Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RICHMOND, Calif. –\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Geneva Eaton has learned to deal with life in Hacienda: the stench of mold from the stairwell in front of her door, the winter she spent huddled at her stove for heat, the broken security gate that allows drug dealers and squatters to walk past the paid security guards and urinate on her doorstep. But the mice were too much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For eight months, the 73-year-old woke to handfuls of half-dead mice wriggling in the glue traps lining the floors and cupboard of her apartment. In the space of a few hours, she caught 12. She put her nicest family belongings into storage. She went to bed with the lights on, afraid that the vermin she heard chewing through her walls would bite her in her sleep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials at the Richmond Housing Authority know the Hacienda high-rise, one of its five public housing projects, is infested with mice and roaches. Residents have filed more than 80 complaints about it in the past year, according to agency records. But maintenance workers had done little\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>to fix the problem. So for months, Eaton lived a daily routine: She threw out food she could barely afford. She called a maintenance line for help. She bathed her walls in bleach in the hopes of scaring away the insects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_126440\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 384px\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-126440 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/02/richmondproject_1635_la-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"For months, Geneva Eaton woke to handfuls of half-dead mice wriggling in her glue traps. (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">For months, Geneva Eaton woke to handfuls of half-dead mice wriggling in her glue traps. (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Eaton lives in one of the worst apartment buildings managed by one of the worst public housing agencies in the country. Here in Richmond, some of the poorest, oldest and most vulnerable people in the Bay Area live in squalor and fear due to the housing agency’s mismanagement and neglect, The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were at least \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015486-life-threatening-health-and-safety-violations.html\" target=\"_blank\">16 life-threatening health and safety violations\u003c/a> at the five public housing projects managed by the housing authority, according to the two most recent years of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports. Seniors and disabled residents lived amid exposed wiring and missing smoke detectors and fire alarms. Most well-kempt housing projects don’t have these major health and safety violations, HUD says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authority’s executive director, Tim Jones, said he’s “running an operation on life support.” He blamed years of budget cuts from the federal government for the problems plaguing the housing authority and insisted that the agency is on the road to recovery. He said the problems come down to money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly one in five apartments in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015471-hacienda-2012-inspection.html\" target=\"_blank\">Hacienda\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015470-nevin-plaza-2012-inspection.html\" target=\"_blank\">Nevin Plaza\u003c/a> complexes are infested with insects and cockroaches, inspection records show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there are the indignities that don’t show up in formal government reports: A woman with no legs giving herself sponge baths from her bathroom sink because maintenance workers didn’t install a simple safety bar in her shower. The fire department rescuing a paralyzed veteran from his third-floor apartment because the elevators didn’t work for three days. A disabled man who watched in horror for nearly a month as raw sewage slowly dripped from the neighbor’s bathroom upstairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents say their pleas for basic maintenance are ignored by officials paid to provide services to the poor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=\"0312c09089c41dea6b45b637d1913024\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CIR also found a number of cases in which housing authority workers claimed in official documents to have fixed problems. But they hadn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just continual chaos here,” said Everett Dennis Lewis, a disabled resident of Hacienda. “The housing authority doesn’t give a crap.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are 4,055 public housing agencies in the United States, all overseen by HUD. Last year, the federal government \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/885507-operational-troubled-list-2013-06-05-3.html\">labeled 44 \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/885507-operational-troubled-list-2013-06-05-3.html\" target=\"_blank\">as “t\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/885507-operational-troubled-list-2013-06-05-3.html\">roubled”\u003c/a> -- housing authorities that had such severe problems with their finances, management or living\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>conditions that the government was on the brink of shutting them down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richmond was one of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the most recent federal assessment reports, released in 2013, Richmond received a score of \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015477-richmonds-federal-scorecard.html\">47 out of 100\u003c/a>, one of the lowest rankings in the country. It received failing marks for running up debt and failing to track its finances. Its executive director was deemed ineffective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richmond managed to receive a passing grade for the condition of most of its apartments. For the most part, the projects in Richmond aren’t as dilapidated as those in Detroit and New Orleans. But the breakdown in finances and leadership manifests itself daily at Richmond’s two largest\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>– and worst – complexes as residents struggle with rodents, filth and security problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are a dysfunctional organization,” said Gerard Windt, division director of the HUD office that oversees Richmond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Richmond Housing Authority got $26 million in 2013 from the federal government to provide safe and decent housing for the needy. Richmond has 715 units of public housing for the poor, elderly and disabled. It also gives out Section 8 vouchers to subsidize rent for an additional\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>1,750 residents on the private market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_126444\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 384px\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-126444 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/02/richmondproject_1661_la-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"Geneva Eaton says she has lost any hope that the Richmond Housing Authority will help with problems at its Hacienda apartment complex.“I wanna go someplace else, but I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she says. “They treat us like animals here.” (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Geneva Eaton says she has lost any hope that the Richmond Housing Authority will help with problems at its Hacienda apartment complex.“I wanna go someplace else, but I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she says. “They treat us like animals here.” (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Residents who end up in Richmond’s public housing are predominantly old or disabled African Americans.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>More than three-quarters of them make less than 30 percent of Contra Costa County’s median income, or $18,750 a year, according to HUD. Many of them used to have jobs as grocery baggers, janitors and food service workers until they got old or sick. Some lived on the streets, and others struggle with addiction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents don’t get their apartments for free. Almost 90 percent pay between $200 and $500 a month in rent, according to HUD. Eaton pays $262 a month to the housing authority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All 4,000-plus housing authorities across America face these same slashed budgets. About 1 percent of those agencies find themselves on HUD’s troubled list.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maintenance complaints neglected\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Juanita Hasnat moved into Nevin Plaza in 2011, the housing authority\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>knew she was disabled. But her apartment didn’t have a simple disabled access fixture: a safety bar in the bathtub.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hasnat told the housing authority\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>about the oversight, thinking it would be a quick fix. But it took the agency nine months to install the safety bar, a fixture that costs less than $40 at The Home Depot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe style=\"margin-left: 20px;margin-bottom: 10px\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/iwIxrJNgdtI\" frameborder=\"0\" align=\"right\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 47-year-old gave herself sponge baths out of her bathroom sink for months because she couldn’t maneuver out of her wheelchair and into her bathtub.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hasnat said she repeatedly called the housing authority, and Jones directly, to ask for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They all said, ‘We’re gonna get it taken care of,’ ” she said. “But I didn’t believe them. These people say one thing and do the opposite.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not too long ago, it was Hasnat who\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>was taking care of the sick and elderly. She worked as a certified nursing assistant at hospitals in Richmond and El Cerrito, cleaning patients’ wounds and giving them sponge baths. She didn’t expect\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>to be in the same position.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hasnat was infected with the flesh-eating bacteria MRSA while on the job. It wormed its way through her body and destroyed the life she had known. Her left leg was\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>amputated in 2010,\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>and she lost her right leg three years later. Her doctor told her that she would never walk again. Her nursing career was over\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to die,” Hasnat said. “That was my life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With no job, Hasnat found herself on disability and in need of a cheap apartment. That’s how she ended up in Richmond’s seven-story\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Nevin Plaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Its 142 units are\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>down the street from Richmond City Hall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For three years, Hasnat has lived in a fifth-floor\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>apartment\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>that has no disability access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her hands bear scars from grating between the door frame and her wheelchair each time she comes and goes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Records provided by the housing authority say that it has responded in a timely manner to resident complaints.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authority’s\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>version stands in stark contrast to that of its tenants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_126457\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 384px\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-126457 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/02/richmondproject_161_la-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"Eddie Williams, 62, glues items such as video cassettes to his walls to stop mice from getting into his Nevin Plaza apartment. Williams, whose rent is $251 a month, asked the Richmond Housing Authority to fix the problem, but he says nothing happened.(Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eddie Williams, 62, glues items such as videocassettes to his walls to stop mice from getting into his Nevin Plaza apartment. Williams, whose rent is $251 a month, asked the Richmond Housing Authority to fix the problem, but he says nothing happened.(Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Most residents don’t keep track of when they file a complaint; they get no receipt. Some verbally tell staff about their maintenance problems, but those reports don’t always make it into written records. To tell this story, CIR focused on the recent complaints of three residents who kept track of when they first notified housing authority officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It appears the agency is marking resident complaints as being addressed when they’re not. In all three cases,\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>the authority’s records indicate that problems in their apartments were fixed. Residents say the issues were not resolved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wardell Jones is a blind Air Force veteran. He’s 83 years old.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>His Nevin Plaza apartment is covered in canvases he has learned to paint at the local blind center. They are full of brightly colored landscapes. His daughter comes by almost every day to fill his palette with paint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His heater has been broken for more than a year, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The housing authority said it\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>fixed his heat in October, paying $140 for new parts, \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015478-work-orders-from-july-to-december-2013.html#document/p2/a144025\" target=\"_blank\">according to records\u003c/a>. But Jones says his heat hasn’t worked since he first complained more than a year ago. As the temperature dipped near freezing, he would feel\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>his way to his kitchen and\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>use\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>his open oven to combat the cold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones lives about 10 feet from the apartment of the housing authority’s live-in maintenance worker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Eaton, the housing authority said it eliminated the swarms of cockroaches in her\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>apartment on Oct. 8. However, a CIR reporter visited Eaton that day and saw the housing authority contractor enter her apartment. He walked around and acknowledged the problem. He left and didn’t come back. That maintenance visit was marked as a completed work order, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015478-work-orders-from-july-to-december-2013.html#document/p8/a144023\" target=\"_blank\">housing authority records\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Everett Dennis\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Lewis had mice infesting his apartment in January last year, the housing authority’s records say it sent an exterminator within two weeks of his complaint. But Lewis said exterminators never came, and he ended up buying traps himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe style=\"margin-right: 20px;margin-bottom: 10px\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/nRvnzau8gTM\" frameborder=\"0\" align=\"right\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lewis, who is 61, said he has had nothing but problems since moving into Hacienda almost two years ago. Last year, the toilet in the room above him leaked raw sewage\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>through the ceiling into his bathroom. It dripped on him from above.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He called the housing authority’s emergency maintenance line, and a worker told Lewis that they would fix it. But when nothing had happened after a week, Lewis called the same maintenance hotline five or six times a day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really annoyed them,” he said. “I just got tired of the poop falling on me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the leak finally was repaired after almost a month of multiple daily complaints.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/885634-hacienda-work-order-completion-report-2013.html#document/p21/a144022\" target=\"_blank\">housing authority’s records\u003c/a>, Lewis’ complaint shows up once, and it says the agency fixed the problem the day after he complained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tim Jones, the agency’s executive director, declined to answer questions about the resident complaints and many other specifics about conditions at Hacienda and Nevin Plaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other residents tell similar stories. A caregiver for a 68-year-old man said water dripped for months in his living room from a corroded exposed pipe in the ceiling. The lock on one woman’s front door hasn’t worked for four years. Another resident tried to get his leaky shower handle fixed. He ended up with a hole in his wall, no water in his shower for two months and a $50 bill for asbestos removal that he had to pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Failed promises, fading hopes\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Hacienda complex is a tan, six-story\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>high-rise in central Richmond, off Roosevelt and Barrett avenues. Public housing residents in Richmond call it the most problematic of the city’s five complexes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Feral cats mill around the ivy that surrounds Hacienda, feasting on the mice that infest the building. Drug dealers glide through a perpetually broken security gate at the front of the complex and roam around with impunity. Squatters break locks and occupy the abandoned apartments on the sixth floor.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Chronic roof leaks have allowed blue and green mold to spread on the outer walls, covering the ceilings of Hacienda’s sixth-floor walkways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drug\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>dealers and prostitutes routinely sneak into the building from three different entrances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hacienda has paid security guards, but they admit that the place intimidates them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m scared to do my patrols,” said Arielle Jackson, a security guard for Cypress Private Security.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The housing authority pays Cypress $300,000 a year to secure both Nevin Plaza and Hacienda. Richmond police Officer Giulia Colbacchini said, “The security guards here are a joke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cypress declined to comment for this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_126464\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 384px\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-126464 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/02/richmondproject_1019_la-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"Rhonda Marshall, 58, waves to visitors outside the Hacienda public housing complex. She’s been living on the high-rise’s first floor for years and has watched the building deteriorate. She says sees cracks in the walls running from the sixth floor to the ground and smells mold in the hallways and stairwells. (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rhonda Marshall, 58, waves to visitors outside the Hacienda public housing complex. She’s been living on the high-rise’s first floor for years and has watched the building deteriorate. She says she sees cracks in the walls running from the sixth floor to the ground and smells mold in the hallways and stairwells. (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are a dozen light posts in Hacienda’s courtyard, but for more than two years, none worked. At night, Rhonda Marshall stumbled in her wheelchair getting from her apartment to a back gate across the courtyard, rolling off uneven paths in the darkness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s so dark you can’t see your hands in front of you,” the 58-year-old said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The housing authority paid $1,850 to a contractor to install new light fixtures in Hacienda’s courtyard in August 2011. But residents say the lights worked for only two or three days, and after that, they tolerated the pitch black. The housing authority finally fixed the lights in the courtyard in December. Residents say they have\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>complained since 2011. CIR has records going back one year, which verify the complaints stretch back at least that far.\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the sixth floor, exposed wires dangle from an abandoned electrical closet, a few feet from an inhabited unit. The wires are within reach of children who visit their grandparents in the complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents call Hacienda the “Haci-hellhole”\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>or “Bedbug City.” Nearly everyone has a story of bedbugs, and residents collect them in mason jars to show to housing authority maintenance workers, in an attempt to prove they aren’t making up the source of their pockmarked arms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost one-fifth of the apartments in Hacienda were infested with bedbugs, according to the most recent federal inspection in 2012. Exterminators have been called at least nine times in the last year, but residents say the place still is overrun with the blood-sucking pests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents used to have more hope. In 2009, the bedbug situation became so dire at Hacienda that residents signed a petition, stormed the City Council chamber and “raised so much hell” that the housing authority was forced to fumigate the entire building, said Eaton, the Hacienda resident who struggled with mice and cockroaches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No one wants to do that now. Walk around Hacienda and Nevin Plaza, and almost every resident will tell you a personal anecdote about the housing authority’s failed promises to provide the basics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eaton has lost any hope that the agency will help. After months of complaints, contractors gave\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>her a few sticky pads for the mice in her apartment. She bought her own mouse poison, and the infestation has improved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Who even wants to try anymore?” she said. “I wanna go someplace else, but I don’t have anywhere else to go. They treat us like animals here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a feeling shared by many residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m afraid that the building’s going to come down on me,” Marshall said. “I want out of here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Structural dangers noted\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal inspectors worried about the building’s foundation, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cracks snake their way along the seams of Hacienda. In early January, reporters\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>saw the walkway on Hacienda’s sixth floor separating from the main building by almost 2 inches. The cracks are so large that you can see down to the fifth floor. These were some of the same problems inspectors warned of years earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_126462\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 384px\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-126462 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/02/richmondproject_1083_la-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"Many residents of the Hacienda housing complex call it “Haci-hellhole”or “Bedbug City.” One-fifth of the building’s apartments were infested with bedbugs, according to a 2012 federal inspection. (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many residents of the Hacienda housing complex call it “Haci-hellhole”or “Bedbug City.” One-fifth of the building’s apartments were infested with bedbugs, according to a 2012 federal inspection. (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2009, HUD noted\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>that Hacienda’s foundation was separating from the walls.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>One- to 4-inch\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>gaps were cited on all six floors, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/805482-hacienda-inspection-2009.html#document/p3/a144026\" target=\"_blank\">federal reports\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HUD officials gave the separated foundation its most extreme rating on the books. Major foundation problems can lead to the instability of an entire building. It’s unclear whether Richmond has a plan to make repairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal inspectors in 2009 and then again in 2011 also\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>warned of severe problems with the roof. In 2009, an entire electrical closet’s walls were “saturated with water mold and mildew” due to the leaking roof, \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/805482-hacienda-inspection-2009.html#document/p3/a144027\" target=\"_blank\">they said\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The housing authority has hired contractors to stop the roof from leaking since 2006, but it hasn’t gotten\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>fixed. Even after the housing authority paid the most recent contractor $8,000 a few months ago, the roof still was leaking, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015483-all-seasons-invoice.html\" target=\"_blank\">a housing authority receipt\u003c/a>. One contractor didn’t even finish the job years before, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/885398-all-seasons-contract-hacienda-roof-repair-copy.html#document/p38/a144029\" target=\"_blank\">housing authority records\u003c/a>.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The damage proved to be a blessing for squatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe style=\"margin-right: 20px;margin-bottom: 10px\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/w3t-Bktr7R4\" frameborder=\"0\" align=\"left\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At one point, the housing authority had cleared out residents on the sixth floor. Security is almost nonexistent, so squatters have a practically guaranteed place to crash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A squatter named Steve Muccular recently took reporters through the building, showing them how to break into Hacienda through a busted security gate in the front of the building. Security guards don’t\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>bother to venture up to the sixth floor, he said, so he camped in the laundry room for months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No one was supposed to be up here,” Muccular said. “But they don’t check. This is a fucked-up building for sure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An abandoned unit on the sixth floor had clear signs of squatting in January – a broken security door and an apartment full of old birthday cake, beer bottles and tattered clothes. Months earlier, workers said they had secured that very unit to prevent squatting, records show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unable to get basic help from the housing authority, residents often turn to prayer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent Tuesday, about 15 Nevin Plaza residents gathered in the first-floor common room for their afternoon prayer group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a lot of things going on in here that people’s unhappy with but they don’t want to say because they don’t want to get kicked out,” said Eddie Williams, the resident pastor who lives on the second floor. “But since we started praying, people’s not as scared.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents go around in a circle giving testimonials and recounting their challenges during the week. One woman thanks God for helping her overcome a painkiller addiction. Another is grateful for a successful hip surgery. Then it’s 81-year-old Helen “Mama” Hall’s turn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I thank God for giving me discernments and opening my eyes to see more stuff going on in here,” Hall said. She is a self-appointed volunteer security guard who has taken it upon herself to police Nevin Plaza against criminals sneaking into the building. “I thank God for giving me strength to look out for this place every day, because no one else is going to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a chorus of amens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all gotta look up to God for help,” Williams said. “Because when you look down, it ain’t good where we are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The piece was edited by Andrew Donohue and Mark Katches and copy edited by Nikki Frick and Christine Lee. Reporter Amy Julia Harris can be reached at \u003ca href=\"mailto:aharris@cironline.org\">aharris@cironline.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This story was produced by The Center for Investigative Reporting in partnership with the San Francisco Chronicle and KQED. \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/richmondhousing/partner?partnername=KQED\" target=\"_blank\">Learn more about CIR's work.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Mice, mold, bedbugs, cockroaches, squatters and prostitutes are just a few of the problems in some units.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cdiv class=\"single-video\">\u003ciframe src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/6Ye6jkqsnCU?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Amy Julia Harris, The Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RICHMOND, Calif. –\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Geneva Eaton has learned to deal with life in Hacienda: the stench of mold from the stairwell in front of her door, the winter she spent huddled at her stove for heat, the broken security gate that allows drug dealers and squatters to walk past the paid security guards and urinate on her doorstep. But the mice were too much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For eight months, the 73-year-old woke to handfuls of half-dead mice wriggling in the glue traps lining the floors and cupboard of her apartment. In the space of a few hours, she caught 12. She put her nicest family belongings into storage. She went to bed with the lights on, afraid that the vermin she heard chewing through her walls would bite her in her sleep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials at the Richmond Housing Authority know the Hacienda high-rise, one of its five public housing projects, is infested with mice and roaches. Residents have filed more than 80 complaints about it in the past year, according to agency records. But maintenance workers had done little\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>to fix the problem. So for months, Eaton lived a daily routine: She threw out food she could barely afford. She called a maintenance line for help. She bathed her walls in bleach in the hopes of scaring away the insects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_126440\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 384px\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-126440 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/02/richmondproject_1635_la-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"For months, Geneva Eaton woke to handfuls of half-dead mice wriggling in her glue traps. (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">For months, Geneva Eaton woke to handfuls of half-dead mice wriggling in her glue traps. (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Eaton lives in one of the worst apartment buildings managed by one of the worst public housing agencies in the country. Here in Richmond, some of the poorest, oldest and most vulnerable people in the Bay Area live in squalor and fear due to the housing agency’s mismanagement and neglect, The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were at least \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015486-life-threatening-health-and-safety-violations.html\" target=\"_blank\">16 life-threatening health and safety violations\u003c/a> at the five public housing projects managed by the housing authority, according to the two most recent years of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reports. Seniors and disabled residents lived amid exposed wiring and missing smoke detectors and fire alarms. Most well-kempt housing projects don’t have these major health and safety violations, HUD says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authority’s executive director, Tim Jones, said he’s “running an operation on life support.” He blamed years of budget cuts from the federal government for the problems plaguing the housing authority and insisted that the agency is on the road to recovery. He said the problems come down to money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nearly one in five apartments in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015471-hacienda-2012-inspection.html\" target=\"_blank\">Hacienda\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015470-nevin-plaza-2012-inspection.html\" target=\"_blank\">Nevin Plaza\u003c/a> complexes are infested with insects and cockroaches, inspection records show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then there are the indignities that don’t show up in formal government reports: A woman with no legs giving herself sponge baths from her bathroom sink because maintenance workers didn’t install a simple safety bar in her shower. The fire department rescuing a paralyzed veteran from his third-floor apartment because the elevators didn’t work for three days. A disabled man who watched in horror for nearly a month as raw sewage slowly dripped from the neighbor’s bathroom upstairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents say their pleas for basic maintenance are ignored by officials paid to provide services to the poor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CIR also found a number of cases in which housing authority workers claimed in official documents to have fixed problems. But they hadn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s just continual chaos here,” said Everett Dennis Lewis, a disabled resident of Hacienda. “The housing authority doesn’t give a crap.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are 4,055 public housing agencies in the United States, all overseen by HUD. Last year, the federal government \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/885507-operational-troubled-list-2013-06-05-3.html\">labeled 44 \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/885507-operational-troubled-list-2013-06-05-3.html\" target=\"_blank\">as “t\u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/885507-operational-troubled-list-2013-06-05-3.html\">roubled”\u003c/a> -- housing authorities that had such severe problems with their finances, management or living\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>conditions that the government was on the brink of shutting them down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richmond was one of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the most recent federal assessment reports, released in 2013, Richmond received a score of \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015477-richmonds-federal-scorecard.html\">47 out of 100\u003c/a>, one of the lowest rankings in the country. It received failing marks for running up debt and failing to track its finances. Its executive director was deemed ineffective.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Richmond managed to receive a passing grade for the condition of most of its apartments. For the most part, the projects in Richmond aren’t as dilapidated as those in Detroit and New Orleans. But the breakdown in finances and leadership manifests itself daily at Richmond’s two largest\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>– and worst – complexes as residents struggle with rodents, filth and security problems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They are a dysfunctional organization,” said Gerard Windt, division director of the HUD office that oversees Richmond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Richmond Housing Authority got $26 million in 2013 from the federal government to provide safe and decent housing for the needy. Richmond has 715 units of public housing for the poor, elderly and disabled. It also gives out Section 8 vouchers to subsidize rent for an additional\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>1,750 residents on the private market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_126444\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 384px\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-126444 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/02/richmondproject_1661_la-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"Geneva Eaton says she has lost any hope that the Richmond Housing Authority will help with problems at its Hacienda apartment complex.“I wanna go someplace else, but I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she says. “They treat us like animals here.” (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Geneva Eaton says she has lost any hope that the Richmond Housing Authority will help with problems at its Hacienda apartment complex.“I wanna go someplace else, but I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she says. “They treat us like animals here.” (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Residents who end up in Richmond’s public housing are predominantly old or disabled African Americans.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>More than three-quarters of them make less than 30 percent of Contra Costa County’s median income, or $18,750 a year, according to HUD. Many of them used to have jobs as grocery baggers, janitors and food service workers until they got old or sick. Some lived on the streets, and others struggle with addiction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents don’t get their apartments for free. Almost 90 percent pay between $200 and $500 a month in rent, according to HUD. Eaton pays $262 a month to the housing authority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All 4,000-plus housing authorities across America face these same slashed budgets. About 1 percent of those agencies find themselves on HUD’s troubled list.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Maintenance complaints neglected\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Juanita Hasnat moved into Nevin Plaza in 2011, the housing authority\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>knew she was disabled. But her apartment didn’t have a simple disabled access fixture: a safety bar in the bathtub.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hasnat told the housing authority\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>about the oversight, thinking it would be a quick fix. But it took the agency nine months to install the safety bar, a fixture that costs less than $40 at The Home Depot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe style=\"margin-left: 20px;margin-bottom: 10px\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/iwIxrJNgdtI\" frameborder=\"0\" align=\"right\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 47-year-old gave herself sponge baths out of her bathroom sink for months because she couldn’t maneuver out of her wheelchair and into her bathtub.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hasnat said she repeatedly called the housing authority, and Jones directly, to ask for help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They all said, ‘We’re gonna get it taken care of,’ ” she said. “But I didn’t believe them. These people say one thing and do the opposite.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not too long ago, it was Hasnat who\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>was taking care of the sick and elderly. She worked as a certified nursing assistant at hospitals in Richmond and El Cerrito, cleaning patients’ wounds and giving them sponge baths. She didn’t expect\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>to be in the same position.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hasnat was infected with the flesh-eating bacteria MRSA while on the job. It wormed its way through her body and destroyed the life she had known. Her left leg was\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>amputated in 2010,\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>and she lost her right leg three years later. Her doctor told her that she would never walk again. Her nursing career was over\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wanted to die,” Hasnat said. “That was my life.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With no job, Hasnat found herself on disability and in need of a cheap apartment. That’s how she ended up in Richmond’s seven-story\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Nevin Plaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Its 142 units are\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>down the street from Richmond City Hall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For three years, Hasnat has lived in a fifth-floor\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>apartment\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>that has no disability access.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her hands bear scars from grating between the door frame and her wheelchair each time she comes and goes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Records provided by the housing authority say that it has responded in a timely manner to resident complaints.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The authority’s\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>version stands in stark contrast to that of its tenants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_126457\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 384px\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-126457 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/02/richmondproject_161_la-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"Eddie Williams, 62, glues items such as video cassettes to his walls to stop mice from getting into his Nevin Plaza apartment. Williams, whose rent is $251 a month, asked the Richmond Housing Authority to fix the problem, but he says nothing happened.(Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eddie Williams, 62, glues items such as videocassettes to his walls to stop mice from getting into his Nevin Plaza apartment. Williams, whose rent is $251 a month, asked the Richmond Housing Authority to fix the problem, but he says nothing happened.(Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Most residents don’t keep track of when they file a complaint; they get no receipt. Some verbally tell staff about their maintenance problems, but those reports don’t always make it into written records. To tell this story, CIR focused on the recent complaints of three residents who kept track of when they first notified housing authority officials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It appears the agency is marking resident complaints as being addressed when they’re not. In all three cases,\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>the authority’s records indicate that problems in their apartments were fixed. Residents say the issues were not resolved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wardell Jones is a blind Air Force veteran. He’s 83 years old.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>His Nevin Plaza apartment is covered in canvases he has learned to paint at the local blind center. They are full of brightly colored landscapes. His daughter comes by almost every day to fill his palette with paint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His heater has been broken for more than a year, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The housing authority said it\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>fixed his heat in October, paying $140 for new parts, \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015478-work-orders-from-july-to-december-2013.html#document/p2/a144025\" target=\"_blank\">according to records\u003c/a>. But Jones says his heat hasn’t worked since he first complained more than a year ago. As the temperature dipped near freezing, he would feel\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>his way to his kitchen and\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>use\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>his open oven to combat the cold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jones lives about 10 feet from the apartment of the housing authority’s live-in maintenance worker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Eaton, the housing authority said it eliminated the swarms of cockroaches in her\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>apartment on Oct. 8. However, a CIR reporter visited Eaton that day and saw the housing authority contractor enter her apartment. He walked around and acknowledged the problem. He left and didn’t come back. That maintenance visit was marked as a completed work order, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015478-work-orders-from-july-to-december-2013.html#document/p8/a144023\" target=\"_blank\">housing authority records\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Everett Dennis\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Lewis had mice infesting his apartment in January last year, the housing authority’s records say it sent an exterminator within two weeks of his complaint. But Lewis said exterminators never came, and he ended up buying traps himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe style=\"margin-right: 20px;margin-bottom: 10px\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/nRvnzau8gTM\" frameborder=\"0\" align=\"right\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lewis, who is 61, said he has had nothing but problems since moving into Hacienda almost two years ago. Last year, the toilet in the room above him leaked raw sewage\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>through the ceiling into his bathroom. It dripped on him from above.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He called the housing authority’s emergency maintenance line, and a worker told Lewis that they would fix it. But when nothing had happened after a week, Lewis called the same maintenance hotline five or six times a day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really annoyed them,” he said. “I just got tired of the poop falling on me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said the leak finally was repaired after almost a month of multiple daily complaints.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/885634-hacienda-work-order-completion-report-2013.html#document/p21/a144022\" target=\"_blank\">housing authority’s records\u003c/a>, Lewis’ complaint shows up once, and it says the agency fixed the problem the day after he complained.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tim Jones, the agency’s executive director, declined to answer questions about the resident complaints and many other specifics about conditions at Hacienda and Nevin Plaza.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other residents tell similar stories. A caregiver for a 68-year-old man said water dripped for months in his living room from a corroded exposed pipe in the ceiling. The lock on one woman’s front door hasn’t worked for four years. Another resident tried to get his leaky shower handle fixed. He ended up with a hole in his wall, no water in his shower for two months and a $50 bill for asbestos removal that he had to pay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Failed promises, fading hopes\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Hacienda complex is a tan, six-story\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>high-rise in central Richmond, off Roosevelt and Barrett avenues. Public housing residents in Richmond call it the most problematic of the city’s five complexes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Feral cats mill around the ivy that surrounds Hacienda, feasting on the mice that infest the building. Drug dealers glide through a perpetually broken security gate at the front of the complex and roam around with impunity. Squatters break locks and occupy the abandoned apartments on the sixth floor.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>Chronic roof leaks have allowed blue and green mold to spread on the outer walls, covering the ceilings of Hacienda’s sixth-floor walkways.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drug\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>dealers and prostitutes routinely sneak into the building from three different entrances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hacienda has paid security guards, but they admit that the place intimidates them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m scared to do my patrols,” said Arielle Jackson, a security guard for Cypress Private Security.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The housing authority pays Cypress $300,000 a year to secure both Nevin Plaza and Hacienda. Richmond police Officer Giulia Colbacchini said, “The security guards here are a joke.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cypress declined to comment for this story.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_126464\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 384px\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-126464 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/02/richmondproject_1019_la-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"Rhonda Marshall, 58, waves to visitors outside the Hacienda public housing complex. She’s been living on the high-rise’s first floor for years and has watched the building deteriorate. She says sees cracks in the walls running from the sixth floor to the ground and smells mold in the hallways and stairwells. (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rhonda Marshall, 58, waves to visitors outside the Hacienda public housing complex. She’s been living on the high-rise’s first floor for years and has watched the building deteriorate. She says she sees cracks in the walls running from the sixth floor to the ground and smells mold in the hallways and stairwells. (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There are a dozen light posts in Hacienda’s courtyard, but for more than two years, none worked. At night, Rhonda Marshall stumbled in her wheelchair getting from her apartment to a back gate across the courtyard, rolling off uneven paths in the darkness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s so dark you can’t see your hands in front of you,” the 58-year-old said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The housing authority paid $1,850 to a contractor to install new light fixtures in Hacienda’s courtyard in August 2011. But residents say the lights worked for only two or three days, and after that, they tolerated the pitch black. The housing authority finally fixed the lights in the courtyard in December. Residents say they have\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>complained since 2011. CIR has records going back one year, which verify the complaints stretch back at least that far.\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the sixth floor, exposed wires dangle from an abandoned electrical closet, a few feet from an inhabited unit. The wires are within reach of children who visit their grandparents in the complex.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents call Hacienda the “Haci-hellhole”\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>or “Bedbug City.” Nearly everyone has a story of bedbugs, and residents collect them in mason jars to show to housing authority maintenance workers, in an attempt to prove they aren’t making up the source of their pockmarked arms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost one-fifth of the apartments in Hacienda were infested with bedbugs, according to the most recent federal inspection in 2012. Exterminators have been called at least nine times in the last year, but residents say the place still is overrun with the blood-sucking pests.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents used to have more hope. In 2009, the bedbug situation became so dire at Hacienda that residents signed a petition, stormed the City Council chamber and “raised so much hell” that the housing authority was forced to fumigate the entire building, said Eaton, the Hacienda resident who struggled with mice and cockroaches.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No one wants to do that now. Walk around Hacienda and Nevin Plaza, and almost every resident will tell you a personal anecdote about the housing authority’s failed promises to provide the basics.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Eaton has lost any hope that the agency will help. After months of complaints, contractors gave\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>her a few sticky pads for the mice in her apartment. She bought her own mouse poison, and the infestation has improved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Who even wants to try anymore?” she said. “I wanna go someplace else, but I don’t have anywhere else to go. They treat us like animals here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a feeling shared by many residents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m afraid that the building’s going to come down on me,” Marshall said. “I want out of here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Structural dangers noted\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal inspectors worried about the building’s foundation, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cracks snake their way along the seams of Hacienda. In early January, reporters\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>saw the walkway on Hacienda’s sixth floor separating from the main building by almost 2 inches. The cracks are so large that you can see down to the fifth floor. These were some of the same problems inspectors warned of years earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_126462\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 384px\">\u003cimg class=\" wp-image-126462 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/02/richmondproject_1083_la-640x426.jpg\" alt=\"Many residents of the Hacienda housing complex call it “Haci-hellhole”or “Bedbug City.” One-fifth of the building’s apartments were infested with bedbugs, according to a 2012 federal inspection. (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Many residents of the Hacienda housing complex call it “Haci-hellhole”or “Bedbug City.” One-fifth of the building’s apartments were infested with bedbugs, according to a 2012 federal inspection. (Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In 2009, HUD noted\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>that Hacienda’s foundation was separating from the walls.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>One- to 4-inch\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>gaps were cited on all six floors, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/805482-hacienda-inspection-2009.html#document/p3/a144026\" target=\"_blank\">federal reports\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>HUD officials gave the separated foundation its most extreme rating on the books. Major foundation problems can lead to the instability of an entire building. It’s unclear whether Richmond has a plan to make repairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal inspectors in 2009 and then again in 2011 also\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>warned of severe problems with the roof. In 2009, an entire electrical closet’s walls were “saturated with water mold and mildew” due to the leaking roof, \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/805482-hacienda-inspection-2009.html#document/p3/a144027\" target=\"_blank\">they said\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The housing authority has hired contractors to stop the roof from leaking since 2006, but it hasn’t gotten\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>fixed. Even after the housing authority paid the most recent contractor $8,000 a few months ago, the roof still was leaking, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1015483-all-seasons-invoice.html\" target=\"_blank\">a housing authority receipt\u003c/a>. One contractor didn’t even finish the job years before, according to \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/885398-all-seasons-contract-hacienda-roof-repair-copy.html#document/p38/a144029\" target=\"_blank\">housing authority records\u003c/a>.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The damage proved to be a blessing for squatters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe style=\"margin-right: 20px;margin-bottom: 10px\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/w3t-Bktr7R4\" frameborder=\"0\" align=\"left\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At one point, the housing authority had cleared out residents on the sixth floor. Security is almost nonexistent, so squatters have a practically guaranteed place to crash.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A squatter named Steve Muccular recently took reporters through the building, showing them how to break into Hacienda through a busted security gate in the front of the building. Security guards don’t\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>bother to venture up to the sixth floor, he said, so he camped in the laundry room for months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No one was supposed to be up here,” Muccular said. “But they don’t check. This is a fucked-up building for sure.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An abandoned unit on the sixth floor had clear signs of squatting in January – a broken security door and an apartment full of old birthday cake, beer bottles and tattered clothes. Months earlier, workers said they had secured that very unit to prevent squatting, records show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unable to get basic help from the housing authority, residents often turn to prayer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On a recent Tuesday, about 15 Nevin Plaza residents gathered in the first-floor common room for their afternoon prayer group.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a lot of things going on in here that people’s unhappy with but they don’t want to say because they don’t want to get kicked out,” said Eddie Williams, the resident pastor who lives on the second floor. “But since we started praying, people’s not as scared.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Residents go around in a circle giving testimonials and recounting their challenges during the week. One woman thanks God for helping her overcome a painkiller addiction. Another is grateful for a successful hip surgery. Then it’s 81-year-old Helen “Mama” Hall’s turn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I thank God for giving me discernments and opening my eyes to see more stuff going on in here,” Hall said. She is a self-appointed volunteer security guard who has taken it upon herself to police Nevin Plaza against criminals sneaking into the building. “I thank God for giving me strength to look out for this place every day, because no one else is going to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a chorus of amens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We all gotta look up to God for help,” Williams said. “Because when you look down, it ain’t good where we are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The piece was edited by Andrew Donohue and Mark Katches and copy edited by Nikki Frick and Christine Lee. Reporter Amy Julia Harris can be reached at \u003ca href=\"mailto:aharris@cironline.org\">aharris@cironline.org\u003c/a>.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This story was produced by The Center for Investigative Reporting in partnership with the San Francisco Chronicle and KQED. \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/richmondhousing/partner?partnername=KQED\" target=\"_blank\">Learn more about CIR's work.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "state-officials-patient-advocates-clash-over-caregiver-abuse-cases",
"title": "State Officials, Patient Advocates Clash Over Caregiver Abuse Cases",
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"headTitle": "State Officials, Patient Advocates Clash Over Caregiver Abuse Cases | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_124156\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/RS6635_MD002506.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-124156 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/RS6635_MD002506-640x640.jpg\" alt=\"State are looking into a backlog of elder abuse cases after advocates complained of years of questionable practices. ((Keith Brofsky/Thinkstock)\" width=\"640\" height=\"640\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">State lawmakers are looking into a backlog of elder abuse cases after advocates complained about years of questionable practices (Keith Brofsky/Thinkstock) \u003ccite>(Keith Brofsky/Thinkstock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Rachael Bale\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Center For Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials from the California Department of Public Health and long-term care advocates clashed today at an Assembly oversight hearing over regulators’ ability to process complaints of abuse against nursing assistants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They couldn’t even agree on the number of abuse allegations that have yet to be investigated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[contextly_sidebar id=”894bc74afd27f07541a2b316812935d3″]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Evon Lenerd, a state health department official whose branch oversees investigations into caregiver abuse, said the state has a backlog of about 700 complaints that are more than a year old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s taking so long? It’s just the process,” Lenerd told lawmakers. “We are investigating every complaint we receive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Patricia L. McGinnis, the executive director of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, said she had received private assurances from people within Lenerd’s professional certification branch that there were nearly 10,000. McGinnis said the department has been “extraordinarily unresponsive and has a long history of noncompliance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their pattern has been to do nothing and hope no one notices,” she testified.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another witness at today’s hearing, the state ombudsman for long-term care, Joseph Rodrigues, said local ombudsmen have problems with their complaint referrals getting stuck on desks at the public health department and not having phone calls returned. Once, one was told to stop investigating a complaint even though allegations continued to come in from that particular facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_124160\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/CIR-Public-Health_6.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-124160\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/CIR-Public-Health_6-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"California Advocates for Nusing Home Reform Executive Director Pat McGinnis speaks a the Joint Oversight Hearing of the Assembly Committee on Aging & Long-Term Care and Assembly Committee on Health held at the State Captiol on Tuesday, January 21, 2014. (Randy Allen/The Center for Investigative Reporting)\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California Advocates for Nusing Home Reform Executive Director Pat McGinnis speaks a the Joint Oversight Hearing of the Assembly Committee on Aging & Long-Term Care and Assembly Committee on Health held at the State Captiol on Tuesday, January 21, 2014. (Randy Allen/The Center for Investigative Reporting)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The backlog is especially problematic, both officials and advocates testified, because as time goes on, substantiating allegations becomes more difficult as staff moves, evidence disappears and those who complain die.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hearing, held by the Assembly Committee on Health and Committee on Aging and Long-Term Care, comes four months after The Center for Investigative Reporting \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/quick-dismissal-caregiver-abuse-cases-puts-calif-patients-risk-5158\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">found state health regulators had routinely conducted delayed and superficial investigations\u003c/a> into complaints of abuse and neglect at the state’s long-term care facilities for the elderly and developmentally disabled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the hearing, Assemblyman Dr. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, asked where the choke points of the investigative process were, saying his goal was to determine how the Legislature could assist the department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ron Chapman, the director of the Department of Public Health, did not provide specifics, though the committee and officials set a March deadline for a progress report on an improvement plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are significant process complexities that are involved here,” he said. Chapman testified that the department is looking to hire more staff members to help process complaints but that past staff hires haven’t helped the backlog significantly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/quick-dismissal-caregiver-abuse-cases-puts-calif-patients-risk-5158\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CIR investigation\u003c/a> focused on the role of public health department investigators within the Licensing and Certification division, which has oversight over the quality of care in residential facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_124162\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/CIR-Public-Health.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-124162\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/CIR-Public-Health-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Ron Chapman, MD, State Health Officer and Director of the California Department of Public Health speaks a the Joint Oversight Hearing of the Assembly Committee on Aging & Long-Term Care and Assembly Committee on Health held at the State Captiol on Tuesday, January 21, 2014. (Randy Allen/The Center for Investigative Reporting)\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ron Chapman, MD, State Health Officer and Director of the California Department of Public Health speaks a the Joint Oversight Hearing of the Assembly Committee on Aging & Long-Term Care and Assembly Committee on Health held at the State Captiol on Tuesday, January 21, 2014. (Randy Allen/The Center for Investigative Reporting)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Over the past several years, the Department of Public Health has closed the vast majority of abuse and misconduct cases without action, CIR found. And the agency mostly has stopped referring cases to the California Department of Justice for prosecution and cut back on revoking licenses of nursing aides suspected of abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Southern California, abuse cases often are sent to Sacramento headquarters, where investigators rarely receive approval from supervisors to make site visits. During a mass dismissal of nearly 1,000 cases in 2009, many complaints were closed with a single phone call from the investigator, CIR learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked about this mass dismissal, Lenerd said that not every complaint warrants a site visit but that all 1,000 cases were investigated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At no time did we dismiss complaints with just one phone call. There were investigation steps used for every complaint allegation received,” she said. “As the cases got older, there (was) less evidence, less witnesses to interview. But we investigated every complaint allegation received.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California law requires that the Department of Public Health perform on-site, in-person investigations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada, D-Davis, requested a disposition of the 1,000 cases, which Chapman said he would provide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one case from 2008, which demonstrates the department’s slow investigative process, nursing aide Jason Joslin physically abused at least one patient at a facility in Riverside County. Although the public health department opened an investigation right away, it wasn’t until 2011 that \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/782744-cna-jjoslin-status.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the state took away his certification\u003c/a> and decided to add him to a nationwide exclusion list.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But by then, Joslin had moved to Seattle, obtained a temporary nursing assistant license from Washington and was fully credentialed within months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_124164\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/RS6633_photo.