Right, Miriam. As Americans age, and as they develop many age related
disabilities, such as blindness or low vision, diminished hearing,
memory loss, balance issues and weakness in their extremities, rather
than expanding programs and services the governments, local, state and
federal, cut back funding.
It's almost painful to admit, but back when I was in my 40's and 50's,
and directed the OTC, I believed all we needed to do was to run those
Seniors through a program like the OTC, and they'd do just fine. This
thinking was encouraged by the Leadership of the NFB.
As we prepared to begin providing rehab services to older blind and
low vision folks on the Olympic Peninsula, we reviewed the population
we were about to serve. Mostly they were folks who had seen most of
their lives and lost significant vision. But then came the eye
opener. All of our clients over 70 had a combination of age related
conditions. It was not a case of them needing skills training. It
was a need for a new body. How do you "teach" a 90 year old lady to
prepare a meal, when it's not her eyesight that stops her, even though
her family may think so. It's the fact that she is worn out just
getting to the kitchen.
We worked with a woman who had run a dude ranch while raising her son,
as a single parent. She told us stories of having climbed every major
peak in the Western USA. But we could not get her to leave her room
without assistance. She would become lost just stepping out of her
room. The bathroom door was the next door on her right, but she was
never able to find it.
Even so, in my 60's and 70's, I had no real understanding of what was
occurring. Then my hearing changed and my balance went South, and my
strength seeped out of my legs, and I began to move more
cautiously...and much slower.
Another fact is that as people age, and as they come to the conclusion
that they need assistance in doing things they once did without ever
thinking about asking for help, they lose that edge that enabled them
to be fairly independent in earlier years. It's been about ten years
since Cathy dropped me at the Bainbridge Island Ferry, and I rode into
Seattle, ran up the hill to Third Avenue and caught a bus either to
the Agency or to the airport. Today I would not do that trip. Just
walking from the Ferry across the ramp and up to First Avenue would
have me ready for a nap.
But somehow we need to turn around public attitudes regarding the
treatment of the Elderly. People who played by the rules, worked
hard, raised good children, did their civic duties, helped build a
solid community, but who have now retired, should be honored for their
years of labor, and shown the respect they have earned.
Cathy and I know that the staff where her mother lives are good, hard
working people. But they are woefully understaffed and become subject
to cutting corners just to get everything done on schedule. So by
showing up three or four times a week, and Cathy's sister showing up
the other days, we(Cathy and Marlene)put the staff on notice...in a
kindly way, encouraging them to see that Dorothy's needs are met.
Even so, I have to ask, "Who are the people who are receiving less
service because Dorothy is being attended to?"
Carl Jarvis
On 5/22/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
I'm sure that that group home wasn't worried about what the son wanted. They
were worried about their insurance. The same would be true for facilitated
living facilities. The fact is, no one wants old blind people wandering
around their facilities, no matter how competent the blind people might be,
whether or not the people who run the facilities believe what you tell them.
They're worried about liability insurance. And along with that, there's
their terror. Now that I can't see where I'm going, and believe me, I become
disoriented constantly as I move around this little house, I'm aware of the
fear my movements cause in others.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2019 11:51 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Shocking Exploitation of America's
Caregivers
Over the past 25 years, Cathy and I have been in a couple of dozen Senior
Group Homes. They ranged from very pleasant, to very dirty.
Most of them housed 6 individuals. All of them had either shared bedrooms,
or small singles. I never checked the monthly cost, but a couple of places
were owned and run by Filipinos who also hired help from their homeland,
mostly people who knew very little English. This made it very difficult for
blind residents. They could not communicate, and the attendants had very
custodial practices. One woman, a retired nurse, became lost when trying to
find the bathroom in the middle of the night. She was told that she could
not get out of bed, and they diapered her at bed time. She was humiliated.
We did everything we could do to demonstrate that she could go to the
bathroom safely, alone. But they smiled and nodded and said, "her son, he
want his mother not to get hurt". The son was in the Navy, and was out at
sea for long periods. We finally talked with him, explaining that his
mother had learned to travel around the facility safely, day or night. He
said that he was lucky to get his mother into this home, and he did not want
to risk having them dismiss her.
On the whole, if I were home bound and single, I would at least take a look
at the group homes in my area. I do know that you can't go on past
performance. One home we visited early on, was clean and well staffed.
