I don't know how many of you saw this article in the Inquirer. It's so disturbing: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/16776341.htm

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www.taxgirl.com

Reading about Mr. & Mrs. Lavin makes me wish I believed in hell. No doubt there's a special place for people like them there--modeled after one of their facilities. They have 6 bathrooms and a tennis court while their elderly residents lie in their own vomit--how horribly awful.

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Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day that says, "I will try again tomorrow."

---Mary Anne Radmacher

We often see the residents wandering across Ridge Ave. when we are in the area. We pray no one gets hit in traffic. Every day they hang in front of the 7-11 begging. Sad that their lives have come to this. But what goes around comes around so the owners better take a good look at what their fate may be one day.

I don't know what conditions are like inside, but the outside is a mess

Yeah, that place looks to be total dump. I never see the same resident twice--always different people lingering around--filthy, unsupervised, etc... Those poor people. You know that the the facility take sthe people's SSD/SSI checks and gives them like $5.00 bucks a month. Criminal if you ask me.

Maybe the Lavin's are getting a cut.

I go there regularly to visit some of the folks, give rides, invite them for dinner, etc. It's a dismal place and not easy to visit. They are people in there, although they are not fully treated as such. All of them have their life stories which explains how they got to that station in life. None of them want to be there. By observation, many of them have emotional or psychological problems, others have physical problems. Many of them made bad life decisions which left them addicted, indigent, etc. Some of them have a chance to get out of there and improve their lives.

There's a building in the back which is their social hall. Basically, one large, unmaintained room. The piano is broken to the point of useless. There's little to do at the place. They tell me that the facility has no social program and they never arrange shopping of entertainment trips.

I don't know anything about the economic drivers for so-called assisted living facilities. Like the rest of us, I'm learning from the Inquirer's series. Nor do I know about government policy for indigent folks in general. We got rid of the Byberrys which some say put many people on the streets. There are other people for whom the state pays for an apartment or even a house, including a daily caregiver who cooks, cleans, etc. . Why do some get this and others get assisted living; still others the streets? What role are families expected to play? Hopefully someone on this blog understands the system and can explain it to us. Just remember, these are people who are very hard to care for.

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What? Me worry?

Some residents of IvyRidge receive under $700.00 a
month; Some receive more. The home must give them
$60.00 a month back for personal expenses. Now how
do you feed a person three meals a day and house
them for that small amount of money ? Inside some
rooms have four beds to a room. It is crowded but,
this is allowed under the state regulations. Yes,
the Lavin's are making money but, If it was closed
WHERE are these people going to go ? I have a couple
of "favorites" who see me when I pull into the nearby
gas station. I always give them a dollar or so.
A few days before Christmas I gave both ladies
Christmas Cards with five bucks in it. They were
very happy about that. I met the first lady when
she was having a problem using the outdoor pay phone.
It would not work for her; here she was trying to use
a dime. That's how out of touch some of them are.
I say almost anyone could end up there. What a shame
that our citizens, many in IvyRidge have worked all
their lives, have to live like that while we ship
BILLIONS of dollars to Iraq to try and help in a
civil war that will never end in my lifetime. Also,
the loss of over three thousand Americans and the
wounding of thousands. I rather use some of that
money here in the US for our own people....especially
those down on their luck.

I appreciate the sentiment, but I can't agree.

The government gives HUGE subsidies for these kind of facilities. This is hardly charity work.

And why should the decision be unsafe/unsanitary conditions or nothing? Are we really willing to say, collectively as a society, if you can't afford good care at a private facility, we'll overlook the laws of basic decency? That if you don't have lots of money, it's okay to be in a facility that isn't in compliance with the barest of regulations such as criminal checks for employees (Ivy Ridge was cited for this very thing last year)? That it's okay to be in a "dangerous, unsanitary" facility (the Inquirer's words to describe one of Lavin's facilities that was closed down because of violations)? Or in a facility "unfit for habitation"? Or in a facility with repeated fire code violations?

We've all seen the residents of that home on Ridge Avenue - they beg in the streets and they leave the facility in seasonally inappropriate clothing, sometimes in bathrobes or without shoes on. We've seen what the facility looks like from the outside - the roof is in terrible disrepair.

It is simply incomprehensible that anyone, for a moment, could look at that facility and believe that if you're poor, it's what you get, that you don't deserve better or that things could be much worse.

Again, the government is subsidizing that facility. That means that our tax dollars are paying for those residents to live there. It's shameful.

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www.taxgirl.com

lawmummy

I share your sentiment exactly!

well put