“Atria Bills” Signed That will Stop Price-Gouging of Seniors and Increase Emergency Preparedness

Last winter, residents of Atria Covell ended up with duel complaints. First, for the second time in as many years, the seniors, most of whom are on fixed incomes, were hit with large rent increases. To make matters worse, a serious winter storm knocked out power and showed the Atria facility to have an appalling lack of emergency preparedness.

In a rally and protests it became very clear that Atria was extremely fortune that no one was seriously hurt.

In a rally last January, 30 residents of the Atria Covell Gardens community protested both the rental increase and the living conditions.

The most appalling story was a woman who lived in the facility with her husband who was on oxygen. After losing electricity, no one in administration contacted them to find out what their needs were. She in the end had to call the pulmonary company that supplied them with the oxygen and at 10:30 at night he brought out canisters that supplied the oxygen for purposes of travel or other issues of mobility for a two hour period.

According to her, two of the administrators,

"instructed me on how to use the portable tanks. But they also... said that they would never be able to help me again. Because they are not allowed to... The AL's cannot help you with oxygen."

This week hundreds of bills have finally made their way from the legislature to the desk of the governor. For many of these bills, it is their untimely demise as the Governor has unilaterally decided not to sign them.

However, the good news for elderly residents of California’s assisted living facilities celebrated Sunday as Governor Schwarzenegger signed two new consumer protection bills.

Barbara Turner is a resident of Atria Valley View in Walnut Creek, a facility similar to the one in Davis. Like Davis they also suffered through a power outage, theirs lasted three days.

“Last year, I received an 8½% rent increase, and other residents suffered through a 3-day power outage. We’re pleased that the legislature and the Governor have taken an interest in our issues, and we hope they will continue to protect seniors in the future.”

According to a release from the Campaign to Improve Assisted Living:

Both pieces of legislation address resident complaints about Atria Senior Living’s practices. Seniors residing in multiple Atria facilities have complained of rent increases that far exceed the cost of living, while some in Davis and Carmichael suffered blackouts this winter. Atria residents normally receive notices about rent increases by the beginning of November, and increases are effective at the beginning of January. Advocates say they will be watching to see how Atria responds to the new laws.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass sponsored the legislation.

“It’s like the wild west with many assisted living operators. They can charge whatever they want, and there’s very little accountability for the quality of care. Both of these new laws are an important first step to holding them accountable.”

Speaker Bass’s AB 2370 will give assisted living residents information on past rent increases before they move into a facility.

Meanwhile our own Assemblywoman Lois Wolk put together her own bill, AB 749, that will require Atria and other assisted living facilities to identify a backup source of power in the event of a blackout, and improve other emergency preparedness requirements.

Assemblywoman Wolk:

“Residential care facilities provide a vital service to California’s seniors. Yet, this is a largely unregulated industry. Within the past year, a winter storm left a facility in my district without power for over two days. They didn’t have heat, lights, elevators, or medical devices dependent on electricity. My bill will provide additional protection for residents of these facilities.”

The bill requires facilities like Atria to have a comprehensive emergency plan that will ensure that the facility can remain self-reliant for at least 72 hours. That plan must be made available to both residents and local emergency responders.

Davis' Assemblywoman Lois Wolk said:

"I worked with the senior residents, the senior home advocates, and the Governor's administration to come up with a solution that provides the security and peace of mind the residents deserve, without placing an unreasonable bureaucratic burden on the facility."

Gary Passmore of the Congress of California Seniors:

“These bills are an important step in protecting vulnerable seniors in assisted living facilities. Atria residents spoke up about these problems, and the legislature responded.”

While it is easy to be cynical of government, here is a situation where there were key and glaring problems facing our seniors who were vulnerable to price gouging by private care facilities and vulnerable to lack of state regulations requiring things like emergency preparedness and back up power generation. Here is one case at least where the leadership in this state stepped up and came up with a solution to these problems. For the resident of places like Atria Covell Gardens it means piece of mind both in terms of their financial situation but also in terms of basic public safety.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Interview with Assemblywoman Lois Wolk--Part III

On Friday April 18, the Vanguard sat down and spoke with Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, candidate for the State Senate, 5th District. In November she will face Republican Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian. This is the final of a three-part interview. In this segment, the Assemblywoman discusses land use, housing, seniors, health insurance, and her legislative accomplishments and goals.

