Welcome to TBO.com. Skip directly to: our Keyword Search, Section Navigation, Content.

TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online

TBO > News

How To Avoid Their Fate

By KAREN BRANCH-BRIOSO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 2, 2007

Photo Gallery: Boarding House Shut Down
9/5/07: DCF Says Caregiver Charged With Abusing 18 Adults Had Good Reputation

Boarding Home Residents Had Other Options

Here are the stories of four ex-residents of the Daphne Jones Boarding Home. And a guide to organizations that could have helped.

"Mother O"

At 91, Olivia Pitts Jackson was the boarding home's oldest resident. She arrived Feb. 27. That day, the Tampa Housing Authority evicted her and her husband from public housing. John Jackson, 47 - "God told us to marry," she says - hadn't responded to the agency's annual review to see whether they still qualified for public housing. So they had to go.

The property manager called the state's Department of Children & Families, which placed the couple at the boarding home so they could be together. It didn't last.

Olivia, known as "Mother O" from a ministry she once ran from an Ybor City apartment, was allowed to stay. Her husband was not. He said he couldn't afford the $200 that Daphne Jones wanted for rent.

His new home: the Salvation Army.

Olivia's daughter Verlae Thomas, who lives out of state, had trouble getting through to her mother. Her voice mails went unanswered. She turned to Vallery Jafar, who befriended Olivia during her ministry. Jafar tried to make appointments to see her, but couldn't. So she went to the home, persuading a caretaker to let her in. She found it cramped but clean.

"From what I could see there was nothing negative except, whenever I would call, Jones always would seem like she was hesitant to be an open business to me," Jafar said. "I felt something was going on, but I really didn't know what. She never really gave me a direct appointment."

WHAT TO DO:

If a family member or friend can't get through to call, write or visit a loved one, call the Department of Children & Families' adult abuse hot line. Or call law enforcement, says Diane Carpenter, district manger for the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program of Florida's Department of Elder Affairs.

"The idea of living in a boarding home or an adult family care home where you have to make an appointment to see a loved one, that goes against all grain. That just should not happen."

William Naiden

William Naiden, 52, suffers from schizoaffective disorder. He left New Hampshire two years ago in pursuit of warm weather.

He found it in Orlando. Then his medication ran out. He ended up homeless and then in Lakeside Hospital, a mental health facility. He found respite when he was released to an adult family care home in eastern Polk County.

But Naiden lost his place there when he left for a few weeks to visit family. He couldn't stay long at the overcrowded home. In April, a state inspector found eight people living in the home licensed for five.

Naiden said the owner helped him and others there find a new place: the Daphne Jones Boarding Home. He said Jones picked them up in her Hummer in May.

Naiden's cousin, Bill Therrein of New Hampshire, said the woman operating the Polk home was worried about him: "She said Daphne wouldn't forward the calls to any of the previous tenants. She called me and asked to do a welfare check on them."

Therrein got through. Naiden wasn't happy.

"He said he felt like a prisoner there and they wouldn't even let him go out there to have a smoke," Therrein said. "And forget about leaving the premises."

Therrein told Naiden: You can leave anytime you want. He never tried.

"He was afraid if he got out, he wouldn't have a place to go," Therrein said.

What to do: For disabled adults like Naiden, a Florida nonprofit agency - Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities - could have fielded a call from Naiden or his cousin. The center doesn't place people, but it would let him know his options, senior advocacy specialist JoAnne Burgess said.

"I would be inclined to bring him out a copy of all the assisted-living facilities in his area and I would send him that list," Burgess said. "If he was ... prevented from making phone calls, I would probably send an advocate to work with him to investigate the situation. We do have the legal authority to close down places like that."

Rosa Wilson

For decades, Rosa Wilson cared for nursing home patients as a nurse's aide.

Then the daughter of Bealsville folk artist Ruby Williams suffered two strokes, leaving Wilson, now 62, with dementia. Williams said a niece was supposed to care for her in Wilson's Seffner mobile home.

But the niece's granddaughter, Fantara Holmes, moved in. So did others, neighbors said. Traffic thickened on the dead-end gravel road called Robson. Newcomers sold drugs from a window, then from the front porch.

"It looked like a McDonald's drive-through, the cars were so lined up," neighbor Ron Marquis said, noting that before strokes stole Wilson's memory, drug activity down the road boiled her blood. "She'd tell them: 'I know who you are. I'm going to call your father!'"

On June 11, police swept in, arresting Holmes and Donte McPherson on charges of possession of cocaine and drug paraphernalia. Holmes pleaded guilty. McPherson pleaded guilty to a federal drug charge.

DCF referred Wilson to the boarding home. It took a week for her brother, Elrod Curry, to get an appointment to see her. He met with her in a living room out front while Jones, a barber, styled hair in a salon down the hall.

"I told my wife we had to get her out of there, quick as we could," Curry said. "She hadn't had her hair done. She was growing a beard."

Police got her out first. After Williams and Curry got word of the raid, they picked her up at a facility that took in the residents. She moved in with Curry's ex-wife in Plant City.