About ten or twelve years later we were working with a woman who needed such
a home, so we drove out to the place we'd visited so many years earlier.
The same woman owned the house and the business.
But she was not the same warm, smiling woman we'd met. She was worn down
and struggling financially. The house was sour smelling and grimy. She had
a part time helper, a young woman just out of drug rehab...or so she told
us. I told our client that I would not leave my pet cat there.
But talk about being home bound! This woman, whose husband had walked out
on her and their two year old daughter, spent her life trying to save her
house and keep her daughter safe. When we first met her, the daughter was 8
years old. When we saw her again her daughter was in her early twenties and
living with a man in New York City. I felt bad for the woman, but still...I
couldn't refer anyone to her.
Oh well, I'm supposed to be on a conference call with our Aging and
Blindness Committee for the WCB. I think they changed the number, and I
missed the notice, because all I'm getting is music...and it's not good
music.
Either the Chair sent out new instructions, and I dumped them, or this is a
subtle hint that I'm off the committee.
Think I'll watch the final Voice show.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/21/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Before I read the article, I listened to a Reveal podcast on this
particular subject. I'll tell you 2 related facts. The man who came to
my home to give me an EKG, now that I'm mostly homebound, handed me a
leaflet advertising a care facility that he runs here on Long Island,
a private house in which 6 elderly people are cared for. The cost is
$5,000 a month. The selling point is that it isn't a big institution.
I have no idea if there's any regulation or licensing. The guy is
advertising to anyone to whom he's sent to give EKG's and I doubt that
the doctors who send him, know what he's doing. The other thing is
that a few years ago, I read an article by a Filipino writer about the
family servant who worked for him and his wife. He was born here.
His parents had employed a woman for years and brought her with them
when they emigrated here. She had no papers of her own, lived with
them, had no time off, and was not given a salary. It is some sort of
Filipino custom which involves gratitude toward the wealthy who care
for the poor. The payment is slave labor. It's mentioned in the
podcast and that is what reminded me of the previous article I'd read,
perhaps in The Atlantic.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2019 8:18 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Shocking Exploitation of America's
Caregivers
Owners of Senior Care Facilities "...blamed thin profit margins for
necessitating the practice of underpaying workers."
How many years has this nation educated its young to believe that
success is measured in dollars, rather than in building a Society that
cares for its members, and tends to their needs.
We're a long way off the Pioneer Spirit of early Americans, who
gathered to assist one another in bringing in the harvest, raising up
a barn or building a new school or church.
Today we lie, steal, and manipulate others in our effort to fatten our
own purse.
While we expressed such shock over the election of Donald Trump, there
can be no doubt about it, Donald Trump is the Poster Boy for Greed.
Carl Jarvis
On 5/20/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The Shocking Exploitation of America's Caregivers
Normita Lim worked around the clock as a caregiver for nearly a
decade, earning about $2 an hour. (James Tensuan / Reveal)
She alights from a black Ferrari convertible, her Christian Louboutin
stilettos glinting in the sunlight. The lid of her black lacquer
grand piano is propped open in the living room of her plush Beverly
Hills home on the aptly named Clear View Drive, overlooking a
stunning panorama.
"I own a chain of elderly care facilities," she says into the camera
on Bravo's reality television show "The Millionaire Matchmaker."
"My net worth is $3 to $4 million, probably."
Stephanie Costa was 30 and rich by most standards yet believed it was
time to fetch a man of means.
"You don't want to date down," the show's host says to her. "You want
to date 200 grand and above who treats you like a princess."
Costa nods. "Before I know it, I'm alone in the nursing home . in my
own nursing home."
Costa's lifestyle was supported in part by six board-and-care homes
she owned in California's Central Valley that now operate under the
names Clear View Retirement Group and Copper River Retirement Group.
About half of Costa's net worth was threatened when she and her
company initially were cited for about $1.6 million for labor
violations, including wage theft - not paying 11 employees for
working much of 24 hours a day, six days a week. They later would
settle for pennies on the dollar.
Costa, who declined to be interviewed for this story, is a rare
public face of a burgeoning multibillion-dollar elder care industry
that is enabling operators to become wealthy by treating workers as
indentured servants.
