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Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Update

I’ve once again allowed the blog to lie dormant over the summer as I was in discussions with my attorney. In May, the Director of Center Communities sent me the fourth in a series of threatening letters, this time threatening me with eviction for something I posted on the blog. Everyone who sees the letter asks the same question: "Has this woman not heard of the First Amendment?" This behavior is typical of Hebrew SeniorLife personnel. They apparently believe that telling the truth about them in public is or should be legally actionable.

After nine years of abuse, and a year and a half of victimization at the hands of the Director, I retained a new attorney who presented Hebrew SeniorLife with a 93A Consumer Protection Demand Letter, accusing them of deceptive conduct and demanding their help in relocating me, as well as a monetary settlement for both statutory violations and emotional distress. We also cc’d the Director of MassHousing, which holds the mortgage on Center Communities and contributes to my rent, and the President of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies (Boston’s Jewish Federation), which is closely affiliated with HSL.



I won’t go into all of our grievances outlined in the letter, but I do want to mention one incident, as it was particularly egregious and I feel strongly that it needs to be made public. I recently found fecal matter smeared all over the laundry room on my floor. This is a direct result of two of Center Communities’ policies that I have described here before and about which I have been complaining for years:



     ➣ Leaving seniors here far beyond the point at which they can reasonably be cared for in a facility of this nature;



     ➣ Refusing to require their families to hire professional caretakers, allowing them instead to hire what are essentially babysitters at a fraction of the cost.



Their lawyer subsequently came back with a monetary offer so low it was insulting. I’ve told my lawyer that if they remain firm, it is time for us to go to court. He also insisted they haven’t the connections to find me alternate housing, which is nonsense, although in his defense, it may very well be what they’re telling him, and he hasn’t been working with them long enough to know that they have an extremely troubled relationship with the truth. 


With the delivery of my letter, there are now three residents of Center Communities who are engaged in litigation against Hebrew SeniorLife. In addition, I have recently spoken to two other residents who are on the verge of retaining legal representation. Obviously, this makes a qualitative statement about the caliber of the facility’s management staff, and of the characters of those who comprise it. 


Center Communities has been extremely poorly managed during the fourteen years it has been owned by Hebrew SeniorLife, and it has a history of being threatened with litigation and capitulating in order to make problems go away. However, as terrible an administrator as the previous Director was, and as toxic and abusive of both residents and staff as the former Property Manager was (a situation that was tolerated for years without intervention by Hebrew SeniorLife), during their decade-long tenure they never managed to elicit three (and potentially five) legal actions simultaneously. The current management staff has created an atmosphere of general unhappiness and fostered a level of ill will that is unprecedented in the 42-year history of this facility.

Furthermore, as I have mentioned before, this attitude extends far beyond the boundaries of these three buildings. There have been units sitting vacant for months because they have been unable to rent them. Increasingly, people don't want to move into this facility and don’t want to place their elderly or disabled relatives here. Moreover, it is rare to find anyone within the Town of Brookline - public employee or private citizen - who isn’t critical of Center Communities. The development of its negative reputation began under the previous Director and has continued into the present.



It is important to note that when these scenarios occur, they are often the result of behavior on the part of Center Communities' staff that I can only describe as "bullying". When forced to deal with a strong-willed person, even if that individual is creating problems for others, they frequently back down. Conversely, when confronting someone who is less likely to stand up to them, they become more aggressive, often inappropriately so. They're also arbitrary in their decisions about whom to go after. Frequently, they will take a disliking to someone, and oppress him or her for that reason alone, even to the point of fabricating "evidence" to be used against that individual. I have seen this happen on more than one occasion and have experienced it firsthand; as I mentioned in a blog post last year, the Director of the facility was engaged for some time in a campaign of harassment of me, which ultimately resulted in my retaining an attorney and proceeding legally against them.

In the meantime, the quality of care here continues to deteriorate, while both the management of Center Communities and the administration of Hebrew SeniorLife look the other way. There have been threats of suicide on the part of elderly residents, a situation with which the social workers (who do little enough to begin with) are completely unequipped to deal - and the management has no interest in hiring professionals who have experience in dealing with geriatric clinical depression. It is just one more manifestation of Center Communities presenting itself as being something it is not.



As one outside social worker told me (upon being informed that Center Communities staff members have been representing the facility to prospective residents and their families as being equivalent to Assisted Living):
“It isn’t Assisted Living. It isn’t even what they officially represent it as being: Senior Supportive Housing. It’s nothing more than Independent Living, with a few supportive services - and the services they have are ‘meh’.”
She went on to say, “The facility doesn't really fit into any category. It’s just a little bit of this and a little bit of that.” The upshot is that she no longer recommends it to her geriatric clients.


As I mentioned in an earlier post, over the span of the last year and a half since they were made aware of this situation, either the CEO or the VP of Senior Living (who is in charge of the residential facilities) should have called me and said, “Alright, enough. You aren’t happy; we aren’t happy. Let’s sit down and see if we can resolve this amicably, before it escalates further” - but they couldn’t be bothered. Other residents, being unable to resolve issues through the management, have also written to the CEO. Invariably, he bounces the letters back to the management staff who refused to do anything in the first place. Hebrew SeniorLife’s default method of dealing with any situation, from the top down, is to do nothing and hope that it resolves itself. It rarely does. 



A friend said to me the other day, “I don’t understand why they aren’t willing to work with you to help you to find another place to live. They don’t want you there, you don’t want to be there - it would be better for them as well as for you.” Precisely.



I think there are a number of reasons for this: they resent my exposure of their malfeasance and don’t want to exert themselves on my behalf, they don’t want to take responsibility for creating this situation, they don’t want to call in any favors for me, and they are trying to minimize the amount of public exposure. I suspect the last one figures into it significantly, which is purely ridiculous. My obscure little blog has already developed something of a following. It’s been a year and a half and a mere twenty posts, yet it’s had over 6,300 hits - and I’ve done almost nothing to promote it. 


Moreover, I have already involved MassHousing and the Jewish Federation, and have made it clear to Hebrew SeniorLife that, in addition to litigation, I intend also to involve HUD (with whom they also have a contract) and the Office of Elder Affairs (as I’m sure much of what goes on here qualifies as elder abuse), and to go to their Board of Directors and their large donors, as well as to newspapers and television news outlets. In short, I intend to make this situation even more public than I already have - yet still, their knee-jerk reaction is one of denial. There is no shame or remorse, certainly no acknowledgement of culpability.



Hebrew SeniorLife has been masquerading for years as an altruistic organization. Increasingly, people are coming to realize it is not. The bureaucrats who run it are focused primarily upon its bottom line, and care little, if at all, for the welfare of those in its charge. It is beyond time for the Jewish community to become aware of it.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you. My husband's aunt has misfortune to be there. It is really bad (even having a room for one). Social workers, if they exist, do nothing to help people to adapt. I can write and write about what I see while visiting her, but to be short, emotional abuse is on very high level. I hope, you are out of this place and feel well. I checked your FB, you are very active, and supporting good causes. Thank you one more time.

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    1. Hi - I'm sorry; I just saw this comment while checking my account. Thank you for posting it. I don't know why Google didn't notify me of it at the time.

      Unfortunately, I am still here and not at all well. Hebrew SeniorLife has destroyed my health and my life. There have been a few administrative changes, but overall, the facility has gone downhill, and the staff remains largely incompetent and apathetic at best.

      Two examples: One of the elevators was being renovated. The work was supposed to take five to six weeks. They stopped at the sixth week, it's now going on the twelfth, and there is no clear idea of when it will be resumed. One of the other two elevators goes down every other day. We frequently have only one small elevator for over two hundred disabled and elderly people, many of the latter with walkers. Tensions are high, and arguments are breaking out among residents. It's been horrible.

      Also, the quality of the food has deteriorated dramatically. People get sick from eating it, and avoid the dining room, while market rate tenants (I am not one) are required to pay for a meal plan.

      As I believe I've said elsewhere on this blog, Hebrew SeniorLife is a haven for career bureaucrats who care nothing for the welfare of the people in their charge. No one should be supporting this corrupt organization, and certainly, no one should be placing their loved ones here.

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