9. How can the 5th Senate District balance the need for housing and jobs to accommodate huge projected growth with the need to preserve agricultural land and environmental protection?

That’s a tremendous challenge and it’s a challenge we feel throughout the central valley. People are looking for housing, they’re moving to these areas, they haven’t stopped moving to these areas and we need to do a better job of planning. We need, and I hope we would have a resurgence of what we had years ago when we looked at regional planning, strong regional planning. The blueprint was a good example, but that’s only for the Sacramento region. We need that for the entire Senate 5th District. San Joaquin has done a very good job as well of beginning the process of a blueprint. They have strong transportation organization, but there needs to be an overall planning effort that connects transportation, land use, planning, all the agricultural preservation, and environmental preservation. All of the pressures that come from growth have to be looked at in a connective fashion—and we don’t do that. We don’t do a good job of that. We need to do more of that.

It is very difficult, but now is probably the best time to do that. The reason I say that is when you are in a recession that you are right now, and you don’t have the pressure of housing on you, the overheated market, you have an opportunity to take a step back if you are in local government, and look out several years. Look out five to ten years. Look out twenty years. Preferably, look out thirty years or more and do some fundamental planning for your region. We don’t do a good job of that in California. We should do more.

I have introduced 2501, that includes climate change in all water planning in the state at every level. I think that has to occur. That’s one response to what we know is coming and needs to be addressed. The other bill that was part of the flood protection package, was a change in general plan law, to require each community, city and county, to incorporate flooding in a comprehensive way into their general plans. Many communities still don’t do that, but they will have to do that by the end of next year, including the maps the maps that will be given to them of the different flood plains. So there are efforts to do that and there are some pieces of legislation currently that aim to do the same for transportation and air quality and housing. I support those, I think that they’re to put forward.

I recognize however, that much resistance comes from local communities because land use is a local prerogative. I would just encourage, as I did when I was on the city council and the board of supervisors, regional efforts that Davis can’t do it alone, Woodland can’t do it alone, it is important for Yolo County cities to be working together in partnership and to be working in the greater region on all of these issues—that’s essential. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but that’s what needs to happen. It’s a tension between the local government responsibility as a constitution for land use and the state’s overall overriding interest in making certain that the state as a whole deals with these challenges. There’s a tension there and it’s a healthy challenge.

10. Everyone it seems is for health care reform. What approach do you most advocate for and more importantly, how can you get it passed in the current climate or will you be looking toward 2011 with a Democratic Governor?

My greatest disappointment was that we were unable to enact health care reform. My position has always been, whatever health care reform comes to my desk in the Assembly, I will vote for—whether it is single payer, which I have supported, or the Speaker and Governor’s proposal, I supported that, and I co-authored John Laird and Darrell Steinberg’s bills to expand healthy families, to insure the children. My greatest disappointment is that this year, since we were unable to insure every citizen that we were unable to insure and expand healthy children, the healthy families program and thereby insure all children.

This will have to be done at the federal level. I am looking forward to the election in November. I think within a year after that, we will see a health care reform. It will be similar to the SKIP program, basically the federal government has to set a floor and then California will rise above that floor. Each state will or not depending on their needs and demands and values. I look forward to this election because I think that health care reform is on the national agenda. It is the number one for people. It has surpassed education in many polls statewide—not yet in my district. It is up there. It has risen dramatically. It has to be dealt with. I look forward to working on that before we have a new governor.

11. What other issues do you think are vital to your candidacy for the Senate and your record as a State Assemblywoman?

Well one of the areas has been my focus on seniors and elders. The elder abuse legislation which was landmark legislation to require banks and financial institutions to report elder financial abuse when they think it’s occurring. That took us two years, it was a difficult piece of legislation. We had a great deal of support for it. I’m very proud about that. I’m currently looking at end of life issues—nursing homes, assisted living facilities, issues. We are a growing and changing population. We’re growing older, we have a demographic surge, and people are living longer. They are not living next door to their relatives any longer. They need at times housing and medical care. They need continuums of care, they need services at certain times and not at others. They need the flexibility of being able to go back and forth between the housing and nursing home, homebound care, there are all permutations of the things that seniors need as they age.

