On July 15, we held a protest/ press conference in front of the property. Here are my remarks:
PURPOSE
The Board of
Directors of the Tenants’ Association (LIV TA) at Legacy at Imperial Village is
holding this press conference today to present our public indictment of LIV
owners for crimes against the elderly.
As you are not doubt aware, elderliness is a protected class in the
Commonwealth of Virginia.
INTRODUCTION
Neglect and
abuse of the elderly is not new. In 44
BCE, Cicero stated: “Old age will only be respected if it fights for
itself, maintains its rights … and asserts control over its own to its last
breath.”
And in the 20th century, Pearl S. Buck, author of The Good
Earth said, “Our
society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or
be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares
for its helpless members.”
GENERAL ALLEGATIONS
Since the
facility was sold two years ago, the habitability of the facility has
plummeted. The same management team is
in place; however, the management team is obviously not empowered to make
decisions that affect the tenants in a timely and efficient manner.
COUNT 1
Most
recently (June) our restaurant was closed until further notice. Many of our tenants depended on the
restaurant for their meals. The most
recent target date to reopen with a new vendor is August 1. The kitchen must be cleaned and
sanitized. I recently toured the
restaurant kitchen and cleanliness was nonexistent. Some equipment does not work. The most recent inspection, a follow-up
inspection on May 24 by the Health Department, showed that everything had been
corrected except for one light over the sink.
The pictures in your packet will show that between May 24th
and the first of June when the restaurant was closed, there was no way the
kitchen would have passed the State DOH Inspection.
COUNT 2
From June 30
through July 8, there was sporadic or no air conditioning at the facility. Temperatures were well over 90 degrees in the
apartments, hallways, and common areas. The
heat index was at least 100 degrees. There
is a plethora of health issues in this facility that are impacted by the
heat. We have people with epilepsy,
breathing issues, MS, heart conditions, etc.
Dehydration is also a factor.
COUNT 3
Our laundry
facilities are almost nonexistent. A
study by the TA Board was sent to management on November 7, 2022, outlining the
industry standard for the number of washers and dryers needed in each
building. This problem dates back two
years. I was promised that washers and
dryers would be installed by a vendor by July 1. If a vendor could not be found, management
would go out and purchase sufficient washers and dryers. That still has not come
to fruition. A recent update from one manager
said that the contract with a vendor had finally been signed by Corporate in
New Jersey, but no date has been set in concrete. An email from his boss stated that the owners
wanted more bids.
COUNT 4
The facility
was infested with roaches and bed bugs. The roaches are fairly under
control. However, the bedbug treatment
involves a process. The last step in the treatment process is for tenants to
take their linens and clothing to the laundry room and run them through the
dryers to eliminate any lingering pests.
This is next to impossible due to the lack of dryers. Tenants are up all hours of the night taking
their laundry to other buildings to get their laundry done.
COUNT 5
Security has
been eliminated, and as a result, crime in the facility is up. Drug deals are being made in the garages and
laundry rooms, as well as in apartments.
Tenants are drunk all over the place, abusive to their neighbors. Tenants are being assaulted and robbed. Just last night police were here again
because of a drunken woman, who is drunk every day screaming and swearing at
other tenants. Management tells us to
call the police; police tell us to contact management.
Just
yesterday, I got a report of squatters in D building. I went over to check it out. I grabbed one of the maintenance men who was
on the first floor. We went up and the
lock was broken on the door. The place
was full of trash and clothes. The
bathrooms and kitchen were filthy.
Management was not aware of the squatters until our maintenance man told
him.
COUNT 6
The bank is
gone. All that is left is an ATM that
charges $6.99 for cash.
The pharmacy
is gone. A third-party health care
vendor has been brought in to handle prescriptions and health care.
COUNT 8
Courtesy
buses to shopping centers were reduced from four days per week to one day per
week, and from free to $7 per trip.
COUNT 9
Medical
buses have been eliminated. Tenants must
use outside services.
COUNT 10
Key staff of
the facility has decreased by approximately one half. The Maintenance Director just resigned last
week; the assistant director, a plumber, just gave his two-week notice. That leaves two maintenance men, and a boiler
technician to handle maintenance; there is a part-time college student to
handle odds and ends. He will be leaving
soon. Other support staff have been let
go or had hours cut, as well.