Across the country, legions of these caregivers earn a pittance to
tend to the elderly in residential houses refurbished as care
facilities, according to an investigation by Reveal from The Center
for Investigative Reporting.
The profit margins can be huge and, for violators of labor laws,
hinge on the widespread exploitation of thousands of caretakers, many
of them poor immigrants effectively earning $2 to $3.50 an hour to
work around the clock.
The federal hourly minimum wage is $7.25.
Reveal interviewed more than 80 workers, care-home operators and
government regulators and reviewed hundreds of wage theft cases
handled by California and federal labor regulators, workers and local
district attorneys. The investigation found rampant wage theft has
pushed a vast majority of these caregivers into poverty.
Workers are left feeling desperate and trapped. Many caregivers say
they rise before daybreak to cook meals, shower residents and scrub
toilets. At night, they are deprived of sufficient sleep because they
have to wake to change adult diapers, dispense painkillers, return
wandering dementia residents to their beds and shift the bedridden
every two hours to thwart bedsores.
Workers describe sleeping in hallways and garages, on couches and the
floor.
Some care homes deduct $25 a day from caregivers' paychecks for
"lodging."
Exploited caregivers rarely are allowed a day off; even then, they
often must pay their substitutes. Two caregivers recounted having
miscarriages after their bosses refused to allow them time off or to
stop lifting heavy residents.
Because these workers often live where they work, they are under the
watchful eye of their bosses. They are bullied into not cooperating
with investigators. In some cases, care-home operators have
threatened to report undocumented workers to authorities.
Human trafficking - in which workers, particularly Filipinos, are
coerced, manipulated and exploited - also is not uncommon, according
to prosecutors and attorneys. For example, several family members
were charged last year with human trafficking and labor abuse in a
case involving caregivers in San Mateo County, California, south of
San Francisco.
"It's a classic tale of human greed," said Tia Koonse, legal and
policy research manager at the UCLA Labor Center. "Their entire
business model is predicated on not making payroll. It relies on
people being willing to work for 24 hours a day for less than a
dollar an hour. Only trafficked people will put up with that."
***
The growth of board-and-care homes in neighborhoods across the United
States is tied to medical advances, enabling aging baby boomers to
live longer despite debilitating illnesses. This has resulted in an
increasing number of gravely ill people or their family members
seeking an alternative to costly nursing home care. There were about
29,000 residential care communities nationwide and about 300,000
full-time caregivers in 2016, according to the most recent federal
figures available. About two-thirds are smaller facilities with four
to 25 residents, many with dementia. California leads the nation with
more than 7,300 residential care facilities licensed by the state.
Stephanie Costa provides a case study in exploiting workers, getting
caught breaking labor laws and circumventing full punishment.
In 2013, 11 workers brought wage theft claims after providing
around-the-clock care in the care homes Costa owned. They changed
adults'
diapers, comforted the dying and hoisted infirm residents into bed.
They worked six days a week and subsisted on meager wages, according
to interviews and court documents.
The workers said they risked being fired if they left the facilities
and had no off-duty rest breaks during the day. Costa's care homes
promoted 24/7 care for frail clients.
"We knew we were being underpaid," said Juliet Delos Reyes, 60, a
former caregiver employed by Costa. "But we were helpless. We didn't
know our rights. How could we leave?"
Reyes said she was not allowed to leave the home without permission
when clients were present.
In many cases, workers in the industry fall into jobs that become
increasingly abusive. A substantial number are working in the U.S.
without authorization or applying to remain legally in the country.
They are paid less than they're promised, isolated and restricted to
the facilities.
Residents in these care homes typically are more than 60 years old.
The annual national median cost for each resident is about $48,000.
Dementia residents often pay more. Some owners tack on extra charges
for those who are incontinent or desire more than two showers a week.
Over the last decade, care-home operators across the nation broke
minimum wage, overtime or record-keeping laws in at least 1,400
cases, federal data shows. About 35 percent of them were in
California. Data obtained by Reveal through a California Public
Records Act request shows senior care facilities in the state have
pending wage theft claims against them or have been ordered to pay
back wages and penalties in more than 110 additional cases.
Three months after Costa's star turn on Bravo in 2013, the state
labor commissioner's office ordered Costa and her company, Bedford
Care Group, to pay about $1.6 million for unpaid wages and penalties.
That's when she changed tactics.
Papers were then filed with the state to create two new residential
care-home companies called Clear View Retirement Group LLC and Copper
River Retirement Group LLC. Costa's mother, Alice Hayes, is
secretary, one of two officers, of these companies, according to
licensing records. Hayes declined to comment.
These new companies then received licenses from the state to run the
six former Bedford care homes. But the structure and administrative
staff in the care homes? Hayes assured residents that they would
remain the same. In December 2014, following an appeal, the amount
owed for the labor violations was reduced to $665,000. But around the
same time, Costa's Bedford Care Group filed for bankruptcy, a legal
maneuver that allowed her to effectively slash the amount she owed
workers by settling the case for about $200,000, which she paid.
Three weeks after Costa's care-home business filed for bankruptcy,
her father registered a new company with the state called Property
Investment Housing LLC. The company then took over as the new owner
of Costa's six care homes. Her father did not return a call seeking
comment. Stephanie Costa is the company's chief executive, records
show.
***
A neighborhood in Antioch, Calif. Glenda and Rommel Publico operated
a number of senior board-and-care homes in Antioch. (James Tensuan /
Reveal)
Stephanie Costa represents a rare case in which an operator paid up,
if only a partial amount of the original fine. Residential care
facilities for the elderly receive among the largest wage theft
judgments of any industry. Yet Reveal found that some facility owners
caught cheating their workers are able to evade fines and judgments.
Many companies play shell games by not keeping money or real estate
holdings in the name of the company against which judgments or fines
are entered.
They simply abandon their company names - and the judgments against
those named entities - rendering the penalties and wage theft
judgments meaningless.
Across the country, states are charged with regulating board-and-care
facilities. In California, the state labor commissioner's office and
U.S.
Department of Labor, in addition to some local governments, are
charged with investigating wage theft. State and federal regulators
say privately that they need many more investigators and lawyers to
chase down scofflaws and force them to pay.
The Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division declined to make top
officials available for an interview. But in a written statement, a
Labor Department spokesman said: "Last year the division recovered a
record-setting $304 million in back wages for workers and conducted a
record-setting 3,600 outreach events to provide information to
employers, employees, and other stakeholders about the requirements
of the law."
The agency noted that in California, it has conducted investigations
and "extensive outreach" to care-home operators "ensuring that they
pay their workers the wages they have legally earned."
At least 20 companies providing care for the elderly, disabled and
mentally ill in California continue to operate illegally - many of
them under their original names - after ignoring judgments for back
wages and penalties totaling more than $1.4 million, Reveal found. A
2016 law barred companies with outstanding wage theft judgments from
conducting business in the state.
But the state Department of Social Services' Community Care Licensing
Division, which is in charge of licensing facilities for the elderly
and disabled, has not followed through.
Pat Leary, acting director of the Department of Social Services,
declined through spokesman Michael Weston to be interviewed. But in
an email, Weston wrote that while the law allows his agency to deny a
new license or not renew an existing one, the agency can take these
steps only if it finds residents' health and safety have been
threatened.
For her part, Costa's former employee Juliet Delos Reyes desperately
needed the total back pay she was owed before the bankruptcy of
Costa's company.
She now cares for her husband, who is on dialysis. His medical bills
are crushing.
"We didn't save anything. It affected us badly," Reyes said through
tears.
"I just hope that someday the government will look at how caregivers
are treated."
In mid-2016, the California Social Services Department banned Costa
from the assisted living business for life after finding multiple
health and safety violations. Among the violations: caregivers
working without required criminal background checks; caregivers
lacking the proper skills to test the glucose of a diabetic resident
whose hands had been amputated; taking in hospice patients without
the state's permission; and arguing with the friend of a resident who
was sent to the hospital, prompting staff there to ask her to leave.
Costa ignored the ban and continued to hire and fire workers at the
care homes. So state licensing officials in April 2017 had Costa's
mother sign a declaration promising Costa would not be involved in
"any capacity" with the companies - Copper River Retirement Group and
Clear View Retirement Group - that operate the care homes she once
ran.
But even after that meeting, records show, Costa listed herself as a
managing member of Clear View Retirement Group. Costa's name has
since been removed from the most recent business filings received by the
state.
A representative for the care-home industry readily acknowledged
wrongdoing but blamed thin profit margins for necessitating the
practice of underpaying workers.
"Are there problems? There are lots of problems," said Ronald
Simpson, a founding director of 6Beds Inc., a lobbying and advocacy
organization that represents more than 1,000 operators of small
residential care facilities for seniors in California. "Elderly
people aren't able to pay what they'd need to pay for these homes to
be compliant."
Still, for workers earning anemic pay, "it's possible they're happy,
too,"
he added.
Simpson then lashed out at Reveal for investigating wage theft in the
industry.
"What you're doing is not a service to the industry," he said. "It
makes the whole industry look like they're getting rich and ripping
people off."
As he spoke, Simpson was busy organizing one of the group's all-day
workshops for care-home operators on labor laws, which the 6Beds
website promised would give them a key bit of advice: how to
"minimize labor costs."
***
Sonia Deza worked for years as a caregiver in Antioch, Calif.,
earning about
$2 an hour from Glenda and Rommel Publico. Deza says she was given
two checks totaling more than $17,700 in back wages, but Rommel
Publico demanded it all back - except for a $1,000 "bonus" - claiming
it was his. Deza says she was frightened he would fire her if she
refused.
(James Tensuan /
Reveal)
For four years, Sonia Deza rose every morning at 5 a.m. to cook,
clean, and wash and medicate her charges at Scienn Hail Home Care IV
in Antioch, California, a city of about 100,000 people in the San
Francisco Bay Area.
She could not sit down again to rest until 10 p.m., after she tucked
residents into bed and organized their prescriptions for the next day.
A long night still lay ahead; some wandering dementia residents
needed help back to bed, and others had to be shifted every two
hours. Deza rarely took a day off, as she would need to pay her
substitute. She earned about $2 an hour. She worried she would be
fired if she complained.
Rommel and Glenda Publico arrive at the Contra Costa Superior Court
in Pittsburg, Calif., for a hearing Sept. 20, 2018. They are accused
of multiple felonies including grand theft and tax fraud. (Paul
Kuroda /
Reveal)
Then in 2013, federal regulators ordered Deza's bosses, Glenda and
Rommel Publico, to pay Deza and 21 other workers more than $133,000
in back wages for violating federal minimum wage and overtime laws.
The Publicos wrote Deza two checks totaling more than $17,700 in back
wages.
But instead of letting her deposit the checks, Rommel Publico
demanded the money back, claiming it was his, Deza said in an
interview. She said she was frightened he would fire her if she
refused. So she served her residents lunch and then took a rare break
on two afternoons in July 2013. Rommel Publico picked her up from
work and drove her to two different banks.
"I took the checks into the banks, then returned to the car and gave
him the cash," said Deza, 66. "Oh my goodness, that's my money. I
worked so hard for it. I really needed that money. It's big money for
me."
Publico let her keep $1,000. He called it a bonus, she said.
Three of Deza's co-workers said in interviews that they also were
forced to return the back wages. According to federal Labor
Department records, the Publicos submitted false documents to labor
investigators purporting to show they'd paid the back wages. Still
other workers never received a check in the first place. They still are
waiting.
Prosecutors from the Contra Costa County district attorney's office
have charged the Publicos with multiple felonies, including grand
theft and tax fraud. The case is pending.
In a phone interview, Rommel Publico defended the treatment of his
caregivers and said the charges against him "hurt my feelings."
"When we ran the business, we were like a family," Publico said
through tears. "My caregivers, I treat them like my mom. I've never
been like, 'I'm the boss.'
"Every time I turn around, I have problems," he said of the pending
case against him. "It breaks my heart. I cry."
Normita Lim, who now lives in Las Vegas, did not receive back wages
from her former employers, Glenda and Rommel Publico. In 2013,
federal regulators ordered the Publicos to pay 22 workers more than
$133,000 in back wages for violating federal minimum wage and overtime
laws.
(James Tensuan / Reveal)
Another Publico employee who was not paid back wages is Normita Lim.
She worked around the clock as a caregiver in one of their care homes
for nearly a decade, earning about $2 an hour. Rarely allowed a day
off, she kept working, afraid she would be fired if she complained.
On Christmas and Thanksgiving holidays, her three children visited
her in the cramped room she lived in down the hall from the residents.
"I'm still struggling," said Lim, 75. "I needed that money for my
medications and food, but he got away with murder by not having to
pay. I'm angry, but what can we do?"
In late 2017, the Publicos sold the care home where Lim worked. She
said she stayed on as a caregiver for just a month under the new
owner. She earned about $600 that month to work around the clock,
seven days a week, for less than a dollar an hour. A man at the care
home said the facility is now called Elizabeth Care Homes 2. But the
property still is licensed to Glenda Publico, records show.
"I thought, 'This is worse,' so I quit," Lim said.
***
Julie Riduta is shown at the home where she works as a caregiver in
Berkeley, Calif. At a previous job in 2014, Riduta says she had a
miscarriage after her boss would not allow her to take time off. The
cause was unknown. (James Tensuan / Reveal)
Workers often fear reporting their mistreatment to authorities. They
routinely are harassed and fired if they report abysmal pay or
overtime violations, according to interviews and court documents.
Reveal found 90 caregivers in California who said their bosses
intimidated them, threatened to report them to immigration
authorities or blacklist them in the industry.
In 2014, federal investigators caught Lake Alhambra Center in Antioch
cheating its workers - for a second time. When an investigator
visited, an employee put him on the phone with Mehrangiz Sarkeshik,
who owned the home with her husband.
She excoriated the investigator for the intrusion: "You didn't tell
me you were coming. Leave right now!"
Then the investigator overheard Sarkeshik shout at the worker over
the
phone: "You need to get him out of there or you will be fired!" She
called the police and upon arriving at the home, she again threatened
to fire any workers who cooperated with the investigator, according
to a court document.
When the investigator tried to follow up, workers told him that they
were too scared to talk. Soon afterward, the facility changed hands
and now operates under a different name. No wage theft fines have
been issued to this operator to date.
Precilla San Miguel, an owner of San Miguel Homes for the Elderly,
which operates three facilities in Union City, near Silicon Valley,
kept timesheets that showed caregivers worked eight hours a day, even
though their employment manual required them to be available 24 hours
per day, seven days a week to seniors.
She went as far as fabricating evidence to cover up her wage theft,
court documents show. Workers said she offered them bribes to falsify
timesheets and required them to sign agreements not to sue her. She
also installed surveillance cameras in her care homes to monitor
caregivers, workers said.
The court ordered the defendants to pay $425,000 in back wages and
damages.
Last year, members of a family were charged with various felonies,
including human trafficking and labor abuse, in San Mateo County,
south of San Francisco. State prosecutors say Gamos family members
preyed on Filipino immigrants and "enslaved" some in their Rainbow
Bright facilities. Family members forced some to work 24 hours a day,
seven days a week, and some caregivers had their passports withheld,
prosecutors say.
In court filings, prosecutors allege that some workers slept on
mattresses on the floor and in garages and were prohibited from
leaving the facilities, where they cared for children, the disabled
and some seniors. Some workers who were injured on the job were told
to lie to emergency room doctors about how they were maimed. They
also were forced to pay their medical bills, according to the court
documents.
Even as his family cheated workers out of more than $9 million in
wages from
2009 through 2018, Joshua Gamos, one of the facilities' owners,
collected a fleet of cars, including a Lamborghini and a Ferrari,
prosecutors allege in court documents. Gamos also is charged with
raping a caregiver. She was 21 when she began working for the
facilities shortly after arriving from the Philippines. Joshua, Noel
and Carlina Gamos are in jail awaiting trial. A fourth defendant,
Gerlen Gamos, pleaded guilty to two felony charges, including wage
theft, and is awaiting sentencing. Her attorney declined to comment.
Attorneys for Joshua and Carlina Gamos said no workers were forced to
work at the facilities. An attorney for Noel Gamos did not return
calls seeking comment.
"Those allegations are false," said David Cohen, an attorney for
Joshua Gamos. "People wanted to work because they wanted the money.
It is true that these charges have been brought, but when you
actually look at the evidence and the statements that were made, it's
a completely different story."
Meanwhile, Reveal learned of cases in which workers suffered abuse
with devastating consequences. Two caregivers reported having
miscarriages after lifting heavy residents and being denied time off.
One of them was Julie Riduta, 45, of Concord. More than a decade ago,
she arrived from the Philippines to work as a caregiver in a care
home in Contra Costa County. She earned $2 an hour to work 24 hours a
day.
The work was grueling, but she needed the pay to educate her
daughter, left behind in the Philippines, from the age of 8. For the
first three years, Riduta slept on a thin piece of foam on the floor
next to the residents.
When they needed help, she said they kicked her awake.
"I told my daughter I struggled so much," Riduta recalled. "I feel
abused."
Then one day in the summer of 2014, she found out she was pregnant.
Overjoyed, she and the baby's father, a co-worker with whom she is in
a relationship, posted the news on Facebook.
She also was overcome with morning sickness and was concerned about
having to lift heavy residents. But when she begged her boss for two
days off, Riduta said she refused.
"Go to the mirror and look at yourself," Riduta recalled her boss
saying.
"Ask if you're allowed to complain."
Riduta had a miscarriage two weeks later. The cause was unknown. The
fetus was nine weeks old.
"I was crying all night," Riduta said. "I still have this dream that
there's a baby crying all the time. They treated us like animals."
***
While some are unsure how to pay their workers properly, care-home
owners are certain about one thing: There is money to be made.
Entrepreneurs on YouTube urge people to jump into the real estate end
of the business by buying single-family homes and converting them
into care facilities. One man explains how "to turn a single-family
home into a cash flow machine." Another calls care homes "America's
untapped business opportunity. . This business is very profitable."
Jesse Quezada used to flip houses with his wife. When the market
cooled, he said, they looked into opening a care home after a friend
told them they could make thousands a month.
"Coming from our background, we thought, '$3,500 a month? Wow. Would
people actually pay that?' But the demand is there. People are living
longer and they're sicker."
Quezada and his wife enrolled in a course required by California to
run a home. In just two long weekends, they were qualified. They now
operate several care homes.
"When you have multiple homes, you can literally make $20,000 profit
a month," he said.
Training requirements for care-home administrators and staff in
California are feeble. Administrators must undergo an initial 80-hour
program and pass an open-book exam comprising 100 questions. Those
overseeing small facilities with 15 or fewer residents must be 21 and
have a high school diploma or the equivalent. Staff in assisted
living facilities need not be nurses or have any medical expertise.
In fact, manicurists in California require more training.
Quezada was among more than 200 care-home owners, many of whom
arrived in BMWs and Teslas, for a daylong seminar at a Southern
California community hall last October. Among the presenters were
labor regulators and attorneys who took questions from the crowd.
Attendees sought advice on proper pay practices and other labor
issues and were advised by the presenters to follow the law.
Then George Kutnerian, senior vice president of public policy and
legislation for the 6Beds group, took the stage as one of the last
speakers.
Operators should slash costs by leveraging labor laws to their
advantage, Kutnerian urged them.
For example, owners do not need to hire two caregivers when they
could get away with one, Kutnerian said.
"There is no staffing ratio. A lot of people think, 'I can't have one
caregiver alone.' That's not true," he advised.
"You gotta learn how to use one caregiver," he said. Plus, there's a
"nice exception" in state law, Kutnerian continued. Care homes with
just one caregiver on duty can require that worker to stay for rest
and meal breaks, he noted, adding: "If you have two caregivers there,
they have to be able to leave. It's more efficient, OK?
"What this is getting you out of is the penalty," Kutnerian boomed
over the microphone. "That's the trick. How do you keep them on the
premises for rest and meal breaks?"
For owners who treat their workers properly, the market pressure is
intense.
While there are operators who comply with the law and turn a profit,
some care homes charge less to attract residents searching for
affordable care.
"It's frustrating to be undercut," said Jose Umana, who runs Premiere
Cottages, which operates several care homes in Long Beach and
Huntington Beach. "It's hard to stay in the market when you're
competing with other homes that have lower rates. The caregivers are
bearing the brunt."
William Murphy, a prosecutor with the Alameda County district
attorney's office in the San Francisco Bay Area who has handled a
dozen wage theft cases involving care homes in the last five years,
says the business model depends on squeezing workers. He summed it up
in two brief sentences:
"It's extreme greed by the owners. The workers are treated horribly."
Data reporter Melissa Lewis contributed to this story. It was edited
by Narda Zacchino, Matt Thompson, Ziva Branstetter and Robert
Salladay and copy edited by Nikki Frick.
Jennifer Gollan can be reached at jgollan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Follow her
on
Twitter: @jennifergollan.