I’d like to work on these, but we haven’t had a lot in that area. We haven’t had enough oversight. And it is a tremendous wave. The baby boomers are coming. We have to be prepared for that. What we saw in Davis was a very good example of that. We have two facilities we built in the 90s—one in ’89, the University Retirement Facility, which I was instrumental in getting approved and working toward. That was in the 1990s, it is twenty years later. When Atria took over Covell Gardens the rent increases were dramatic. That was very difficult for many of the existing residents. At that point, alternative were not and are not available. I think that’s a real lack in our community. We haven’t thought about the changes in our demographics that are coming upon us not just in Davis, but countywide and statewide, practically and statewide that would allow choices to be available to seniors.

Frankly, we have an expansion in the needs of children as well—childcare. Because of the changes in the family, there are very different demands that the family requires that we’re not confronting. Changes in home to school transportation for example, single-parent families have incredible demands on them, childcare, the need for preschool, there are a whole series of things that we have to do for children as well, that have to reflect changing times. So I look forward to working on those of those issues in the Senate.

(Follow up on the situation at Atria Covell Gardens regarding the power situation in January and rent).

I think there are two parts to that. I disagree with you that the Davis City Council couldn’t do anything. For the immediate, their fire department was absolutely wonderful in getting there, getting people out of the elevator who were trapped there, and being ready to be partners in whatever emergencies are provided, and that’s ongoing not just in crises, they’re always there.

I have introduced legislation to make certain that emergency plans have to be serious. If they provide services dependent upon electricity, in particular oxygen and a number of things that they have to have a backup generator. I’m sure that that will pass and be signed by the governor.

The issue of rents—whether adequate notice and adequate justification is given for these rents. There are a number of things that could be done better—mechanisms for appealing it if possible. Here’s the issue with Davis, yes there are problems that were highlighted by what happened. We don’t have enough facilities in Davis. It took a city council to approve ten acres of land for the University Retirement Community using the redevelopment agency and new development to make that happen. And it took a city council prior to mine—Mike Corbett, Anne Evans, and David Rosenberg—to approve Covell Gardens in 1988 or 87, recognizing the need for a senior facility. We need more of them. There was no place to go.

If you are 76 or 85 and you are faced with, and you’re relatively healthy and your rent goes up and you have a limited amount of income, you have no other place to go. Your choices were limited. That is something that the Davis City Council can directly assist with. I know that those are difficult conversations to have given the current view about growth, but if we’re committed to infill, what about infill projects? What about some vision in terms of creating alternatives for those seniors. There are going to be more and more people like that—are we going to send them away from Davis? That is what I was faced with as mayor in the 90’s. People were leaving the community because we did not have a university retirement community. And because Covell Gardens at the time was only senior housing. It did not have any assisted living. It changed over time. Where are those facilities? I don’t know of any in the planning process. That may be the case in Woodland as well, in fact, it may be true in California. We have to do a better job of anticipating demographic surge and the needs that that group presents and ready for it. That’s what a public official should be about, and especially at the local level where land use is in their control.

12. What accomplishment in your political career are you most proud?

I have a lot of them. I am very proud of the flood protection package, the Cache Creek Wild and Scenic bill, that Cache Creek will forever be wild and scenic. My grandchildren will be able to experience that creek and their grandmother had something to do with making it wild and scenic. Also the landmark bill on elder protection—elder financial abuse. I’ve accomplished a number of things that aren’t pieces of legislation. I’ve managed to solve a number of problems that resulted in making the school districts healthier financially. Getting the $4 million for Marguerite Montgomery was a wonderful success. I also years before saved $14 million for the Fairfield-Suisun Unified School District and I’m working now to help the Dixon School District achieve a reserve with their sale of property which needs legislation. A lot of these things gave me a great deal of satisfaction because they made lives and situations much better for people. I like to solve problems.

