I’m having a really hard time believing something an old friend of mine who lives in California told me a few days ago on the phone. She said she is in the process of moving to Texas because it has gotten so bad in Calif. She is working at a job where she goes into group homes and takes care of disabled people. The people who run these group homes house people who are elderly, disabled, mentally retarded, etc. They get paid by the state $800.00 for each person. They are supposed to be inspected by the state but according to my friend, the state is too overwhelmed with these types of group homes and they never get inspected.
So here is the part I’m having a hard time believing but these are more or less her own words. “I took this job because I need the money but I can’t do it.......I’m getting out of this state........you would not believe the conditions these people are living in unless you saw it with your own eyes and it is basically like a third world country. The residents were lying on mattresses on the floor with no sheets, pillows, or blankets. They were half starved with sores all over their bodies. They were filthy dirty. Some doctors came in for a visit and there were all middle eastern and getting paid by the state too and nobody reports this because so much money is being made by those getting paid by the state. People were tied up and the doctors just prescribe sedatives to keep them knocked out”.
I was incredulous and said that places like that would get shut down and she insisted that people take the risk because the state never inspects. That one house had 18 people in it all being neglected and the person running it was making $800 a month per resident. That she herself took the job because it pays cash under the table and she needed the job. She plans to move to Texas and then report to the proper authorities in California what she witnessed.
This is a friend from my childhood who I rarely talk with so I can’t vouch for her reliability. If she is telling the truth, California is already (atleast S. Cal) is already a third world crap hole which is not hard to believe every time I go for a visit and see the decline in the communities now littered with trash everywhere and run down.
Sounds alot like the "assisted living centers" I've come across in Illinois, New York, and Florida. Sad to say that those places are nothing more than glorified slums for folks who can't take care of themselves. Management gets rich on the government teat while the patients suffer.
So no, it is NOT just in California.
I looked into this a while back. The state is required to visit these facilities either once every year, or every two years (not enough, IMO). They will do a special inspection if there is a complaint—but even then, it takes them months to respond. I’m not sure about the funding that you refer to.
Tell your friend to file the report... and send it to a few legislators and law enforcement offices, as well. Better yet—take pictures and send it to the media. That might get their attention.
Lauren, you send me the name of that place your friend works at and I’ll personally go check it out. If it’s as bad as you say, I promise you I will take care of it. I’m serious. Somehow, I don’t believe it.