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-124164\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/RS6633_photo-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Elsie Fossum’s nieces and nephews look at family photos of their aunt, on the seventh anniversary of her death. (Mina Kim/KQED)\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elsie Fossum’s nieces and nephews look at family photos of their aunt, on the seventh anniversary of her death. (Mina Kim/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Another particularly egregious case involved the suspicious death of Elsie Fossum in 2006, who was then 95 and living at Claremont Place Assisted Living in Southern California. She was found severely injured on the floor of her bedroom. Several caregivers at the facility made it clear that they believed a nursing assistant had attacked Fossum. But the health department dismissed it as an accidental fall from her bed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of the severity of her mouth injuries, Fossum died of dehydration a few weeks later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The case was closed as unsubstantiated. The nursing assistant, who had in the past made disparaging comments about the elderly, quit soon after the incident and took a job at a nearby facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seven years after Fossum’s death, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department opened a criminal investigation, in part, following questions from reporters. The case remains unsolved, and the nursing assistant has not been charged with a crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislative hearing came about a week after a task force convened by the California Health and Human Services Agency, which oversees the Department of Public Health, \u003ca href=\"http://www.chhs.ca.gov/DCTFDocs/PlanfortheFutureofDevelopmentalCenters.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">released a report\u003c/a> on the future of California’s developmental centers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Essentially, the agency’s goal is for state-operated residential facilities to play a decreasing role in caring for the California’s developmentally disabled residents. As such, the task force’s report focuses on how to transition more residents from the state’s five board-and-care facilities into smaller, more specialized community programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In particular, it recommends establishing health resource centers where people who have transitioned to community homes would receive coordinated health services, ranging from mental health care to medication management to medical equipment and other services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report also recommends that the state operate smaller acute crisis facilities and crisis response teams, provide funding to regional facilities to expand care for those with enduring and advanced medical needs, and continue operating the Canyon Springs Community Facility and the Porterville Developmental Center’s Secure Treatment Program for those in the criminal justice system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was edited by Robert Salladay and copy edited by Nikki Frick and Christine Lee.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_124156\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/RS6635_MD002506.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-124156 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/RS6635_MD002506-640x640.jpg\" alt=\"State are looking into a backlog of elder abuse cases after advocates complained of years of questionable practices. ((Keith Brofsky/Thinkstock)\" width=\"640\" height=\"640\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">State lawmakers are looking into a backlog of elder abuse cases after advocates complained about years of questionable practices (Keith Brofsky/Thinkstock) \u003ccite>(Keith Brofsky/Thinkstock)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>By Rachael Bale\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Center For Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Officials from the California Department of Public Health and long-term care advocates clashed today at an Assembly oversight hearing over regulators’ ability to process complaints of abuse against nursing assistants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They couldn’t even agree on the number of abuse allegations that have yet to be investigated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Evon Lenerd, a state health department official whose branch oversees investigations into caregiver abuse, said the state has a backlog of about 700 complaints that are more than a year old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s taking so long? It’s just the process,” Lenerd told lawmakers. “We are investigating every complaint we receive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Patricia L. McGinnis, the executive director of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, said she had received private assurances from people within Lenerd’s professional certification branch that there were nearly 10,000. McGinnis said the department has been “extraordinarily unresponsive and has a long history of noncompliance.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Their pattern has been to do nothing and hope no one notices,” she testified.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another witness at today’s hearing, the state ombudsman for long-term care, Joseph Rodrigues, said local ombudsmen have problems with their complaint referrals getting stuck on desks at the public health department and not having phone calls returned. Once, one was told to stop investigating a complaint even though allegations continued to come in from that particular facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_124160\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/CIR-Public-Health_6.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-124160\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/CIR-Public-Health_6-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"California Advocates for Nusing Home Reform Executive Director Pat McGinnis speaks a the Joint Oversight Hearing of the Assembly Committee on Aging & Long-Term Care and Assembly Committee on Health held at the State Captiol on Tuesday, January 21, 2014. (Randy Allen/The Center for Investigative Reporting)\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">California Advocates for Nusing Home Reform Executive Director Pat McGinnis speaks a the Joint Oversight Hearing of the Assembly Committee on Aging & Long-Term Care and Assembly Committee on Health held at the State Captiol on Tuesday, January 21, 2014. (Randy Allen/The Center for Investigative Reporting)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The backlog is especially problematic, both officials and advocates testified, because as time goes on, substantiating allegations becomes more difficult as staff moves, evidence disappears and those who complain die.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hearing, held by the Assembly Committee on Health and Committee on Aging and Long-Term Care, comes four months after The Center for Investigative Reporting \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/quick-dismissal-caregiver-abuse-cases-puts-calif-patients-risk-5158\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">found state health regulators had routinely conducted delayed and superficial investigations\u003c/a> into complaints of abuse and neglect at the state’s long-term care facilities for the elderly and developmentally disabled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the hearing, Assemblyman Dr. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, asked where the choke points of the investigative process were, saying his goal was to determine how the Legislature could assist the department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ron Chapman, the director of the Department of Public Health, did not provide specifics, though the committee and officials set a March deadline for a progress report on an improvement plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are significant process complexities that are involved here,” he said. Chapman testified that the department is looking to hire more staff members to help process complaints but that past staff hires haven’t helped the backlog significantly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/quick-dismissal-caregiver-abuse-cases-puts-calif-patients-risk-5158\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CIR investigation\u003c/a> focused on the role of public health department investigators within the Licensing and Certification division, which has oversight over the quality of care in residential facilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_124162\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/CIR-Public-Health.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-124162\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/CIR-Public-Health-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Ron Chapman, MD, State Health Officer and Director of the California Department of Public Health speaks a the Joint Oversight Hearing of the Assembly Committee on Aging & Long-Term Care and Assembly Committee on Health held at the State Captiol on Tuesday, January 21, 2014. (Randy Allen/The Center for Investigative Reporting)\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ron Chapman, MD, State Health Officer and Director of the California Department of Public Health speaks a the Joint Oversight Hearing of the Assembly Committee on Aging & Long-Term Care and Assembly Committee on Health held at the State Captiol on Tuesday, January 21, 2014. (Randy Allen/The Center for Investigative Reporting)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Over the past several years, the Department of Public Health has closed the vast majority of abuse and misconduct cases without action, CIR found. And the agency mostly has stopped referring cases to the California Department of Justice for prosecution and cut back on revoking licenses of nursing aides suspected of abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Southern California, abuse cases often are sent to Sacramento headquarters, where investigators rarely receive approval from supervisors to make site visits. During a mass dismissal of nearly 1,000 cases in 2009, many complaints were closed with a single phone call from the investigator, CIR learned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When asked about this mass dismissal, Lenerd said that not every complaint warrants a site visit but that all 1,000 cases were investigated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At no time did we dismiss complaints with just one phone call. There were investigation steps used for every complaint allegation received,” she said. “As the cases got older, there (was) less evidence, less witnesses to interview. But we investigated every complaint allegation received.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California law requires that the Department of Public Health perform on-site, in-person investigations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada, D-Davis, requested a disposition of the 1,000 cases, which Chapman said he would provide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In one case from 2008, which demonstrates the department’s slow investigative process, nursing aide Jason Joslin physically abused at least one patient at a facility in Riverside County. Although the public health department opened an investigation right away, it wasn’t until 2011 that \u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/782744-cna-jjoslin-status.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the state took away his certification\u003c/a> and decided to add him to a nationwide exclusion list.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But by then, Joslin had moved to Seattle, obtained a temporary nursing assistant license from Washington and was fully credentialed within months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_124164\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/RS6633_photo.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-124164\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2014/01/RS6633_photo-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"Elsie Fossum’s nieces and nephews look at family photos of their aunt, on the seventh anniversary of her death. (Mina Kim/KQED)\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elsie Fossum’s nieces and nephews look at family photos of their aunt, on the seventh anniversary of her death. (Mina Kim/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Another particularly egregious case involved the suspicious death of Elsie Fossum in 2006, who was then 95 and living at Claremont Place Assisted Living in Southern California. She was found severely injured on the floor of her bedroom. Several caregivers at the facility made it clear that they believed a nursing assistant had attacked Fossum. But the health department dismissed it as an accidental fall from her bed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because of the severity of her mouth injuries, Fossum died of dehydration a few weeks later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The case was closed as unsubstantiated. The nursing assistant, who had in the past made disparaging comments about the elderly, quit soon after the incident and took a job at a nearby facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Seven years after Fossum’s death, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department opened a criminal investigation, in part, following questions from reporters. The case remains unsolved, and the nursing assistant has not been charged with a crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The legislative hearing came about a week after a task force convened by the California Health and Human Services Agency, which oversees the Department of Public Health, \u003ca href=\"http://www.chhs.ca.gov/DCTFDocs/PlanfortheFutureofDevelopmentalCenters.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">released a report\u003c/a> on the future of California’s developmental centers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Essentially, the agency’s goal is for state-operated residential facilities to play a decreasing role in caring for the California’s developmentally disabled residents. As such, the task force’s report focuses on how to transition more residents from the state’s five board-and-care facilities into smaller, more specialized community programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In particular, it recommends establishing health resource centers where people who have transitioned to community homes would receive coordinated health services, ranging from mental health care to medication management to medical equipment and other services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report also recommends that the state operate smaller acute crisis facilities and crisis response teams, provide funding to regional facilities to expand care for those with enduring and advanced medical needs, and continue operating the Canyon Springs Community Facility and the Porterville Developmental Center’s Secure Treatment Program for those in the criminal justice system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was edited by Robert Salladay and copy edited by Nikki Frick and Christine Lee.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Six Ways the Bay Area Can Help Its Housing Affordability Problem",
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"headTitle": "Six Ways the Bay Area Can Help Its Housing Affordability Problem | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_118632\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 442px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/11/15/listeners-weigh-in-gentricication-is-_____________/attachment/93075709/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-118632\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-118632 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/11/93075709.jpg\" alt=\"Thinkstock Image\" width=\"442\" height=\"386\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thinkstock Image\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In nearly every \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/radio/programs/forum/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum\u003c/a> show on \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/series/priced-out/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Priced Out\u003c/a>, KQED’s series on affordable housing in the Bay Area, many listeners and commenters opine, to paraphrase, “Build Baby Build.” That is to say, San Francisco simply needs to accept its popularity and booming economy and build more housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Forum decided to take up the question, “\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201311251000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Can the Bay Area build its way out of a lack of affordable housing?\u003c/a>” The answer, to paraphrase again, is “It’s complicated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Forum guests agreed that building needs to be part of the solution, they also agreed that creating housing is a complex problem, requiring a multi-pronged, nuanced approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re a person who enjoys listening, the full Forum show is online \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201311251000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here\u003c/a>. But if you’re short on time and just want the highlights, this post’s for you:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1.Work backwards\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are so many places for a new housing development to start — a plot of land, a vacant building, heck, just the need for housing itself is a starting point. But according to Peter Cohen, co-director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfccho.org/\">Council of Community Housing Organization\u003c/a>, the best way to ensure affordable housing is to first consider who will live in a given building, and then take the steps necessary to achieve housing for that population. \u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">If Bay Area officials are serious about providing housing for the middle class, they need to start with that in mind.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Affordable housing is typically built for a very specific income-level of household and also for a particular population. Maybe it’s built for seniors, maybe it’s for families, and maybe it’s for transitional-age youth. So the calculation at the front – of how much those rents or those ownership prices will be — is already known, and then that works backwards into operating costs and construction costs, and the subsidy is calculated from there. But it’s very intentional about who we are building for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Prioritize regional solutions \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Too often San Francisco gets all the attention. But unfortunately a lack of middle-class-friendly housing is not unique to San Francisco, and the solution won’t be found within its 49 square miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The rest of the region has not done its share,” said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of \u003ca href=\"http://www.spur.org/\">SPUR\u003c/a>, a San Francisco-based urban planning organization. “It has not either permitted enough affordable housing or simply has not created walkable places. So the pressure on San Francisco is all the greater. We need help from the rest of the region to solve this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘That’s the problem – the places where it’s good to build a lot of new housing for the regional growth is also where you have the greatest degree of gentrification.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Cohen points out that some regional planning does take place, specifically at the hands of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.abag.ca.gov/planning/housingneeds/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Association of Bay Area Governments\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state on a regular basis, every 5 to 7 years, comes up with some calculations of projected housing needs based on the growing workforce in every part of the state of California,” said Cohen. “The Bay Area gets what is called a ‘\u003ca href=\"http://www.abag.ca.gov/planning/housingneeds/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Regional Housing Needs Allocation\u003c/a>.’ Those, in turn, are distributed to each county and city as their share of the housing production that they need to produce over the next 5 to 7 years. And that’s broken down by affordability level. San Francisco has its share, Burlingame has its share, Concord has its share. The crisis we’re in on a regional level is not a whole lot different from San Francisco, except the factors are different. We are dramatically underproducing low-income housing and middle-income housing across the region, and from a numbers standpoint, overproducing market-rate housing. So there is a structural problem with the market relative to need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But often, despite a region’s good intentions, \u003ca href=\"http://www.contracostatimes.com/contracostatimes/ci_24562439/lafayette-mayor-homeowners-debate-growth-at-state-city\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">local officials have a hard time getting their communities on board\u003c/a> with such plans. And that brings us to our next point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. Drop the NIMBY-ism\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[NIMBY-ism] is probably the biggest problem we face,” said Karen Chapple, associate director of the \u003ca href=\"http://iurd.berkeley.edu/\">Institute for Urban and Regional Development\u003c/a> at UC Berkeley. “We don’t have an easy solution. I think it’s changing over time as people see that their own kids can’t live in their cities. Eventually they come to their senses, but they’re still going to fight the apartment building on their block.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. Consider public transportation when planning and pricing\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an October \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201310311000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">discussion on the state of the Bay Area real estate market\u003c/a>, Carolyn Said, who covers economics and real estate for the San Francisco Chronicle, made the point that Solano County is a great place to live if you can work an off-schedule or work from home. In other words, if you don’t have to commute. Some of the least affordable (or should we say “less expensive”) areas in the Bay Area remain that way because a lack of transit infrastructure makes them less appealing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Chapple, public transit needs to be part of the affordable housing discussion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our cost of housing is not just how much we pay for rent and utilities, or mortgage and utilities,” said Chapple. “It’s also location, and how much that is costing us. How efficient is the location?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to think of transportation costs as part of this overall affordability question, which is where the regional issue becomes so salient… \u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">We think we’re adding affordability out in Antioch, but in reality, we’re actually adding more transportation costs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to be very strategic in thinking about where we’re going to put this housing,” Chapple continued. “So let’s look at our corridors, because that’s where there isn’t that much community objection. Let’s look at El Camino Real, let’s look at San Pablo Avenue, let’s look at Telegraph Avenue, and let’s incentivize building on these corridors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Peter Cohen warns that vulnerable populations often live along those transportation corridors and he cites concerns with \u003ca href=\"http://onebayarea.org/regional-initiatives/plan-bay-area.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Plan Bay Area\u003c/a>, a regional transportation and housing plan aimed at accommodating growth while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201307220900\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Plan Bay Area\u003c/a> is essentially a growth vision for all the population of the region over the next 20 years or so, and 75 percent of it goes into those El Camino Real corridors or those urbanized neighborhoods,” said Cohen. “Which, from a land use standpoint and an urbanism standpoint, is good. … [But] if you overlay that with where there are communities that are actually vulnerable for displacement – gentrification displacement – it’s a very close match. That’s the problem – the places where it’s good to build a lot of new housing for the regional growth is also where you have the greatest degree of gentrification.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. Show affordable housing the money\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cohen also goes on to criticize Plan Bay Area for its lack of monetary teeth:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no funding source for the affordable housing that’s necessary to make that kind of vision work,” he said. “It’s just basically a numerical game plan and then the market builds. But the market only builds for a segment of that need and without the money, what you have is a recipe for displacement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just how much does it cost to build affordable or subsidized housing? A lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It probably costs, depending on who you’re building for, a few hundred thousand dollars in subsidies per unit,” said Gabriel Metcalf. “And maybe a third of that [comes from local sources]. So call it a $100,000 in subsidy, locally, per unit. You can kind of multiply that by how many people you want to help, and you can help thousands of people, but there will still be hundreds of thousands of people who are not going to get one of those units.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. Think beyond the single-family unit\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We did a study on the East Bay of the potential for building in-law units, and compared it to the potential for building multi-family buildings, and we found that about half of our in-field developments should be coming from in-law units,” said Karen Chapple. “In many of our larger lots it’s very hard to assemble, it’s very expensive. It can cost one quarter the amount to build an in-law unit in the back of a single-family home. That said, it does need to be price controlled.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco city officials are starting to recognize the role that secondary units can play in easing the housing crunch. San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener has \u003ca href=\"http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=69198\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proposed allowing in-law units to be built in his district\u003c/a> and Board of Supervisor President David Chiu introduced legislation that would \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-in-law-proposal-would-make-units-legal-5011267.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">legalize existing secondary units\u003c/a> that were built illegally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What do you think Bay Area officials should do to increase the amount of affordable housing in the region? We welcome your suggestions in the comments below.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_118632\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 442px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/11/15/listeners-weigh-in-gentricication-is-_____________/attachment/93075709/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-118632\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-118632 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/11/93075709.jpg\" alt=\"Thinkstock Image\" width=\"442\" height=\"386\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Thinkstock Image\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In nearly every \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/radio/programs/forum/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum\u003c/a> show on \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/series/priced-out/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Priced Out\u003c/a>, KQED’s series on affordable housing in the Bay Area, many listeners and commenters opine, to paraphrase, “Build Baby Build.” That is to say, San Francisco simply needs to accept its popularity and booming economy and build more housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So Forum decided to take up the question, “\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201311251000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Can the Bay Area build its way out of a lack of affordable housing?\u003c/a>” The answer, to paraphrase again, is “It’s complicated.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Forum guests agreed that building needs to be part of the solution, they also agreed that creating housing is a complex problem, requiring a multi-pronged, nuanced approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’re a person who enjoys listening, the full Forum show is online \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201311251000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">here\u003c/a>. But if you’re short on time and just want the highlights, this post’s for you:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>1.Work backwards\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are so many places for a new housing development to start — a plot of land, a vacant building, heck, just the need for housing itself is a starting point. But according to Peter Cohen, co-director of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfccho.org/\">Council of Community Housing Organization\u003c/a>, the best way to ensure affordable housing is to first consider who will live in a given building, and then take the steps necessary to achieve housing for that population. \u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">If Bay Area officials are serious about providing housing for the middle class, they need to start with that in mind.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Affordable housing is typically built for a very specific income-level of household and also for a particular population. Maybe it’s built for seniors, maybe it’s for families, and maybe it’s for transitional-age youth. So the calculation at the front – of how much those rents or those ownership prices will be — is already known, and then that works backwards into operating costs and construction costs, and the subsidy is calculated from there. But it’s very intentional about who we are building for.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>2. Prioritize regional solutions \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Too often San Francisco gets all the attention. But unfortunately a lack of middle-class-friendly housing is not unique to San Francisco, and the solution won’t be found within its 49 square miles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The rest of the region has not done its share,” said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of \u003ca href=\"http://www.spur.org/\">SPUR\u003c/a>, a San Francisco-based urban planning organization. “It has not either permitted enough affordable housing or simply has not created walkable places. So the pressure on San Francisco is all the greater. We need help from the rest of the region to solve this.”\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘That’s the problem – the places where it’s good to build a lot of new housing for the regional growth is also where you have the greatest degree of gentrification.’\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Cohen points out that some regional planning does take place, specifically at the hands of the \u003ca href=\"http://www.abag.ca.gov/planning/housingneeds/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Association of Bay Area Governments\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The state on a regular basis, every 5 to 7 years, comes up with some calculations of projected housing needs based on the growing workforce in every part of the state of California,” said Cohen. “The Bay Area gets what is called a ‘\u003ca href=\"http://www.abag.ca.gov/planning/housingneeds/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Regional Housing Needs Allocation\u003c/a>.’ Those, in turn, are distributed to each county and city as their share of the housing production that they need to produce over the next 5 to 7 years. And that’s broken down by affordability level. San Francisco has its share, Burlingame has its share, Concord has its share. The crisis we’re in on a regional level is not a whole lot different from San Francisco, except the factors are different. We are dramatically underproducing low-income housing and middle-income housing across the region, and from a numbers standpoint, overproducing market-rate housing. So there is a structural problem with the market relative to need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But often, despite a region’s good intentions, \u003ca href=\"http://www.contracostatimes.com/contracostatimes/ci_24562439/lafayette-mayor-homeowners-debate-growth-at-state-city\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">local officials have a hard time getting their communities on board\u003c/a> with such plans. And that brings us to our next point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>3. Drop the NIMBY-ism\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[NIMBY-ism] is probably the biggest problem we face,” said Karen Chapple, associate director of the \u003ca href=\"http://iurd.berkeley.edu/\">Institute for Urban and Regional Development\u003c/a> at UC Berkeley. “We don’t have an easy solution. I think it’s changing over time as people see that their own kids can’t live in their cities. Eventually they come to their senses, but they’re still going to fight the apartment building on their block.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>4. Consider public transportation when planning and pricing\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an October \u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201310311000\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">discussion on the state of the Bay Area real estate market\u003c/a>, Carolyn Said, who covers economics and real estate for the San Francisco Chronicle, made the point that Solano County is a great place to live if you can work an off-schedule or work from home. In other words, if you don’t have to commute. Some of the least affordable (or should we say “less expensive”) areas in the Bay Area remain that way because a lack of transit infrastructure makes them less appealing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Chapple, public transit needs to be part of the affordable housing discussion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our cost of housing is not just how much we pay for rent and utilities, or mortgage and utilities,” said Chapple. “It’s also location, and how much that is costing us. How efficient is the location?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to think of transportation costs as part of this overall affordability question, which is where the regional issue becomes so salient… \u003cspan style=\"color: #000000\">We think we’re adding affordability out in Antioch, but in reality, we’re actually adding more transportation costs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to be very strategic in thinking about where we’re going to put this housing,” Chapple continued. “So let’s look at our corridors, because that’s where there isn’t that much community objection. Let’s look at El Camino Real, let’s look at San Pablo Avenue, let’s look at Telegraph Avenue, and let’s incentivize building on these corridors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Peter Cohen warns that vulnerable populations often live along those transportation corridors and he cites concerns with \u003ca href=\"http://onebayarea.org/regional-initiatives/plan-bay-area.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Plan Bay Area\u003c/a>, a regional transportation and housing plan aimed at accommodating growth while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“\u003ca href=\"http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201307220900\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Plan Bay Area\u003c/a> is essentially a growth vision for all the population of the region over the next 20 years or so, and 75 percent of it goes into those El Camino Real corridors or those urbanized neighborhoods,” said Cohen. “Which, from a land use standpoint and an urbanism standpoint, is good. … [But] if you overlay that with where there are communities that are actually vulnerable for displacement – gentrification displacement – it’s a very close match. That’s the problem – the places where it’s good to build a lot of new housing for the regional growth is also where you have the greatest degree of gentrification.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>5. Show affordable housing the money\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cohen also goes on to criticize Plan Bay Area for its lack of monetary teeth:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no funding source for the affordable housing that’s necessary to make that kind of vision work,” he said. “It’s just basically a numerical game plan and then the market builds. But the market only builds for a segment of that need and without the money, what you have is a recipe for displacement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just how much does it cost to build affordable or subsidized housing? A lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It probably costs, depending on who you’re building for, a few hundred thousand dollars in subsidies per unit,” said Gabriel Metcalf. “And maybe a third of that [comes from local sources]. So call it a $100,000 in subsidy, locally, per unit. You can kind of multiply that by how many people you want to help, and you can help thousands of people, but there will still be hundreds of thousands of people who are not going to get one of those units.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>6. Think beyond the single-family unit\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We did a study on the East Bay of the potential for building in-law units, and compared it to the potential for building multi-family buildings, and we found that about half of our in-field developments should be coming from in-law units,” said Karen Chapple. “In many of our larger lots it’s very hard to assemble, it’s very expensive. It can cost one quarter the amount to build an in-law unit in the back of a single-family home. That said, it does need to be price controlled.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco city officials are starting to recognize the role that secondary units can play in easing the housing crunch. San Francisco Supervisor Scott Wiener has \u003ca href=\"http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=69198\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">proposed allowing in-law units to be built in his district\u003c/a> and Board of Supervisor President David Chiu introduced legislation that would \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-in-law-proposal-would-make-units-legal-5011267.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">legalize existing secondary units\u003c/a> that were built illegally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What do you think Bay Area officials should do to increase the amount of affordable housing in the region? We welcome your suggestions in the comments below.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_116757\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 320px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/10/31/castro-valley-senior-home-closure/7876700076_38f303c8df_n/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-116757\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-116757 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/10/7876700076_38f303c8df_n.jpg\" alt=\"(inventorchris / Flickr)\" width=\"320\" height=\"239\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Alameda County Sheriff’s office is investigating the 14 residents who were left behind after the closure of Valley Springs Manor in Castro Valley. (inventorchris / Flickr)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The investigation into a Castro Valley assisted-living center that left 14 patients behind when a state agency closed it last week took another turn on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Chronicle \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Resident-answers-sought-in-Castro-Valley-4941372.php\">reported\u003c/a> that one of the residents may be missing. A staffer who stayed on despite the closure of Valley Springs Manor reported on Friday that Edmund Bascom, 65, was missing. Bascom, who suffers from mental illness and who officials said walked away from residential care homes at least 10 times in the past five years, has not been found, according to the Alameda County Sheriff’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesman for the Sheriff’s office also said that residents were left without paid care for as many as eight days — not three, as originally reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">A spokesman for the Sheriff’s office also said that residents were left without paid care for as many as eight days — not three, as originally reported.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The Bay City News Service said a number of agencies will meet today to compare notes in the investigation. Sgt. J.D. Nelson of the sheriff’s office told BCN, “This case is very interesting because it’s like an octopus because every time you go somewhere another chemical comes out and touches another branch of government that oversees care facilities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Department of Social Services closed Valley Springs Manor on Oct. 24 after suspending its license for alleged violations. Authorities said 14 sick and elderly patients were abandoned at the home when most of the staff walked out that day, although a few staff members stayed behind to help patients. Paramedics and sheriff’s deputies removed patients on Saturday after they received calls for help from the facility, Nelson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More details of today’s meeting, from BCN:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\u003c!--more-->He said that in addition to the Sheriff’s Department, among the agencies that will participate in the meeting today are the California Department of Social Service’s community care licensing unit, the elder abuse section of the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, the California Department of Justices’s Medi-Cal fraud unit and the FBI’s health care fraud unit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of these agencies have reached out to us to inquire about what’s going on,” Nelson said.\u003cbr>\nHe said a criminal investigation is being conducted to determine if elder abuse or another offense has been committed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a complaint filed by the state, the facility’s operators are Herminigilda “Hilda” N. Manuel and Mary Jullead N. Manuel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nelson said investigators haven’t yet talked to the operators but their attorney, Orrin Grover, has talked to authorities “on numerous occasions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grover couldn’t be reached for comment because his voicemail box was full.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nelson said the investigation “will take a long time” because authorities are going through voluminous documents they recovered when they obtained a search warrant and went to the facility on Saturday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the documents were patients’ medical records, employee records and various facility records, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nelson said when authorities went to the facility on Saturday the conditions “weren’t completely terrible” but the home was “unkempt” and “not what you would expect” at a care home.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_116757\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 320px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/10/31/castro-valley-senior-home-closure/7876700076_38f303c8df_n/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-116757\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-116757 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/10/7876700076_38f303c8df_n.jpg\" alt=\"(inventorchris / Flickr)\" width=\"320\" height=\"239\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Alameda County Sheriff’s office is investigating the 14 residents who were left behind after the closure of Valley Springs Manor in Castro Valley. (inventorchris / Flickr)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The investigation into a Castro Valley assisted-living center that left 14 patients behind when a state agency closed it last week took another turn on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Chronicle \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Resident-answers-sought-in-Castro-Valley-4941372.php\">reported\u003c/a> that one of the residents may be missing. A staffer who stayed on despite the closure of Valley Springs Manor reported on Friday that Edmund Bascom, 65, was missing. Bascom, who suffers from mental illness and who officials said walked away from residential care homes at least 10 times in the past five years, has not been found, according to the Alameda County Sheriff’s office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesman for the Sheriff’s office also said that residents were left without paid care for as many as eight days — not three, as originally reported.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">A spokesman for the Sheriff’s office also said that residents were left without paid care for as many as eight days — not three, as originally reported.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The Bay City News Service said a number of agencies will meet today to compare notes in the investigation. Sgt. J.D. Nelson of the sheriff’s office told BCN, “This case is very interesting because it’s like an octopus because every time you go somewhere another chemical comes out and touches another branch of government that oversees care facilities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Department of Social Services closed Valley Springs Manor on Oct. 24 after suspending its license for alleged violations. Authorities said 14 sick and elderly patients were abandoned at the home when most of the staff walked out that day, although a few staff members stayed behind to help patients. Paramedics and sheriff’s deputies removed patients on Saturday after they received calls for help from the facility, Nelson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More details of today’s meeting, from BCN:\u003c/p>\n\u003cblockquote>\u003cp>\u003c!