13. If you accomplish one thing as a State Senator what would it be?

I have two things. To insure every child in this state, that would be the first thing in the next two years. The second thing would be to develop a steward for the delta. A medical home for every child in the state of California.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Emergency Preparedness, Emlen: "We were Fortunate"; Atria Has Serious Explaining to Do

On Tuesday night at the Davis City Council meeting, the city finally received a full report on the handling of the storm from early January along with its subsequent power outages.

In some ways, this report seems a bit late especially in light of the fact that a good portion of the storm season passed us by before the report was delivered. Moreover some of the events simply were not as fresh in our minds as they would have been a month ago. On the other hand, it did give the city council a chance to evaluate in a thorough and reasoned manner what went right and what went wrong in the city emergency prepared plan.

The discussion began with what I thought was a very stark and appalling admission by city manager Bill Emlen:

"When we left this a couple of weeks ago, we kind of acknowledged that we were fortunate in that the incident that we dealt with during those few days could have been something far more greater, but what it did do was provide an opportunity for us to really go back and look at our approach to these situations in our emergency preparedness in general. [Fire Chief] Rose [Conroy] and she's preached to us many, many times and I think we didn't always take her as seriously as we should because we haven't had to deal with this sort of thing all that often as we went through that we realized the benefits of thoroughly thinking out preparedness and so as we came together as a group, Rose put together an emergency response team and we went through the whole event and things that we need to do differently as well as things that we did do right."

There are two points that the city manager raises that I think bear scrutiny. First the acknowledgement that "we were fortunate." This is a key point I think a lot of people who were involved in the discussions immediately after the event failed to recognize. The complaint for the most part was not that we were in serious peril during this particular storm, or that it was for most of us anything more than simply an inconvenience. Rather it was an acknowledgement that in a real emergency, it did not seem were were ready. The city manager essentially acknowledges that complaint as valid.

Second and I think more problematic and to use the word again, appalling is the admission that Fire Chief Rose Conroy had been warning about preparedness in emergencies and that we, and I assume he means city staff, did not "always take her as seriously as we should." I am hoping he was being a bit flippant there, because he was not, that is very disturbing that the city was not taking heed warnings they were getting from the fire chief.

If we did not take emergency preparedness seriously enough before, we need to now. As was pointed out by all involved, this event really was about an electrical outage with some corresponding fallen trees. The roads held up well. There was no need for evacuations. There was no need to have to clear major thoroughfares for evacuation routes. Next time if this is a flood, a fire, or an earthquake, the problem could be far more serious.

Chief Conroy spent a good amount of time talking about what worked and did not work. I think it was a good and forthright discussion. This will focus mainly on what did not work but at the outset, I want to stress that a number of things worked well including public works and their ability to keep the streets clear and usable throughout this emergency.

A lot of the problems had to do with the failure of communications devices between the public and the city and the city and the public.

The 911 phone lines went down for 18 minutes--again they were fortunate that there were no major emergencies during that relatively short period of time, but that is a big concern in a larger emergency.

The internet was largely unreliable, it went down during from Friday morning until Saturday evening.

They did not utilize the AM Radio 1300 as they could have to provide key information to the public. This was a big area of focus by the council as radio is the easiest and most reliable means for getting emergency information during a storm.

A PG&E spokesperson spent time going through PG&Es response. People at the time were concerned with the length of time it took to restore power. Frankly I think that is difficult to evaluate and depends largely on how widespread and severe the outage was.

The worst problem was really lack of good information and updates. I think their spokesperson was forthright about that. The 800 number was not updated frequently enough an the internet was not properly utilized. Remember a lot of people had access to the internet in a variety of different ways in the age of wireless connections and internet phones. Many also were waiting elsewhere for when the power would be restored and having people drive unnecessarily to see if the power is back on presents its own hazards depending on the conditions at the time.

There is also the issue of the shelters. I am still unclear as to why there were not shelters on Friday night, particularly for elderly residents.

Chief Conroy acknowledged:

"Not one of our shelter locations had power during these events."

Clearly that is something that they need to plan for in the future. Obviously they cannot predict who will and who will not have power. But they can plan with emergency generators to have operational shelters in the event of a city-wide blackout.

Atria Covell Gardens

During the course of the presentation Chief Rose Conroy told the council:

"In the fire department, we contacted, we made as many contacts as possible over the phone, or by person going to that address, where large numbers of vulnerable populations live. Those included assisted living facilities and apartment complexes with large numbers of elderly."

To me that simply did not square with the litany of complaints offered up by residents at Atria Covell Gardens a few weeks ago during their demonstration.

At that time, residents had serious complaints about the impact of power outages, the most serious had to do with availability of oxygen for infirmed patients, another was seriously injured during a fall.

For most of us as I have said before, this was simply an inconvenient situation. I think Councilmember Don Saylor was exactly correct when he said that by Sunday he getting anxious and annoyed that the power was still out and he could not use his TV and computer. That's a convenience issue, not a safety issue.

That is not the case for seniors. So spoke with Chief Conroy after the agenda item had concluded. I am appalled (to use that word again) by what she told me.

She told that she had called the facility at least five times on Saturday morning to find out how the residents were doing, whether they need assistance. She was told that everything was fine. That the residents were having a party together and that things were going well and that there was no need for assistance. She told me that she personally called them multiple times throughout the day to insure everything was alright.

As we have discovered, this was not an accurate picture. She was not sure why residents did not call the fire department if there were problems--but there clearly were and the description given by those at Atria was completely inaccurate.

Frankly the city or someone with jurisdiction over this matter needs to investigate this incident and determine exactly what happened.

If it turns out that Atria was dishonest and put their residents in peril then the public needs to know about.

Again, I think we need to look more into this situation, but based on what the fire chief told me last night, I am very concerned.

Overall I think we learned valuable lessons. The fire chief told the council that only three people were injured during this event. The most serious was an individual who was hit by a tree that fell as they went from their house to their car. This underscores the fact that we ought to stay indoors as much as possible during such events.

The chief also mentioned that we need to plan to be self-sufficient for up to 72 hours during an emergency--that means being prepared with food, water, flashlights, batteries, and radio during that time frame.

Finally I share again the evaluation of the city manager--we were fortunate that this was not more serious. It is better always to be lucky rather than good, but this gives us a chance to rectify our weaknesses in a situation where mistakes turned out not to be fatal ones.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Residents Protest Atria Covell Gardens Rate Hikes and Lack of Service

Atria Responds by Kicking Reporters and Public Officials Off Their Property

Around 30 residents of the Atria Covell Gardens assisted living facility came out this morning protesting not only the rental increase but also the conditions under which they live. They described in detail problems that occurred during the recent storms and power outage and the lack of action and concern from Atria Covell Gardens. During the course of the protest, resident expressed outrage at the severity of the double-digit rate hikes and the lack of service received during an emergency situation nearly a month ago.

In response, Atria asked members of the press, the media, and public officials to leave their property.

Carol Terry of the Grey Panthers said:

"We're appalled by what happened here and what we've heard about conditions under which people have had to live. We've heard about huge rent increases on people with limited incomes... We understand that for forty hours there was no heat, no light, no amenities of any kind. The staff did not check on the residents; the residents were left to their own devices... We don't know all of the details, but everything that we've heard is appalling, that a facility where people pay more than I have in social security money were treated in this way. We believe that there were legal covenants that perhaps were not sufficient to protect the residents and we will work with the legislature to make sure they are improved."

A resident said that she has been here for a number of years and it has really gone down hill since Atria's been running it.

Another resident, Sheila, told the crowd that she is 83 years old and her husband is 88. She talked about the amount of money that is going to the rent increases for her husband and herself. It totaled around $5000 last year, another $3000 this year, and she expects another increase next year. Pointedly she said, "I would call this elder abuse."

Gilda lives in Atria with her husband. Her husband is on oxygen. After losing electricity during the storm, the obviously caused a huge problem. No one in administration contacted them to find out what their needs were. She in the end had to call the pulmonary company that supplied them with the oxygen and at 10:30 at night he brought out cannisters that supplied the oxygen for purposes of travel or other issues of mobility for a two hour period.

According to her, two of the administrators,

"instructed me on how to use the portable tanks. But they also... said that they would never be able to help me again. Because they are not allowed to... The AL's cannot help you with oxygen."

Her husband is one of several people who require oxygen. Each person that is on oxygen is supposed to be responsible for them for themselves.

Another resident told the crowd that:

"Robert Godfrey, the executive direct, has told us that there will not be a generator here. They are not going to get a generator even though we found that we could not function until they went out and rented one."

Councilmember Lamar Heystek spoke to the crowd and told them that he was honored to be a neighbor of Covell Gardens.

"When we talked a month ago, we talked about a rent increase that compounded one from last year that exacerbates an already very difficult situation for our most precarious residents here at Atria Covell Gardens. With the recent blackout, with the recent power outages, with the recent failures that can be spread around, there's enough blame to go around for everyone, we really have to ask ourselves what does the rate increase, what does the rent increase actually buy?

Did that buy the residents of Atria Covell Gardens more security in the event of an emergency? As a city councilmember and as your neighbor, I do not believe that it has done that.

Has it been able to buy peace of mind, has it been able to buy some level of security, for the folks that live here, in the event of a national disaster? I don't believe that it has."

Councilmember Heystek saw two fundamental issues at stake.

"First of all whether or not this rent increase was justified. I think the people here can form some kind of consensus that they were excessive.

The second issue is whether or not the rate or rent increase has purchased better quality of life for the people that live in this facility. Or if we think that there is a prospect of an enhanced quality of life."

The councilmember urged more pressure on the senior citizens commission and the city council. The issue of emergency response will come before council on February 12."

There is a good deal of concern as to what can be done at this point to help the residents not only with the issue of rental increase but also the problem of emergency preparedness.

At the time, the Vanguard was extremely critical of the city's emergency response and there were a good deal of people who argued that this was not an emergency, it was an inconvenience. For a young and able body person such as myself, it is an inconvenience. For a person at an assisted living facility, it is an emergency. Not having electricity can be fatal for people who require it to survive. Not having heat can be very dangerous for elderly people. The failure of the owners of the facilities to properly prepare and deal with the emergency is mind boggling.

As I stood at the rally reporting on this event, I was asked to leave the property by one of the staffers who is photographed above. I was not alone. They told Councilmember Heystek to leave the property. And they told the TV camerapeople to leave the property.

I spoke to the Councilmember shortly after the event from the public sidewalk.

"I was told to leave the property," the Councilmember said. "She said not to be on the property. She told me and the reporter not to be on their property."

I asked him for his reaction to this event:

"My reaction to the activism of our seniors is a good deal of pride in our greatest generation.

My reaction to the lack of service, the lack of basic service on the part of Atria Covell Gardens is one of great disappointment and that is an understatement. Their lack of service during the blackouts, adds insult to injury to the back-to-back double-digit rate increases that have been seen by these residents.

I don't think the rate increases to these residents add to the enhancement of their quality of life. I hope that there's that prospect, I'm disappointed that residents were underserved yet are paying more to live here. It's simply greatly disappointing."

Unfortunately, the city feels that there is only a limited role that they can perform since Atria Covell Gardens is a private facility. The councilmember urged public pressure on the legislative process and on the company.

I was disappointed to see that the reaction by this company to their residents protesting was an attempt to keep the press, members of the public, and public officials off their private property, rather than concern for the welfare of their residents and any attempt to redress the grievances that were serious, manifold, and pervasive both in terms of the impact of the rental increase and the lack of service provided during a period of crisis.

We will all one day be seniors, hopefully, and I can only hope that we as a community can come together and demand that the aged population is treated with the dignity and care they have earned through their long lives of service to this community and this nation.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Commentary: Coming to Terms with What Went Right and What Went Wrong with Emergency Response

Tuesday Night's Davis City Council meeting came and went without much of a deep discussion of what went wrong and wrong with the city's emergency planning.

City Manager Bill Emlen spent most of his time talking about what went right. He did acknowledge problems but they were larger expressed in vague generalities and pushed off for a future meeting in order to address these problems.

The fear of course is that the longer such discussions are put off the less accountability can be held and the more this can be largely swept under the rug.

I think many people have lost sight of why the lack of coordination and communication is a concern. It is not that for most of the residents of Davis this particular event was a large concern or an extremely dangerous situation.

Rather it is concern about the next event that may be far more serious. Furthermore it is out of concern for the most vulnerable residents.

To the credit of the Davis Enterprise, this has not merely been swept under the rug as so many other problems that have occurred in our community.

While Wednesday's coverage of the council meeting was short on specifics, it did in fact lay out some of the concerns of residents.

The problem of communication is concerning. There was little info provided by PG&E on the status of power. There was also little information provided to residents from the city.

City Manager Bill Emlen said at the meeting:

"When the power is out, communications change a lot. Going through an event like this really crystallized what that means."

But it is somewhat unclear what the city manager meant by that exactly.

A warming center was established at the downtown teen center. That sounds good in theory, but this occurred on Saturday night. What was done on Friday night when it was clear even from the meager reports from PG&E that there would not be power available until at least late afternoon on Saturday?

The Enterprise ran a story on Atria Covell Gardens and their failure to have a back up generator. Of course, the law does not require a backup generator at assisted living centers. So obviously the facility that is raising rent on seniors is doing fine since they followed minimal requirements. The fact that a number of residents fell and potentially could have been seriously injured not withstanding.

The issue came up at yesterday's joint meeting between the City Council and Senior Citizens commission.

According to the law, they do not have to have back up generators as long as the common areas were with heat. One again has to wonder why the folks are paying such an exorbitant rent and two large rent increases if they facility is not planning better for emergency situations.

To me following the law is not an excuse, law represents a minimal amount of legal responsibility rather than a ceiling on the obligations of any facility--particularly one charging as much for its residents as Atria.

The city cites the lack of serious injuries as good news, and it is. But perhaps they were more lucky than good in this regard.

The key point that needs to be emphasized over and over again is that the reason people are complaining is that without complaints nothing will change. We can do things better. But we have to take responsibility for what went wrong and then fix it.

Personally I think a lot of people would have done much to attempt to help other residents if they knew where to go and how to help. But there was no planning for this. People did not know where to go to help or if that help was even needed. As a result most people assume the best thing they can do is take care of themselves and stay out of the way.

One of the issues that came up briefly yesterday and also Tuesday night is being personally prepared for an emergency. Having emergency supplies in a kit that one can utilize. The best thing the city can do is help people be ready for the next emergency so we know what to do. We may not know exactly where to go, but once we get there we can know what to expect and where to get information from.

Disappointingly, and this is not to criticize anyone, many of the services that would be helpful during an emergency--i.e. local TV, local radio, even the police--themselves had problems with their generators. That is an area of concern right there.

We all understand that PG&E was extremely busy restoring power, but someone, somewhere could have coordinated their information network so that residents had the best available information. There is nothing worse than being in the dark (literally and figuratively) about such things.

In the end, many of criticize because we expect better. It is my hope that the city will yet have the discussion and raise the tough issues at the next city council meeting but in the meantime one had to be a bit disappointed that the city manager was so eager to praise and so reluctant to talk about where we can improve next time.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting

Seniors Flood Council Chambers and Council Struggles to Act on their Behalf

As we have reported the Senior living facility, Atria Covell Gardens has said that they will be raising rent for their seniors living in their facility effective the first of the year. This will be on average an 8% rental increase, with some residents experiencing over a 10% rental increase. The rental increase follows another 8% increase that took effect in January of this year.

At Tuesday night's Davis City Council meeting, roughly 50 residents of the facility came to city council to express their support of the council to intervene on their behalf.

Supervisor Mariko Yamada who has been at the forefront of advocacy for seniors and senior living issues spoke before the council:

"I not only want to express support for the council's efforts to look into this matter, county will certainly be a partner with you in that. In fact they did meet with the resident's association immediately after the first news report of first the eight percent increase but then learning it has been a double digit increase over the past two years. This is part of a larger corporate issue I think in terms of how seniors are housed in our communities. Atria is a national corporation, there are issues arising, problems with Atria nationwide. But it also speaks to other housing needs for seniors, at the county level we are bringing home a study on rent stabilization for manufactured home parks, as well as taking a look at other facilities such as CCRC's (Community Care Retirement Centers)... But I also think we need to take a look at senior housing needs throughout the area."

Davis City Councilmember Lamar Heystek urged the council to take immediate action--if it was within the realm of the law and expressed a willingness to meet during the holidays in order to accomplish this.

"I'm in town [next week] If staff gave us a place, I'd be happy to act before the end of the year because it is of an urgent nature, I mean your rent increases kick in at the beginning of January. And I say that sincerely because I think we can talk about doing things on a long range calendar... but I understand you would like some immediate attention and I hope that I can be part of a solution on an immediate basis."

Mayor Sue Greenwald also indicated a willingness to act immediately:

"Why don't we authorize Harriet [Steiner] to look into our legal options and if there are option, why don't we ask Bill [Emlen] to schedule an emergency meeting."

Councilmember Don Saylor indicated that neither he nor two of his colleagues would be in town during this time:

"I think there will be two of you in town during that time..."

He also expressed reticence to act immediately even if he were in town.

"Like everybody, I think we're all touched, nobody likes this situation and we're very touched by the presence of the people in the room tonight. But I think we have to act within the bounds of what we can do and be clear about that. While it's possible that we could be the first city in the state, or one of the first, to implement a rent control mechanism, it's not likely. And it's not going to happen in the next couple of weeks. I think that we ought to be looking at the things that we can do and working with the management of Atria to try to get them to participate in a voluntary mediation has potential, it's possible. I don't know if it's going to be successful. But it's certainly worth trying... So I think we should do the things we can, within the authority we have, and test the bounds by exploration. But I don't think we can do something within the next few weeks, no matter what we do."

Michelle Reardon, who sits on the Social Services Commission and also practices in geriatric counseling, suggested there may be little a local entity can do at this point. She expressed regrets that Atria was licensed by the Department of Social Services to be a Residential Care Facility for the Elderly. Once licensed she believed that the state and not the city had jurisdiction over "rent."

This brings forward a larger issue of about Senior Care Facilities and licensing. A quick search for Atria finds a troubled organization with a wide array of complaints against it.

Channel 13 in Sacramento reports on a residential protest at an Atria facility in Sacramento.

"Nobody at this senior home wants to go, they just don't know if they can afford to stay. They were told that their rents were being raised, the residents got together and figured out that the increases range from six up to eleven percent.

...

Arthur's rent is increasing more than $4,000 next year.

...

The reason they've been given was that the building is riddled with dry rot, but residents don't believe that's financial burden to bear.

Some increase is expected, three or four percent is average at other homes. But, the overall feeling here is that management is unfairly taking money these people spent their lives saving."

In the meantime, Atria faces federal investigations for the violations of workers' rights:

"At facilities around the country, Atria is now facing a large number of federal investigations over charges that the company violated federal labor law, including threatening, intimidating, spying on, and otherwise violating the rights of employees who have been active in forming a union for improvements at their facilities"

And when workers at these care facilities has attempted to unionize, Atria has resorted to standard intimidation, harassment, and disciplining of workers.

“I was fired because I want a voice on the job. Atria needs to listen to workers so that residents get the care, staffing, and services they deserve. We’re forming a union for a voice in care for residents and working conditions for workers,” said Radika Munna, a former employee at Atria Senior Living, during a candlelight vigil where community leaders gathered to support workers who have been harassed for their efforts to improve conditions for workers and residents by forming a union at Atria Shaker in Lynbrook, New York.

These complaints bring up the question of who licenses these facilities and how local communities and counties can insure that when they provide for Senior Housing, that these provisions are met in a responsible manner. Local governments should not lose control of their authority once they grant building permits and zoning changes. How does a community like Davis, insure that once they provide these facilities, that their residents receive the type of care, attention, and affordability that they deserve?

Obviously this is a much broader question than can be addressed now. But it is imperative that the City of Davis along with Yolo County and other advocacy groups look at what is happening nationwide with companies like Atria and take steps to insure that this never happens again.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting