Elderly often face neglect in California care homes that exploit workers
In her final months, Elaine Geslicki, a bedridden dementia resident at a home for seniors in the Los Angeles area, had difficulty communicating. But by the time the owner of Court Yard Estates sent her to the hospital in an ambulance, the severe pressure sores and bite marks from rats gnawing on her flesh spoke for themselves.
“It was negligent and preventable,” said Jasper Muñoz, a former caregiver who worked at the home for eight months through May 2017. When he complained that the number of rats in the home was out of control – about a year before Geslicki died – he said the care home’s operator, Dimitri Zafiris, just laughed and said: “Why don’t you just feed the rats?”
Zafiris later would face elder abuse charges related to Geslicki’s case and would be accused of wage theft by some of his care-home employees, who say they are owed more than $221,000. Zafiris is not the only care-home owner cited for mistreating seniors as well as workers.
Our latest investigation found that some operators of senior board-and-care homes that violate labor laws and steal workers’ wages – previously exposed by Reveal – often also endanger or neglect their residents, sometimes with dire consequences.
We analyzed thousands of licensing records and hundreds of U.S. Department of Labor cases in California and conducted two dozen interviews with workers, residents and their family members.
Read the full story here.
And catch up on our original investigations:
- Listen: The unpaid cost of elder care
- Read: Elder care homes rake in profits as legions of workers earn a pittance for long hours of care
- Read: California regulators aren’t taking action against care homes that ignore wage theft judgments
- Watch: “I feel worse than animals” – caregivers tell their stories
- Data: Search labor violations at care facilities
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America's drug war, revealed
This week, we’re revisiting an episode from Marketplace’s wealth and poverty team and their show, “The Uncertain Hour.”
In 1989, President George H. W. Bush did his first televised broadcast, speaking directly to the nation about an issue he believed was the gravest domestic threat to America: drugs. Specifically, crack cocaine. In the speech, Bush pulled a baggie of crack out of his desk as a prop, saying it had been seized from Lafayette Park, right across the street from the White House.
This is the story of how that baggie of crack played into the War on Drugs, and how those policies are still affecting people today.
Hear the episode.
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Fact-based journalism is worth fighting for.
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Documents show: Forwarding this email to a friend will help you stay alert.
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