"She always took care of me," Cleo McGriff said of Wilson. "So I wanted to be there for her."

What to do: When family members are worried about a loved one's well-being, they can call DCF's Children and Family Adult Services line, Ritter said. Or, they can call DCF's round-the-clock abuse hot line.

Ruby Brewer

On June 27, 2006, deputies, fire rescue, DCF and animal control officials came to Ruby Brewer's Dover home - tipped off by a property appraiser appalled by the home's condition.

It had old damage from oak trees that fell on the house in a 2004 hurricane. And officials found 21 Pomeranians and three birds living with the octogenarian and her daughter.

"The majority of these dogs suffer from urine burns to the paws and/or abdomen," Animal Control Corporal Ken Vetzel wrote in a report. "The three birds were forced to live in their own waste."

Brewer was removed from the home. A DCF worker took her to Brandon Regional Hospital, where Jones arrived to take Brewer to the riverside adult family care home.

Six months later, with little warning, Jones moved Brewer and several others to the boarding home. Brewer and three others shared a room with two bunk beds.

Since police rescued her from the boarding home, Brewer has one roommate at Bay Gardens Retirement Village, which took in many ex-boarding home residents.

What to do: People in long-term care facilities have plenty of avenues for complaint. That's because, unlike in boarding homes, residents of nursing homes, adult-living facilities and adult family care homes are protected by a residents' bill of rights.

Among the law's provisions: residents get 30 days' notice before they're relocated.

Since the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration licensed Jones' adult family care home, residents or families also could go to AHCA's consumer hot line.

The Department of Elder Affairs' Long-Term Care Ombudsman also investigates complaints related to long-term care homes, Carpenter said.

"One thing that I find so tragic is we are here to help those residents who live in long-term care, to assist the families, give consultation to them on what the laws are and what they can expect for their residents," Carpenter said. "So few people know of our organization and utilize it."

YOUR RIGHTS

The rights of residents of long-term facilities - such as nursing homes, assisted-living facilities or adult family-care homes - are written into Florida law. They include:

•Unrestricted private communication - including mail, access to a phone and visits with any person of the resident's choice between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. In nursing homes, visits can be limited to the facility's visiting hours.

•At least 30 days notice - 45 days for assisted-living facilities - before the facility relocates or terminates a resident's stay.

•Reasonable opportunity to exercise and be outdoors regularly, except in inclement weather.

•The exercise of civil and religious freedom, including the right to independent personal decisions. "No religious briefs or practices, nor any attendance at religious services, shall be imposed upon any resident."

See the full lists of residents' rights at ltcop.myflorida.com/ residents_rights.jsp.

WHO TO CALL

If you or your loved one faces problem conditions in a boarding home or long-term facility such as a nursing home, assisted-living facility or adult family-care home, here are the places that can help. As always, in an emergency, dial 911 first.

Department of Children & Families' Abuse Hotline

1-800-96-ABUSE (1-800-962-2873)

www.dcf.state.fl.us/abuse/

This is the place to call to report abusive conditions anywhere, but particularly in a place like a boarding home that has far less agency oversight of residents than other types of facilities. Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you're having trouble locating a family or friend who you think was placed by DCF in a facility, call (813) 558-5582, the DCF Adult Services program office for a region that includes Pasco, Pinellas, Hillsborough and Manatee counties.

Florida Department of Elder Affairs' Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program

1-888-831-0404

ltcop.myflorida.com/ ombudsman.jsp

This office looks into complaints by residents of long-term care facilities who are 60 and older - and their families and friends. Open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday.

Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities

1-800-342-0823 or (850) 488-9071

For the deaf: 1-800-346-4127

www.advocacycenter.org/

This Florida nonprofit organization is a protection and advocacy agency for the disabled. To reach an advocate for a mental health issue, dial "2" on the menu. They direct people to resources and investigate problem situations. Available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Florida Agency for Health Care Administration Consumer Hotline

1-888-419-3456

ahca.myflorida.com/Contact/call_center.shtml

This is the agency that issues licenses for long-term care facilities, including nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and adult family-care homes. The hot line is open for complaints from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Florida Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Hotline

1-866-966-7226 or 1-800-892-0375

While the attorney general's Medicaid Fraud Control unit investigates fraud, it also investigates abuse, neglect and exploitation of the elderly and disabled residents at long-term care facilities. If you or your loved one is part of the Medicaid waiver program and has a complaint about the long-term care facility, call here.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

Have a beef - or suggestion - about long-term care in Florida?

The Department of Elder Affairs and its Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program kick off a statewide series of town hall meetings in Tampa next week. The program that seeks to protect the rights of residents age 60 and older living in long-term care facilities wants to hear from you.

WHEN: 2 p.m. Thursday

WHERE: Sheraton Suites Tampa Airport, 4400 W. Cypress St., Tampa

FOR INFORMATION: Call 1-888-831-0404 or e-mail lyncha@elderaffairs.org.

Reporter Karen Branch-Brioso can be reached at (813) 259-7815 or at kbranch-brioso@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

* To:
Your Name:
Your Email Address:
Personal Message [optional]: