Board And Care Homes

State officials Tuesday closed two private board-and-care homes in Santa Ana, saying that a 23-year-old developmentally disabled man who lived in one of them had died after not receiving "necessary medical care." The closure of the Bastida Home, at 2060 S. Olive St., and the Vargas Home, at 1014 S. Halladay St., both owned by Victoria and Rogelio Bastida, became the sixth and seventh board-and-care operations in Orange County to be shut down by the state since Dec. 1.

Shortly after moving into a group home here six months ago, Trevor Castro said, he began to feel less like a paying tenant and more like a prisoner. The bleak compound was surrounded by a cinder-block wall topped with coils of jagged razor wire. He lived in a converted chicken coop with no plumbing and a bucket for a toilet. He said he was kicked, had a glass broken on his face by a staff member and had cans of cigarette butts dumped on him. On Friday, police came looking for 23-year-old Castro for an outstanding DUI warrant and saw a bucket of urine outside his door.

The city attorney's office charged the operator of two troubled Tujunga board-and-care homes Tuesday with neglecting elderly residents and illegally operating the homes, officials said. Perla Nunez, 44, of Upland, was charged with five counts of elder abuse and two counts of operating a residential care facility without a license. Authorities expect to arraign Nunez on Aug. 30, Deputy City Atty. P. Greg Parham said. On several visits to Ambassador Care at 10159 and 10161 Hillhaven Ave.

Six elderly residents of a board-and-care facility were evacuated Saturday after a pan of oil caught fire and scorched their single-story home, officials said. Three dozen firefighters doused the blaze in the 24300 block of Lysanda Drive as two staff members ushered out three men and three women in their 70s and 80s. The fire, which was under control in 16 minutes, wreaked $700,000 in damage, officials said. One staffer was treated at the scene for smoke inhalation.

In response to opposition from residents, the City Council this week rejected a neighborhood board and care home's expansion plans. The Planning Commission had approved allowing up to eight people in the six-bedroom home on West Chalet Avenue. The home had been seeking up to 10 beds for clients, including those with mental or physical disabilities. But 22 neighbors appealed the decision to the council, citing concerns about parking, traffic congestion and other issues.

A Granada Hills woman who pleaded no contest in September to operating an unlicensed board-and-care facility must spend a year in jail, following a judge's finding that she violated the terms of her probation, according to the Los Angeles city attorney's office. Margaret McClay Garnett, 45, was sentenced Wednesday by Los Angeles Municipal Judge Keith Schwartz, who also presided at Garnett's Dec. 17 probation hearing, City Atty. Jim Hahn said in a statement.

Charging that the owners had mistreated elderly residents--and in one case tied a woman into her bed--state officials Friday ordered the closure of two board-and-care homes in Cypress. State Department of Social Services workers oversaw the closing of the Cypress Residential Care Home, 4587 Lemon Circle, and the Cypress Residential Care II facility, 8705 La Salle St. Both homes will remain closed pending a hearing before an administrative law judge, state investigators said.

State Department of Social Services officials say that most of the state's 4,497 board-and-care homes are in good standing, despite the media spotlight on the troubled Dahlia Gardens Guest Home in El Monte. State officials and others who work with the mentally ill offered these suggestions for families who want to get information on board-and-care homes: * Check state licensing reports. Call the state office a couple of days ahead so the report will be ready when you arrive.

A 67-year-old man was killed Thursday and four other people "who looked to be in their 70s or 80s" were hospitalized after fire swept through what neighbors said was a home where elderly people were cared for in South-Central Los Angeles, authorities said. Neighbors said they had not seen anyone come or go "in years" from the ramshackle house in the 9600 block of Laurel Avenue in an unincorporated area near Watts. "It was very pitiful," said Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Samuel Hernandez.

Two people died in a fire that ravaged a board-and-care home early Saturday, according to fire officials. A woman who suffered smoke inhalation died at a nearby hospital and a man was killed when the second-floor ceiling collapsed in the fire, Assistant Fire Chief Don Matthews said. The Alameda County coroner's office did not immediately release the names of the victims pending notification of relatives.

The city will pay $20 million to a woman and her son who won a lawsuit against the municipality two years ago for obstructing their efforts to open boarding homes for Alzheimer's patients in high-end neighborhoods, officials announced Thursday. The award is the largest single payout in the city's legal history, City Atty. Robert E. Shannon said.

A therapist who ran a group home for the mentally ill was sentenced in Wichita to 30 years in prison for enslaving its residents, forcing them to work naked and making them perform sex acts. His wife received seven years behind bars. Arlan Kaufman, 69, and his wife, Linda, were convicted in November on charges that included healthcare fraud, forced labor and involuntary servitude. "You are an arrogant individual. You don't recognize what you have done is wrong," U.S.

Los Angeles County officials are seeking to shut down an allegedly illegal boardinghouse in Lennox, where they say mental patients -- often recruited from skid row or dropped off by hospitals -- have been housed in cramped and filthy quarters and subjected, in at least one recent case, to physical abuse. Last month, a night manager at Serenity House allegedly struck a resident on the head three times with a hammer, according to a Jan.

A Riverside County care facility for developmentally disabled children was cited for alleged abuse by the state health department Wednesday after an investigation of a resident's death in 2004. Baker House in Pedley received "A" and "AA," citations, the latter being the most severe under state law, for the death of a resident and the injury of another, both on May 5, 2004. The citations carry a combined fine of $35,000.

Deciding a claim of "not-in-my-backyard" discrimination, a federal jury has awarded $22.5 million to a woman and her son who accused the city of Long Beach of obstructing their efforts to open boarding homes for Alzheimer's patients during the early 1990s.

A late-night fire sparked by a portable heater at a Torrance board-and-care home killed two residents and critically burned a third, authorities said Monday. A fourth resident was hoisted by the waist and carried to safety by neighbor Ken Roberts, who heard screams about 11 p.m. Sunday and rushed across a cul-de-sac to the Anchor Guest Home on Fonthill Avenue.

On the surface, the sprawling ranch-style home at 32641 Mediterranean Drive blends nicely into the Monarch Bay Terrace neighborhood. Strings of Christmas lights line the rooftops. Through a dense hedge and iron gates, one can get a glimpse of the sparkling waters of a swimming pool in the private courtyard. And, as is the case at nearly every other house in "the terrace," the grounds radiate the grooming of an attentive gardener.

They may be cluttered and less than pristine, but Darryl Cannady considers his two boardinghouses in Echo Park a last-chance refuge for mentally ill patients who would otherwise be on the streets. Los Angeles County mental health officials have described the conditions in court documents as "horrible and illegal," citing filthy mattresses and bathrooms, overcrowding and medications stored "randomly" in the open.

At least five mentally ill residents of an unlicensed boarding house in Rosemead died this year, two of them after Los Angeles County authorities found "deplorable living conditions" at the home in March and attempted to shut it. The county coroner determined that three of the residents died of morphine overdose, although other medications played a role in two of the deaths. The fourth patient died of bleeding in the brain, and the fifth from still-undetermined causes.