Northern California Seniors Live In Unwitting Jeopardy Of Getting The Boot As Underwater Elder Care Homes Fall Into Foreclosure

In Northern California, The New York Times reports:

• In September 2009, Sgt. Rick Turini of the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office drove to a house in San Jose to carry out a court-ordered eviction. With foreclosures in Bay Area counties near all-time highs, the office had been routinely evicting 35 to 40 households a week. But this property was different: It was a board-and-care home for the elderly.

• Neither the residents nor their families had been warned about an eviction, said Sergeant Turini, who does not recall the home’s exact address. When he arrived with his partner, the house was still occupied, and the distraught daughter of an elderly bedridden woman was struggling to get her mother into a car. A couple of teenagers doing homework in the living room looked up at the officers in shock.

• “We got a call from Adult Protective Services letting us know that the house we were evicting had four or five bedridden residents, and the guy was ignoring the eviction notice,” Sergeant Turini said, referring to the owner. “I couldn’t believe it had gone this far.” He said the sheriff’s department worked with agencies to arrange for the fragile inhabitants to be transferred to other facilities or sent home with relatives.

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• An analysis of data by The New York Times shows that more than 100 elder-care homes in the Bay Area were under foreclosure in the last six months, and that as many as 700 residents — who often need help with bathing, eating and other daily activities — may have faced eviction.

For more, see When Foreclosure Threatens Elder-Care Homes.

See also, Elder-Care Home Foreclosures, Without Warning.