--more-->He said that in addition to the Sheriff’s Department, among the agencies that will participate in the meeting today are the California Department of Social Service’s community care licensing unit, the elder abuse section of the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, the California Department of Justices’s Medi-Cal fraud unit and the FBI’s health care fraud unit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of these agencies have reached out to us to inquire about what’s going on,” Nelson said.\u003cbr>\nHe said a criminal investigation is being conducted to determine if elder abuse or another offense has been committed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to a complaint filed by the state, the facility’s operators are Herminigilda “Hilda” N. Manuel and Mary Jullead N. Manuel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nelson said investigators haven’t yet talked to the operators but their attorney, Orrin Grover, has talked to authorities “on numerous occasions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grover couldn’t be reached for comment because his voicemail box was full.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nelson said the investigation “will take a long time” because authorities are going through voluminous documents they recovered when they obtained a search warrant and went to the facility on Saturday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among the documents were patients’ medical records, employee records and various facility records, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nelson said when authorities went to the facility on Saturday the conditions “weren’t completely terrible” but the home was “unkempt” and “not what you would expect” at a care home.\u003c/p>\u003c/blockquote>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_110521\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/6633_transform.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-110521\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/6633_transform.jpg\" alt=\"Elsie Fossum's nieces and nephews look at family photos of their aunt, on the seventh anniversary of her death. (Mina Kim/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"359\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elsie Fossum’s nieces and nephews look at family photos of their aunt, on the seventh anniversary of her death. (Mina Kim/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Elsie Fossum’s nieces and nephews say she was the aunt you wanted to have. “She gave us our first car!” said Janet Flynn, Fossum’s niece.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A ’59 Ford Galaxy with massive fins on it,” Fossum’s nephew, Jim Fossum, recalled. “It was two-tone paint — pink or coral, whatever you want to call it — and white with gold hubcaps and stuff. It was just something else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sitting in the sun-dappled backroom of a lakeside home in Walker, Minn., the Fossums remembered their aunt. Elsie Fossum was a teacher who never married or had kids. After moving to Southern California in the 1940s, she worked mostly as a librarian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_110505\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 228px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Elsie-Fossum.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-110505 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Elsie-Fossum-228x300.jpg\" alt=\"Elsie Fossum travelled widely, say her family members, and New Zealand was one of her favorite countries. (Photo courtesy of the Fossum family)\" width=\"228\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elsie Fossum traveled widely, say her family members, and New Zealand was one of her favorite countries. (Photo courtesy of the Fossum family)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“She would come for the summer with this tiny Samsonite suitcase,” Flynn said. “She would be impeccably dressed, mixing and matching, and her hair was always done. She always looked wonderful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the morning of July 3, 2006, Elsie Fossum lay in a pool of blood on her bedroom floor at Claremont Place, a Los Angeles-area assisted living facility where the 95-year-old woman had lived for two years. Her eyes were bruising black, her lip and upper palate were badly cut, and her right arm was broken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She looked like she went four or five rounds with Muhammad Ali,” Beverlee McPherson recalled when Fossum returned from the hospital. McPherson, a registered nurse, supervised the nurse assistants at Claremont Place.\u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nurse assistants provide intimate care. They bathe, feed and dress the elderly, ill or disabled. The lone caregiver on Fossum’s floor that night reported Fossum fell, but McPherson and other Claremont Place staff suspected abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Less than three weeks later, Fossum died. Her 109-pound frame succumbed to her wounds and to dehydration. Fossum was unable to take much food or water through her swollen mouth. A Los Angeles County coroner could not rule out assault and called the manner of Fossum’s death undetermined. McPherson is resolute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m 100 percent convinced she didn’t fall out of bed, 100 percent. If you saw this woman’s face, I mean her entire face was beaten to a pulp.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emergency room nurses who treated Fossum at the hospital also suspected abuse, according to official records. The hospital quickly notified the California Department of Public Health, the agency responsible for de-certifying nurse assistants and home health aides who violate standards of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Public-Health-noaction.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-110511\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Public-Health-noaction-258x300.png\" alt=\"Public Health - noaction\" width=\"258\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>Internal documents obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting show department investigators shelved Fossum’s case for 6½ years. In February of this year, department investigators closed the case and determined no action was warranted against Fossum’s caregiver.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After her aunt’s funeral, Janet Flynn said Claremont Place staff alerted the family that Elsie Fossum may have been a victim of elder abuse. Seven years later, the family is no closer to understanding what happened to their aunt. Their calls and emails to state agencies and local police turned up little information. They have never heard from California’s Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would think that this would be very chilling to anyone who has loved ones in a facility, especially if they’re not immediately local like we weren’t,” Flynn said. “And you think safeguards are in place and you think that staff are qualified and that this is being regulated, and this I find chilling.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has decided Fossum’s case warrants further review. A detective there said they opened a homicide investigation into her death this year. Fossum’s caregiver is the sole person of interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A sprawling backlog of cases\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fossum’s case is not the only one where department investigators were slow to act after allegations of physical or sexual abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In October 2007, nurse assistant Ricky Diocampo molested a 59-year-old female patient at Del Rio Sanitarium in Los Angeles County. This was not the first time Diocampo had assaulted this woman, court records would later show. In 2009, Diocampo pled guilty to patient abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was not until two years after his conviction that officials with California’s Department of Public Health revoked Diocampo’s certification as a nurse assistant. Diocampo did not respond to phone calls, notes or visits to his Long Beach home. It is unknown whether Diocampo worked at other care facilities in the years before state regulators acted against him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_110510\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Ron-Chapman-02.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-110510 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Ron-Chapman-02-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"Ron Chapman, head of the California Department of Public Health, says he doesn't understand the reason for the decline in case referrals to the Attorney General's office. (Adithya Sambamurthy/The Center)\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ron Chapman, head of the California Department of Public Health, says he doesn’t understand the reason for the decline in case referrals to the attorney general’s office. (Adithya Sambamurthy/The Center)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I would tell anybody: Do not count on the government taking care of you,” said Brian Woods, who oversaw the department’s Southern California investigations office in 2006. “They are overworked. They can’t get in there. Your case might get looked at 10 years later.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woods said cases languished during his tenure because of a sprawling backlog of hundreds of complaints. He said his investigators lacked the training to handle complex cases, and he had too few investigators to begin with. Woods left his position in 2008.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From 2004 to 2008, public health regulators piled up more than 900 cases in Southern California — cases that involved severe injuries and suspicious deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were a number of reasons for that backlog, including poor management decisions during that time in terms of how to use the resources that were available,” said Ron Chapman, who heads California’s Department of Public Health. “A backlog for investigating complaints is inexcusable; it should not have occurred.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chapman said a plan was implemented in 2009 to address the backlog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the two years that I’ve been in the job, there’s now new management from top to bottom,” he said. “We’re staying on top of all the complaints as they come in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But since Chapman’s been on the job, the number of nurse assistants who have lost their certifications has dropped dramatically. In fiscal year 2008, the department revoked or denied certifications in 27 percent of cases. In fiscal years 2011 and 2012, that number dropped to 9 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chapman said he sees no evidence that addressing the backlog has undermined the quality of the department’s investigations. But Marc Parker, who led the investigations section for nine years, said he was forced to cut corners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Public-Health-vanishingbacklog.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-110513\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Public-Health-vanishingbacklog-238x300.png\" alt=\"Public Health - vanishingbacklog\" width=\"238\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>“Hundreds of cases were closed, hundreds, with nothing but a phone call,” Parker said. “The directions were to reduce this backlog, get these cases done. Staff was prohibited from traveling, restricted to sitting at their desk … except only in the most dire cases.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parker said without facility visits, investigators are unable to see the layout of a room, conduct impromptu interviews, or assess a person’s body language.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You lose all the basic cues, all the ‘tells’ that people have,” he said. “Their facial expression, eye movements, their body posture, their legs are crossed, they’re turning away from you, they look you in the eye, they don’t. If you’re doing it on the telephone, all of that is gone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According the Parker, the practice of shortchanging investigations continues today. “I get emails; I get phone calls from folks who tell me what’s going on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parker, who retired in December of 2011, said he left earlier than planned. “I could not protect the public any longer,” Parker said. “There was just a failure to protect the most vulnerable people in our state from abuse and neglect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fewer cases sent to prosecutors\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public health regulators are legally bound to report all suspected criminal wrongdoing to the state attorney general’s office. Over the three years before the department addressed the backlog, it referred 88 deaths for criminal prosecution. But that number has plummeted. In 2011, the department referred two deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Public-Health-patientdeaths.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-110512\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Public-Health-patientdeaths-243x300.png\" alt=\"Public Health - patientdeaths\" width=\"243\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>Paul Greenwood, who has been prosecuting elder abuse cases for nearly two decades as head of the San Diego district attorney’s elder abuse unit, finds that baffling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know how many nursing homes there are in California or how many deaths a year there are in the facilities, but the number is going to be huge,” Greenwood said. “And to think there are only two suspicious deaths? No, I just frankly cannot believe that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chapman said his staff is drafting agreements with the attorney general’s office to improve communication and work better with them as a partner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t understand that decline in numbers,” he said. “It’s very concerning to me and we are looking into it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chapman said while he’s confident no complaints have been mishandled, he is open to the possibility of reviewing closed cases, including the death of Elsie Fossum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It sounds absolutely horrible,” Chapman said. “We should be doing investigations on all complaints. If that’s not happening that’s a problem and we need to address it, and I’ll be looking into that case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was co-reported with Ryan Gabrielson of the Center for Investigative Reporting. \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/quick-dismissal-caregiver-abuse-cases-puts-calif-patients-risk-5158\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read his story, \u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/quick-dismissal-caregiver-abuse-cases-puts-calif-patients-risk-5158\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Quick dismissal of caregiver abuse cases puts California patients at risk.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F105786096%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-lRcYE\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://embed.verite.co/timeline/?source=0Ai_7jS90j6v-dF95M2NCUXFJZmVrNXZyQnJ5OVNaZGc&font=Bevan-PotanoSans&maptype=toner&lang=en&height=650\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"100%\" height=\"650\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_110521\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/6633_transform.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-110521\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/6633_transform.jpg\" alt=\"Elsie Fossum's nieces and nephews look at family photos of their aunt, on the seventh anniversary of her death. (Mina Kim/KQED)\" width=\"640\" height=\"359\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elsie Fossum’s nieces and nephews look at family photos of their aunt, on the seventh anniversary of her death. (Mina Kim/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Elsie Fossum’s nieces and nephews say she was the aunt you wanted to have. “She gave us our first car!” said Janet Flynn, Fossum’s niece.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A ’59 Ford Galaxy with massive fins on it,” Fossum’s nephew, Jim Fossum, recalled. “It was two-tone paint — pink or coral, whatever you want to call it — and white with gold hubcaps and stuff. It was just something else.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sitting in the sun-dappled backroom of a lakeside home in Walker, Minn., the Fossums remembered their aunt. Elsie Fossum was a teacher who never married or had kids. After moving to Southern California in the 1940s, she worked mostly as a librarian.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_110505\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 228px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Elsie-Fossum.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-110505 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Elsie-Fossum-228x300.jpg\" alt=\"Elsie Fossum travelled widely, say her family members, and New Zealand was one of her favorite countries. (Photo courtesy of the Fossum family)\" width=\"228\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elsie Fossum traveled widely, say her family members, and New Zealand was one of her favorite countries. (Photo courtesy of the Fossum family)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“She would come for the summer with this tiny Samsonite suitcase,” Flynn said. “She would be impeccably dressed, mixing and matching, and her hair was always done. She always looked wonderful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the morning of July 3, 2006, Elsie Fossum lay in a pool of blood on her bedroom floor at Claremont Place, a Los Angeles-area assisted living facility where the 95-year-old woman had lived for two years. Her eyes were bruising black, her lip and upper palate were badly cut, and her right arm was broken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was alive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“She looked like she went four or five rounds with Muhammad Ali,” Beverlee McPherson recalled when Fossum returned from the hospital. McPherson, a registered nurse, supervised the nurse assistants at Claremont Place.\u003c!--more-->\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nurse assistants provide intimate care. They bathe, feed and dress the elderly, ill or disabled. The lone caregiver on Fossum’s floor that night reported Fossum fell, but McPherson and other Claremont Place staff suspected abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Less than three weeks later, Fossum died. Her 109-pound frame succumbed to her wounds and to dehydration. Fossum was unable to take much food or water through her swollen mouth. A Los Angeles County coroner could not rule out assault and called the manner of Fossum’s death undetermined. McPherson is resolute.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m 100 percent convinced she didn’t fall out of bed, 100 percent. If you saw this woman’s face, I mean her entire face was beaten to a pulp.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Emergency room nurses who treated Fossum at the hospital also suspected abuse, according to official records. The hospital quickly notified the California Department of Public Health, the agency responsible for de-certifying nurse assistants and home health aides who violate standards of care.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Public-Health-noaction.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-110511\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Public-Health-noaction-258x300.png\" alt=\"Public Health - noaction\" width=\"258\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>Internal documents obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting show department investigators shelved Fossum’s case for 6½ years. In February of this year, department investigators closed the case and determined no action was warranted against Fossum’s caregiver.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After her aunt’s funeral, Janet Flynn said Claremont Place staff alerted the family that Elsie Fossum may have been a victim of elder abuse. Seven years later, the family is no closer to understanding what happened to their aunt. Their calls and emails to state agencies and local police turned up little information. They have never heard from California’s Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would think that this would be very chilling to anyone who has loved ones in a facility, especially if they’re not immediately local like we weren’t,” Flynn said. “And you think safeguards are in place and you think that staff are qualified and that this is being regulated, and this I find chilling.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has decided Fossum’s case warrants further review. A detective there said they opened a homicide investigation into her death this year. Fossum’s caregiver is the sole person of interest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A sprawling backlog of cases\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fossum’s case is not the only one where department investigators were slow to act after allegations of physical or sexual abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In October 2007, nurse assistant Ricky Diocampo molested a 59-year-old female patient at Del Rio Sanitarium in Los Angeles County. This was not the first time Diocampo had assaulted this woman, court records would later show. In 2009, Diocampo pled guilty to patient abuse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was not until two years after his conviction that officials with California’s Department of Public Health revoked Diocampo’s certification as a nurse assistant. Diocampo did not respond to phone calls, notes or visits to his Long Beach home. It is unknown whether Diocampo worked at other care facilities in the years before state regulators acted against him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_110510\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Ron-Chapman-02.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-110510 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Ron-Chapman-02-300x168.jpg\" alt=\"Ron Chapman, head of the California Department of Public Health, says he doesn't understand the reason for the decline in case referrals to the Attorney General's office. (Adithya Sambamurthy/The Center)\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ron Chapman, head of the California Department of Public Health, says he doesn’t understand the reason for the decline in case referrals to the attorney general’s office. (Adithya Sambamurthy/The Center)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I would tell anybody: Do not count on the government taking care of you,” said Brian Woods, who oversaw the department’s Southern California investigations office in 2006. “They are overworked. They can’t get in there. Your case might get looked at 10 years later.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Woods said cases languished during his tenure because of a sprawling backlog of hundreds of complaints. He said his investigators lacked the training to handle complex cases, and he had too few investigators to begin with. Woods left his position in 2008.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From 2004 to 2008, public health regulators piled up more than 900 cases in Southern California — cases that involved severe injuries and suspicious deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There were a number of reasons for that backlog, including poor management decisions during that time in terms of how to use the resources that were available,” said Ron Chapman, who heads California’s Department of Public Health. “A backlog for investigating complaints is inexcusable; it should not have occurred.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chapman said a plan was implemented in 2009 to address the backlog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In the two years that I’ve been in the job, there’s now new management from top to bottom,” he said. “We’re staying on top of all the complaints as they come in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But since Chapman’s been on the job, the number of nurse assistants who have lost their certifications has dropped dramatically. In fiscal year 2008, the department revoked or denied certifications in 27 percent of cases. In fiscal years 2011 and 2012, that number dropped to 9 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chapman said he sees no evidence that addressing the backlog has undermined the quality of the department’s investigations. But Marc Parker, who led the investigations section for nine years, said he was forced to cut corners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Public-Health-vanishingbacklog.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-110513\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Public-Health-vanishingbacklog-238x300.png\" alt=\"Public Health - vanishingbacklog\" width=\"238\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>“Hundreds of cases were closed, hundreds, with nothing but a phone call,” Parker said. “The directions were to reduce this backlog, get these cases done. Staff was prohibited from traveling, restricted to sitting at their desk … except only in the most dire cases.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parker said without facility visits, investigators are unable to see the layout of a room, conduct impromptu interviews, or assess a person’s body language.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You lose all the basic cues, all the ‘tells’ that people have,” he said. “Their facial expression, eye movements, their body posture, their legs are crossed, they’re turning away from you, they look you in the eye, they don’t. If you’re doing it on the telephone, all of that is gone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According the Parker, the practice of shortchanging investigations continues today. “I get emails; I get phone calls from folks who tell me what’s going on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parker, who retired in December of 2011, said he left earlier than planned. “I could not protect the public any longer,” Parker said. “There was just a failure to protect the most vulnerable people in our state from abuse and neglect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Fewer cases sent to prosecutors\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Public health regulators are legally bound to report all suspected criminal wrongdoing to the state attorney general’s office. Over the three years before the department addressed the backlog, it referred 88 deaths for criminal prosecution. But that number has plummeted. In 2011, the department referred two deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Public-Health-patientdeaths.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-110512\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/09/Public-Health-patientdeaths-243x300.png\" alt=\"Public Health - patientdeaths\" width=\"243\" height=\"300\">\u003c/a>Paul Greenwood, who has been prosecuting elder abuse cases for nearly two decades as head of the San Diego district attorney’s elder abuse unit, finds that baffling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know how many nursing homes there are in California or how many deaths a year there are in the facilities, but the number is going to be huge,” Greenwood said. “And to think there are only two suspicious deaths? No, I just frankly cannot believe that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chapman said his staff is drafting agreements with the attorney general’s office to improve communication and work better with them as a partner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t understand that decline in numbers,” he said. “It’s very concerning to me and we are looking into it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chapman said while he’s confident no complaints have been mishandled, he is open to the possibility of reviewing closed cases, including the death of Elsie Fossum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It sounds absolutely horrible,” Chapman said. “We should be doing investigations on all complaints. If that’s not happening that’s a problem and we need to address it, and I’ll be looking into that case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was co-reported with Ryan Gabrielson of the Center for Investigative Reporting. \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/quick-dismissal-caregiver-abuse-cases-puts-calif-patients-risk-5158\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read his story, \u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/quick-dismissal-caregiver-abuse-cases-puts-calif-patients-risk-5158\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Quick dismissal of caregiver abuse cases puts California patients at risk.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F105786096%3Fsecret_token%3Ds-lRcYE\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"disqusTitle": "California's Baby Boomers on Track to Overwhelm State's Younger Working Adults",
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"content": "\u003cp>Think of it like a mushroom. Up near the top, there’s a big, fat cap of Baby Boomers; down below, the stem is struggling to hold up under the weight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_88392\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/02/06/californias-baby-boomers-on-track-to-overwhelm-states-younger-working-adults/ex2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-88392\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-88392 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/02/Ex2-300x221.jpg\" alt=\"Ex2\" width=\"300\" height=\"221\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">See those big bars in the middle? See the little bars to the left? (Courtesy USC)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>USC’ Dowell Myers says The Day of Demographic Reckoning has come upon us. We share his thoughts because he's the lead researcher on a recently released report from the University of Southern California and the Lucile Packard Foundation, \"\u003ca href=\"http://www.usc.edu/schools/price/research/popdynamics/pdf/2013_Myers_Californias-Diminishing-Children.pdf\">California's Diminishing Resource: Children\u003c/a>.\" Myers and his team analyzed data from the 2010 census and the American Community Survey to conclude that we're coming up on a rather large problem, economically speaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been sneaking up on us gradually, and it has finally arrived,\" Myers told \u003ca href=\"http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201302060850/b\">The California Report\u003c/a>. \"The oldest Baby Boomer turned 65 last year, and now 18 years of Baby Boomers are going to cross that line.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1970, children made up more than one-third of California's population. By 2030, they're expected to account for just one-fifth. In 1970, California averaged 21 seniors for every 100 working-age adults. By 2030, that ratio is expected to rise to 36 seniors for every 100 working-age adults. \u003c!--more-->Even if all of us with a mind to bear children were to get busy today in a mass effort to add to the population pool, we simply could not populate the state in time to offset the \u003ca href=\"http://www.maniacworld.com/hi-definition-monster-wave.html\">monster wave\u003c/a> of retirees coming our way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, we’re actually having fewer children these days than we did 10 years ago. The state's birthrate fell to 1.94 children per woman in 2010. Replacement level would be 2.1 children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why is that a problem?” you ask, parked in hellacious traffic on the 80 in Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Also, let's not forget a smaller population is desirable from an environmental perspective.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Personally, Myers agrees. He would prefer a California population of, oh, around 20 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The problem is, the people are already here, the people who are weighing us down, like myself: Baby Boomers. We’re not going away.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pool of retirees at any given time relies on the pool of working adults to pay the taxes that support the social safety net - and to buy the houses of Baby Boomers planning to finance their retirement in Palm Springs with the proceeds. If there aren’t enough buyers to keep real estate prices stratospheric, Myers says, “It isn’t going to look pretty for anybody.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why is that a problem?” I asked him. After all, for Gen X and Yers who can hang on for a few years, a catastrophic drop in real estate prices might prove a real windfall. (Making a calendar note to myself here for 2023: buy home in choice neighborhood.) But then Myers and his cohort wouldn't be able to finance their retirement in Palm Springs. He might show up at my door wanting to move in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might think we could reasonably expect to offset the demographic gap with in-migration. I have a friend in New Jersey who's thinking of doing it within the next five years. Between Silicon Valley, Hollywood, organic salad greens, shale oil and who knows what New New Economic Driver drives the economy a decade from now, surely we’ll draw enough new talent to come out on top?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not likely, Myers says. It would take an awful lot of people coming here sooner rather than later to offset the dropping birthrate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_88391\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/02/06/californias-baby-boomers-on-track-to-overwhelm-states-younger-working-adults/ex1/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-88391\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-88391\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/02/Ex1-300x204.jpg\" alt=\"Ex1\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The trend lines don't show us growing the population. (Courtesy USC)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ixnay on the Baby Bump strategy. Ixnay on the Import Our Workforce strategy. Final pitch: make Baby Boomers keep working. As it is, many Californians are already working in some capacity past 55 or 65 or whatever we used to think of as the Typical Retirement Date. There again, Myers is dour on the aggregate possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“You can only flex it a little bit,” he says. By 75, most people are ready to throw in the towel, if they haven’t already.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>So what does Myers suggest? He recommends we immediately restore our commitment to educating our children as if they were going to be the workforce of the future, as opposed to potential prison inmates. Budget troubles or no, Myers calls the cuts to education in California penny wise and pound foolish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The bulk of our workforce, our projections show, are going to be homegrown Californians. We sure better put them all to work at really high capacity.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means more Californians need to get college degrees. Myers is \u003ca href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv5fihvbnh0&list=PL79EE48CBF0B345A8\">not alone\u003c/a> in that assessment. Those who look to the far horizon warn California will require more people with bachelors degrees than we are producing at present. Otherwise, we have a huge group of people in no position to support themselves, let alone anybody else.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Think of it like a mushroom. Up near the top, there’s a big, fat cap of Baby Boomers; down below, the stem is struggling to hold up under the weight.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_88392\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/02/06/californias-baby-boomers-on-track-to-overwhelm-states-younger-working-adults/ex2/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-88392\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-88392 \" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/02/Ex2-300x221.jpg\" alt=\"Ex2\" width=\"300\" height=\"221\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">See those big bars in the middle? See the little bars to the left? (Courtesy USC)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>USC’ Dowell Myers says The Day of Demographic Reckoning has come upon us. We share his thoughts because he's the lead researcher on a recently released report from the University of Southern California and the Lucile Packard Foundation, \"\u003ca href=\"http://www.usc.edu/schools/price/research/popdynamics/pdf/2013_Myers_Californias-Diminishing-Children.pdf\">California's Diminishing Resource: Children\u003c/a>.\" Myers and his team analyzed data from the 2010 census and the American Community Survey to conclude that we're coming up on a rather large problem, economically speaking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s been sneaking up on us gradually, and it has finally arrived,\" Myers told \u003ca href=\"http://www.californiareport.org/archive/R201302060850/b\">The California Report\u003c/a>. \"The oldest Baby Boomer turned 65 last year, and now 18 years of Baby Boomers are going to cross that line.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1970, children made up more than one-third of California's population. By 2030, they're expected to account for just one-fifth. In 1970, California averaged 21 seniors for every 100 working-age adults. By 2030, that ratio is expected to rise to 36 seniors for every 100 working-age adults. \u003c!--more-->Even if all of us with a mind to bear children were to get busy today in a mass effort to add to the population pool, we simply could not populate the state in time to offset the \u003ca href=\"http://www.maniacworld.com/hi-definition-monster-wave.html\">monster wave\u003c/a> of retirees coming our way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, we’re actually having fewer children these days than we did 10 years ago. The state's birthrate fell to 1.94 children per woman in 2010. Replacement level would be 2.1 children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why is that a problem?” you ask, parked in hellacious traffic on the 80 in Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Also, let's not forget a smaller population is desirable from an environmental perspective.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Personally, Myers agrees. He would prefer a California population of, oh, around 20 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The problem is, the people are already here, the people who are weighing us down, like myself: Baby Boomers. We’re not going away.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The pool of retirees at any given time relies on the pool of working adults to pay the taxes that support the social safety net - and to buy the houses of Baby Boomers planning to finance their retirement in Palm Springs with the proceeds. If there aren’t enough buyers to keep real estate prices stratospheric, Myers says, “It isn’t going to look pretty for anybody.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why is that a problem?” I asked him. After all, for Gen X and Yers who can hang on for a few years, a catastrophic drop in real estate prices might prove a real windfall. (Making a calendar note to myself here for 2023: buy home in choice neighborhood.) But then Myers and his cohort wouldn't be able to finance their retirement in Palm Springs. He might show up at my door wanting to move in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You might think we could reasonably expect to offset the demographic gap with in-migration. I have a friend in New Jersey who's thinking of doing it within the next five years. Between Silicon Valley, Hollywood, organic salad greens, shale oil and who knows what New New Economic Driver drives the economy a decade from now, surely we’ll draw enough new talent to come out on top?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Not likely, Myers says. It would take an awful lot of people coming here sooner rather than later to offset the dropping birthrate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_88391\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/02/06/californias-baby-boomers-on-track-to-overwhelm-states-younger-working-adults/ex1/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-88391\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-88391\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2013/02/Ex1-300x204.jpg\" alt=\"Ex1\" width=\"300\" height=\"204\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The trend lines don't show us growing the population. (Courtesy USC)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ixnay on the Baby Bump strategy. Ixnay on the Import Our Workforce strategy. Final pitch: make Baby Boomers keep working. As it is, many Californians are already working in some capacity past 55 or 65 or whatever we used to think of as the Typical Retirement Date. There again, Myers is dour on the aggregate possibilities.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">“You can only flex it a little bit,” he says. By 75, most people are ready to throw in the towel, if they haven’t already.\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>So what does Myers suggest? He recommends we immediately restore our commitment to educating our children as if they were going to be the workforce of the future, as opposed to potential prison inmates. Budget troubles or no, Myers calls the cuts to education in California penny wise and pound foolish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\"The bulk of our workforce, our projections show, are going to be homegrown Californians. We sure better put them all to work at really high capacity.\"\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That means more Californians need to get college degrees. Myers is \u003ca href=\"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv5fihvbnh0&list=PL79EE48CBF0B345A8\">not alone\u003c/a> in that assessment. Those who look to the far horizon warn California will require more people with bachelors degrees than we are producing at present. Otherwise, we have a huge group of people in no position to support themselves, let alone anybody else.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "accuracy-isnt-priority-as-va-battles-disability-claims-backlog",
"title": "Accuracy Isn’t Priority as VA Battles Disability Claims Backlog",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>by Aaron Glantz, \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/accuracy-isn%E2%80%99t-priority-va-battles-disability-claims-backlog-3983\">Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. Navy cook Hosea Roundtree watched the 1983 shelling of Beirut from the deck of a ship, feelings of helplessness washing over him as people perished onshore. That memory haunted him, resurrected in flashbacks eight years later after a tour in the Gulf during Operation Desert Storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when Roundtree’s claim for disability compensation crossed Jamie Fox’s desk at the Department of Veterans Affairs more than two decades later, it was slated for denial on the grounds that he had never seen combat. Fox, herself a Navy veteran, tried to straighten things out – and for that, she lost her job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center\">\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/QW9Biy76gBQ\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lawsuit filed by the former VA disability claims representative provides a rare glimpse into what veterans’ advocates call systemic problems in how the agency handles compensation claims filed by Americans wounded physically or mentally in the line of duty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Center for Investigative Reporting review of the VA’s performance data reveals chronic errors – committed in up to 1 in 3 cases – and an emphasis on speed over accuracy that clogs the VA system with appeals, increasing delays for all veterans. \u003c!--more-->“When the VA makes a mistake processing a veteran’s claim, then our veterans face another unacceptably long wait,” said Paul Sullivan, a Gulf War veteran and former senior VA project manager who now works for the Washington, D.C.-area law firm Bergmann & Moore. “These veterans, many of whom are unemployable due to disabilities, often lose their homes and are unable to put food on the table for themselves and their families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of mid-October,\u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/510536-101512-1.html\"> appeals represented nearly a third of the more than 819,000 pending disability claims\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>.\u003c/strong> Nationwide over the past year, the average time a veteran waits for a decision has \u003ca href=\"http://www.baycitizen.org/veterans/interactive/map-disabled-vets-stuck-backlog-limbo/\">increased by more than two months – to 260 days.\u003c/a> Veterans who appeal wait an average of 3½ years, according to VA performance data obtained by CIR through the Freedom of Information Act.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a deposition related to a federal discrimination complaint filed by Fox, the head of the Oakland VA regional office where Fox worked, Lynn Flint, said “it didn’t matter if the decision (to deny Roundtree’s claim) was right or wrong.” In proceedings related to Fox’s wrongful termination suit, Flint and Fox’s supervisor, Kim Yarbrough, argued that Fox exceeded her authority by advocating for additional review of Roundtree’s case, lowering her productivity to unacceptable levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Roundtree disagreed with the denial, Yarbrough said, he could always appeal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The VA declined to comment further on Fox’s dismissal, citing the ongoing litigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the country, the VA’s inability to stem a tide of errors has increasingly frustrated lawmakers from both political parties, who frequently hear from distraught constituents challenging their denials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Board of Veterans’ Appeals found errors by VA staff in 35,000 of the nearly 50,000 appeals decided in 2011, according to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bva.va.gov/docs/Chairmans_Annual_Rpts/BVA2011AR.pdf\">board’s annual report [PDF]\u003c/a>. In 29 percent of cases, the board overturned the agency’s initial decision and ruled in favor of the veteran. In 44 percent, the board said VA staff committed an error and sent the cases back to the agency’s regional office for additional review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no benefit in pushing a determination out that is wrong because, in the end, it will be appealed, and it’s going to make the record look even worse,” said U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat working to reform the VA’s Oakland office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The VA acknowledges it makes mistakes on 14 percent of disability claims – an error rate the agency considers unacceptable and has pledged to all but eliminate by 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A CIR analysis of 18 audits published this year by the VA’s inspector general shows the problem could be much worse, especially in high-profile cases. The analysis found a 38 percent average error rate for claims involving disabilities like \u003ca href=\"http://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/\">traumatic brain injury\u003c/a> and illnesses linked to the Vietnam-era defoliant \u003ca href=\"http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/\">Agent Orange\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, Linda Halliday, the agency’s assistant inspector general for audits and evaluations, \u003ca href=\"http://www.va.gov/oig/pubs/statements/VAOIG-statement-20120619-halliday.pdf\">told a House committee [PDF]\u003c/a> that 19 of the 20 regional offices inspected in 2011 failed to follow department policy for claims related to traumatic brain injury, one of the signature injuries of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>VA officials say the inspector general’s reports “do not present a true picture of the overall quality of the work performed” by VA employees. The Office of Inspector General, the agency said in a statement, “samples specific types of claims, and its results do not represent the university of disability claims processed at a Regional Office.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>VA employee Fox was forced out in 2008, after she told her supervisor that the agency was poised to wrongfully deny benefits to Roundtree, a 17-year Navy veteran who claimed to have developed post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. The VA said it could find no evidence that Roundtree had experienced combat in Beirut, but through an Internet search Fox confirmed his ship, the USS Arthur W. Radford, had engaged in battle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a gut-wrenching story when I went through his file,” Fox said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roundtree, she said, had “been a star in the Navy” but ended up homeless on the streets of Long Beach after a mental breakdown. Years of drug abuse left him estranged from his wife and daughters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fox wrote a four-page memo to her supervisor arguing that the VA should “wait to send out the award of denial” to allow further research. Five months later, the VA gave her a choice: Resign or be fired. She opted to resign to keep her federal employment record clean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Fox’s termination letter, the head of the Oakland office, Flint, criticized Fox for “failure to follow instructions” and “misuse of time” for not immediately sending Roundtree a letter denying his benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years earlier, when Roundtree filed his claim, he was living in a transitional housing program for homeless veterans on the VA’s hospital complex in West Los Angeles. The former petty officer 1st class had been in and out of jail and lived on the streets for more than a decade following his tour in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roundtree, now 54, blames his service in the Gulf for triggering intense flashbacks of the shelling of Beirut. He received an honorable discharge from the Navy in 1989, but received a bad-conduct discharge for drug use after re-enlisting and serving in the Gulf. Roundtree says he began using crack cocaine after leaving the military.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I lost it. I had a major breakdown,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1993, he walked out on his wife and two daughters and buried himself in crack to blot out the intrusive thoughts of carnage along the Lebanese shore. “I couldn’t shut my mind down,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he finally received a denial letter from the VA in 2008, he said its words came as a shock. It cited insufficient evidence “to confirm that you actually engaged in combat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, Roundtree calls Fox “an angel” for catching an apparent error that might have cost him thousands of dollars in compensation for his war wounds, and he expresses outrage that she was forced out for speaking up on his behalf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need people like Jamie to be in the office to help us,” he said. “Not just for me – for me and every other vet that’s out there that’s suffering.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Productivity is priority\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four years after Fox left her job, she and the VA continue to battle in court. Government lawyers argue that it does not matter whether VA employees wrongly deny claims. What is important, officials said, is to be highly productive – as measured by the number of cases employees clear from the inventory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under questioning from Administrative Law Judge Virginia Mellema MaGee in 2010, Fox’s supervisor, Yarbrough, said Fox should have immediately sent Roundtree a letter denying his claim despite her concerns because “it was a very old case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead of writing a memo questioning the denial’s accuracy, Yarbrough said Fox should have spent no more than half an hour preparing and sending that denial letter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What should have occurred was the end product,” Yarbrough said. Roundtree’s claim “should have been just cleared in the system” – the file sent to a storage facility in suburban San Bruno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gordon Erspamer, a senior counsel based in San Francisco at the law firm Morrison & Foerster who has practiced veterans law for more than three decades, said the agency likely violated the Veterans Claims Assistance Act of 2000 in Roundtree’s case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The courts have held that the VA has a duty to assist the veteran in developing the facts and evidence to support his or her claim,” Erspamer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/509336-p-1312-2008-03-31-vacols-detailed-remand-reasons.html\">One internal VA document\u003c/a>, made public in a federal class-action lawsuit brought by Erspamer’s firm, shows that during the first three months of 2008 – around the time Fox was urging the VA to take another look at Roundtree’s claim – the agency failed to perform its duty to assist in nearly 11,000 cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meeting face to face\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Fox lost her job, she went on unemployment and moved in with her sister. Two years later, she found a new job – working at a VA health care center in Santa Rosa, where she earns about the same salary as before she lost her job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Six months ago, she found Roundtree on Facebook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was so nervous calling. I didn’t know how he was going to respond,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What she hoped to hear was that his claim had been approved, she said, “or if it wasn’t approved that he would have appealed it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Roundtree had never filed an appeal. The day he received his denial letter, he coincidentally received a job offer – also from the VA. Roundtree now works as a cook at the VA Medical Center in Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, Fox and Roundtree met for the first time. Because the time limit for Roundtree to appeal his denial had passed, Fox helped him file a new disability claim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just for me. It’s for me and every other vet that’s out there that’s suffering,” Roundtree said of reopening his case. “I want these vets coming back from overseas to get fair, better treatment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Five months later – and six years after he first sought compensation for the mental wounds he received in uniform – Roundtree is still waiting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Aaron Glantz is an investigative journalist with the \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/accuracy-isn%E2%80%99t-priority-va-battles-disability-claims-backlog-3983\">Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "Accuracy Isn’t Priority as VA Battles Disability Claims Backlog | KQED",
"description": "by Aaron Glantz, Center for Investigative Reporting U.S. Navy cook Hosea Roundtree watched the 1983 shelling of Beirut from the deck of a ship, feelings of helplessness washing over him as people perished onshore. That memory haunted him, resurrected in flashbacks eight years later after a tour in the Gulf during Operation Desert Storm. But when Roundtree’s claim for disability compensation crossed Jamie Fox’s desk at the Department of Veterans Affairs more than two decades later, it was slated for denial on the grounds that he had never seen combat. Fox, herself a Navy veteran, tried to straighten things out",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>by Aaron Glantz, \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/accuracy-isn%E2%80%99t-priority-va-battles-disability-claims-backlog-3983\">Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>U.S. Navy cook Hosea Roundtree watched the 1983 shelling of Beirut from the deck of a ship, feelings of helplessness washing over him as people perished onshore. That memory haunted him, resurrected in flashbacks eight years later after a tour in the Gulf during Operation Desert Storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when Roundtree’s claim for disability compensation crossed Jamie Fox’s desk at the Department of Veterans Affairs more than two decades later, it was slated for denial on the grounds that he had never seen combat. Fox, herself a Navy veteran, tried to straighten things out – and for that, she lost her job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv style=\"text-align: center\">\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://www.youtube.com/embed/QW9Biy76gBQ\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lawsuit filed by the former VA disability claims representative provides a rare glimpse into what veterans’ advocates call systemic problems in how the agency handles compensation claims filed by Americans wounded physically or mentally in the line of duty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Center for Investigative Reporting review of the VA’s performance data reveals chronic errors – committed in up to 1 in 3 cases – and an emphasis on speed over accuracy that clogs the VA system with appeals, increasing delays for all veterans. \u003c!--more-->“When the VA makes a mistake processing a veteran’s claim, then our veterans face another unacceptably long wait,” said Paul Sullivan, a Gulf War veteran and former senior VA project manager who now works for the Washington, D.C.-area law firm Bergmann & Moore. “These veterans, many of whom are unemployable due to disabilities, often lose their homes and are unable to put food on the table for themselves and their families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of mid-October,\u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/510536-101512-1.html\"> appeals represented nearly a third of the more than 819,000 pending disability claims\u003c/a>\u003cstrong>.\u003c/strong> Nationwide over the past year, the average time a veteran waits for a decision has \u003ca href=\"http://www.baycitizen.org/veterans/interactive/map-disabled-vets-stuck-backlog-limbo/\">increased by more than two months – to 260 days.\u003c/a> Veterans who appeal wait an average of 3½ years, according to VA performance data obtained by CIR through the Freedom of Information Act.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a deposition related to a federal discrimination complaint filed by Fox, the head of the Oakland VA regional office where Fox worked, Lynn Flint, said “it didn’t matter if the decision (to deny Roundtree’s claim) was right or wrong.” In proceedings related to Fox’s wrongful termination suit, Flint and Fox’s supervisor, Kim Yarbrough, argued that Fox exceeded her authority by advocating for additional review of Roundtree’s case, lowering her productivity to unacceptable levels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Roundtree disagreed with the denial, Yarbrough said, he could always appeal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The VA declined to comment further on Fox’s dismissal, citing the ongoing litigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Across the country, the VA’s inability to stem a tide of errors has increasingly frustrated lawmakers from both political parties, who frequently hear from distraught constituents challenging their denials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Board of Veterans’ Appeals found errors by VA staff in 35,000 of the nearly 50,000 appeals decided in 2011, according to the \u003ca href=\"http://www.bva.va.gov/docs/Chairmans_Annual_Rpts/BVA2011AR.pdf\">board’s annual report [PDF]\u003c/a>. In 29 percent of cases, the board overturned the agency’s initial decision and ruled in favor of the veteran. In 44 percent, the board said VA staff committed an error and sent the cases back to the agency’s regional office for additional review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no benefit in pushing a determination out that is wrong because, in the end, it will be appealed, and it’s going to make the record look even worse,” said U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat working to reform the VA’s Oakland office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The VA acknowledges it makes mistakes on 14 percent of disability claims – an error rate the agency considers unacceptable and has pledged to all but eliminate by 2015.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A CIR analysis of 18 audits published this year by the VA’s inspector general shows the problem could be much worse, especially in high-profile cases. The analysis found a 38 percent average error rate for claims involving disabilities like \u003ca href=\"http://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/\">traumatic brain injury\u003c/a> and illnesses linked to the Vietnam-era defoliant \u003ca href=\"http://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/agentorange/\">Agent Orange\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, Linda Halliday, the agency’s assistant inspector general for audits and evaluations, \u003ca href=\"http://www.va.gov/oig/pubs/statements/VAOIG-statement-20120619-halliday.pdf\">told a House committee [PDF]\u003c/a> that 19 of the 20 regional offices inspected in 2011 failed to follow department policy for claims related to traumatic brain injury, one of the signature injuries of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>VA officials say the inspector general’s reports “do not present a true picture of the overall quality of the work performed” by VA employees. The Office of Inspector General, the agency said in a statement, “samples specific types of claims, and its results do not represent the university of disability claims processed at a Regional Office.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>VA employee Fox was forced out in 2008, after she told her supervisor that the agency was poised to wrongfully deny benefits to Roundtree, a 17-year Navy veteran who claimed to have developed post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. The VA said it could find no evidence that Roundtree had experienced combat in Beirut, but through an Internet search Fox confirmed his ship, the USS Arthur W. Radford, had engaged in battle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was a gut-wrenching story when I went through his file,” Fox said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roundtree, she said, had “been a star in the Navy” but ended up homeless on the streets of Long Beach after a mental breakdown. Years of drug abuse left him estranged from his wife and daughters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fox wrote a four-page memo to her supervisor arguing that the VA should “wait to send out the award of denial” to allow further research. Five months later, the VA gave her a choice: Resign or be fired. She opted to resign to keep her federal employment record clean.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Fox’s termination letter, the head of the Oakland office, Flint, criticized Fox for “failure to follow instructions” and “misuse of time” for not immediately sending Roundtree a letter denying his benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Two years earlier, when Roundtree filed his claim, he was living in a transitional housing program for homeless veterans on the VA’s hospital complex in West Los Angeles. The former petty officer 1st class had been in and out of jail and lived on the streets for more than a decade following his tour in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roundtree, now 54, blames his service in the Gulf for triggering intense flashbacks of the shelling of Beirut. He received an honorable discharge from the Navy in 1989, but received a bad-conduct discharge for drug use after re-enlisting and serving in the Gulf. Roundtree says he began using crack cocaine after leaving the military.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I lost it. I had a major breakdown,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 1993, he walked out on his wife and two daughters and buried himself in crack to blot out the intrusive thoughts of carnage along the Lebanese shore. “I couldn’t shut my mind down,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he finally received a denial letter from the VA in 2008, he said its words came as a shock. It cited insufficient evidence “to confirm that you actually engaged in combat.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, Roundtree calls Fox “an angel” for catching an apparent error that might have cost him thousands of dollars in compensation for his war wounds, and he expresses outrage that she was forced out for speaking up on his behalf.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need people like Jamie to be in the office to help us,” he said. “Not just for me – for me and every other vet that’s out there that’s suffering.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Productivity is priority\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Four years after Fox left her job, she and the VA continue to battle in court. Government lawyers argue that it does not matter whether VA employees wrongly deny claims. What is important, officials said, is to be highly productive – as measured by the number of cases employees clear from the inventory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under questioning from Administrative Law Judge Virginia Mellema MaGee in 2010, Fox’s supervisor, Yarbrough, said Fox should have immediately sent Roundtree a letter denying his claim despite her concerns because “it was a very old case.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead of writing a memo questioning the denial’s accuracy, Yarbrough said Fox should have spent no more than half an hour preparing and sending that denial letter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What should have occurred was the end product,” Yarbrough said. Roundtree’s claim “should have been just cleared in the system” – the file sent to a storage facility in suburban San Bruno.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gordon Erspamer, a senior counsel based in San Francisco at the law firm Morrison & Foerster who has practiced veterans law for more than three decades, said the agency likely violated the Veterans Claims Assistance Act of 2000 in Roundtree’s case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The courts have held that the VA has a duty to assist the veteran in developing the facts and evidence to support his or her claim,” Erspamer said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/509336-p-1312-2008-03-31-vacols-detailed-remand-reasons.html\">One internal VA document\u003c/a>, made public in a federal class-action lawsuit brought by Erspamer’s firm, shows that during the first three months of 2008 – around the time Fox was urging the VA to take another look at Roundtree’s claim – the agency failed to perform its duty to assist in nearly 11,000 cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Meeting face to face\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Fox lost her job, she went on unemployment and moved in with her sister. Two years later, she found a new job – working at a VA health care center in Santa Rosa, where she earns about the same salary as before she lost her job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Six months ago, she found Roundtree on Facebook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was so nervous calling. I didn’t know how he was going to respond,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What she hoped to hear was that his claim had been approved, she said, “or if it wasn’t approved that he would have appealed it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Roundtree had never filed an appeal. The day he received his denial letter, he coincidentally received a job offer – also from the VA. Roundtree now works as a cook at the VA Medical Center in Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, Fox and Roundtree met for the first time. Because the time limit for Roundtree to appeal his denial had passed, Fox helped him file a new disability claim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not just for me. It’s for me and every other vet that’s out there that’s suffering,” Roundtree said of reopening his case. “I want these vets coming back from overseas to get fair, better treatment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Five months later – and six years after he first sought compensation for the mental wounds he received in uniform – Roundtree is still waiting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Aaron Glantz is an investigative journalist with the \u003ca href=\"http://cironline.org/reports/accuracy-isn%E2%80%99t-priority-va-battles-disability-claims-backlog-3983\">Center for Investigative Reporting\u003c/a>\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"tagline": "The flip side of gentrification, told through one town",
"info": "Gentrification is changing cities across America, forcing people from neighborhoods they have long called home. Call them the displaced. Now those priced out of the Bay Area are looking for a better life in an unlikely place. American Suburb follows this migration to one California town along the Delta, 45 miles from San Francisco. But is this once sleepy suburb ready for them?",
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},
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"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
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},
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"order": 8
},
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},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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}
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"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"source": "NPR"
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"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"jerrybrown": {
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"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"order": 18
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
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"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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