The
cleanliness of the facility has declined.
For a while, garbage was piling up in the trash rooms. This has improved. The garages are filthy. Dirt is tracked into apartments making the
carpets disgusting. The laundry rooms
are dirty. Our best housekeeper was let
go; the second best, who had been here almost 25 years, quit in protest. A third-party vendor has been hired to clean
the facility and is working diligently to catch up.
COUNT 12
The Tenant’s
Association has been forced to take over the responsibility of feeding the
tenants via LIV Tenants Association Food Bank and distribution of soup and
sandwiches for those who depended on the restaurant for their meals. The Bingo
Committee has also begun feeding tenants at Bingo and collecting nonperishable
food items for the food bank. We are
also receiving donations from churches. The
Food Bank will continue to disburse food two days per week, but the soup and
sandwich distribution ends today.
COUNT 13
The Tenant’s
Association has also taken over the USPS package delivery for the facility to
ensure tenants receive their medications, most of whom are veterans, and to
make sure tenants’ packages are not stolen.
This service was discontinued by Management a few months ago.
COUNT 14
Elevators in
2 buildings are down. One has been down
for at least 2 months--the part has been ordered according to management. The other elevator has been down for two
weeks. The doors are bent and must be
replaced or removed to get straightened.
We recently advised Management that the one working elevator in B
building sounds like it is about to die.
They said they would have Otis check it out. Three buildings have nine floors; one
building has 13 floors. If both
elevators are out, we are in trouble.
Most of the tenants depend on walkers and power chairs for mobility. Plus, emergency personnel would have to use
stairs to respond. Emergency personnel
are a constant here.
COUNT 15
People who
moved in in November still do not have window blinds. They are “On order.” For eight months?
Fire
Extinguishers in the halls have not been examined in 4 months. This is required by state law to be done monthly. This was scheduled to begin July 10 per
management.
COUNT 17
Smoke
detectors are off the walls in many apartments and not working. Maintenance is working on them as they get to
them. Smoke detectors were not
maintained due to lack of batteries. Management
was advised on January 12th of the law. This should have been a priority. Six months later it is not completed. I recently had a tenant tell me she had her battery
replaced in her smoke detector, and an hour later it began “chirping.” The battery was bad.
COUNT 18
Filters in
A/C and heating units are being replaced by Maintenance as they can get to
them. They were out of filters – again,
“On order.” My filter had not been changed
in over three years. Heating/air
conditioning units are leaking and flooding apartments. One tenant’s ceiling in her bathroom fell
in. They fixed the ceiling but not the
leak that caused it. Six weeks later,
this is still being worked on. She had
to go to her son’s to get a shower. She
was without a shower for four days.
COUNT 19
Cable and
internet are not working in some apartments.
The cable is included in the rent.
The Internet is paid for by tenants.
I was told to scan the channels.
I did this three times; a friend did it three times; and an employee did
it twice. I asked that Direct TV come
out to fix it. To date, this has not
happened.
COUNT 20
Smoke doors are
not working properly. The Fire Marshall recently inspected the facility and
items had to be removed from the garages and stored somewhere else.
COUNT 21
The owners
sold a piece of land on this property to themselves and hired a developer to
build an income-based housing project next to LIV. Construction is due to begin in 2024 and be
completed in 2025. I was aware of this
project before the management team was advised.
Obviously, the owners are not communicating with Management.
COUNT 22
Every toilet
in the facility was replaced without making sure the plumbing was maintained. The plumbing leaks like a sieve, so all the
water saved by the new toilets goes “down the toilet” when the pipes break or
leak. On Christmas Eve, 2022, we had a
flood in one of the garages. This has
been nicknamed “The nightmare before Christmas.” That same night, the sprinkler system in
another building went off, flooding the garage.
A leak in one apartment can result in leaks all the way down to the
first floor due to the way the plumbing is installed. When we have heavy rain, the garages are
flooded. Just this past Tuesday night, a
pipe broke, flooding one of the garages.
The water came from the chiller that keeps the air conditioning running.
COUNT 23
Preventive
maintenance has been non-existent for at least the past two years. Parts for showers are “on order.” Air filters, batteries, and valves for the
showers are always “on order.” Even
trash can liners are “on order.”
COUNT 24
When the
owners first bought the facility, they evicted everyone in the assisted living
facility. It has been remodeled and is
quite nice. However, they used the
improvements for refinancing and now the lender will not approve the opening of
the facility. Thousands and thousands of
dollars were used for this project and there is no Return on Investment. That money would have been of better use
fixing the plumbing infrastructure or the chillers and pumps. From what I’ve been told, there are no
back-up chillers or pumps.
COUNT 25
Since December
2019, per SCC records, Brentwood Investment Group of Lakewood, New Jersey, the
owners, have purchased almost 30 properties throughout the Commonwealth. There is a list in your press packet. Our concern is whether the other facilities
they own are in the same shape as this one.
EFFORTS ON THE PART OF THE TENANTS’
ASSOCIATION
Prior to
December 2022, we did not have a Tenants’ Association. We merely had a Resident Council, whose main
function was to raise funds for the facility’s employees’ Christmas bonuses. My
predecessor eliminated that. Under State
law, Resident Councils have no protection under law except in nursing homes and
assisted living facilities. So, in
December, at a Resident’s Association meeting, the tenants voted unanimously to
convert to a Tenants’ Association, which has more protections under the law.
We met with
management on January 12 and discussed the issues that needed their
attention. They were given copies of
laws that were being violated. We
recently sent them the most recent laws affecting tenants that went into effect
on July 1, 2023.
On January
1, 2023, The Tenants’ Association sent a report to several State and City
Officials, as well as the Governor and Senator Ghazala Hashmi. Senator Hashmi visited us in May and will be
working on getting some of our recommendations and those in a 2018 Study by DSS
implemented into the VRLTA. The DSS
study is known as HD6. There are copies
in your press packet, along with the Association’s study.
We have
worked with Management for the past several months to try to get these issues
resolved. While we can understand that
Management has a commitment to those who sign their paychecks, at some point a
moral compass must come into play. The
managers show apartments and do manual labor, in addition to their other
managerial duties. Office staff has been
cut. The maintenance crew is being
worked to death. Industry standard dictates
one maintenance tech for every 100 apartments.
And that is if the apartments are in decent shape. For an older facility such as LIV, the number
of techs should be increased. There are
approximately 800 apartments in the facility.
It should be
noted that we are all pulling double duty. The Tenants’ Association has stepped up to
try to fill in the gaps. The difference
is we are elderly and do not get paychecks; and we wear out faster.
I average at
least eight to 12 hours a day working on these issues, liaising with management,
and interacting with the tenants. And I
work part-time. My Board members are also working on issues, such as delivering
packages and feeding the tenants. We
have monthly Board meetings and monthly Tenants’ Association meetings to keep
everyone informed.
The one
thing the owners did in a timely manner this year was to raise the rent. Rents went down in Richmond by almost 5% last
year. We got fewer services, less
maintenance, and a 3.5 percent rent increase.
Now we are being asked to sign new leases. They are sent digitally. If we want a paper copy, we must pay $15 in cash,
or a check made out to cash because they have to take it to an office supply
store to get it copied due to paper size.
I paid for one. It is legal
size paper. The state code says we are
entitled to a copy of the lease. It does
not state that the landlord can charge for it.
And what is the “cash” thing about?
We are not
sure what the owners’ business plan was or is, other than the “spaghetti
plan.” Throw it against the wall and see
what sticks.
SUMMARY
So today, we
are taking a stand against those who come into the Commonwealth from up North,
gobble up property, put lipstick on a pig and call it a peacock. They call
themselves investors. In 1865, they
would have been called Carpetbaggers.
The one good
thing that has come from all this is the Tenants have come together to support
each other in the community. And that is
why we are here today—to provide a united front. The clothespins we wear are a sign of
solidarity to protest the lack of washers and dryers.
Maryanne
Lee, President of BSA Management, indicated to me in an email that she would be
willing to respond to any questions you may have. I have included her contact information in
the press packet. She also emailed me
late Thursday night indicating that the owners would like to talk to the
Board. I took a vote and the Board voted
to go ahead with the press conference, but they were receptive to talking to
the owners at a later time.
I don’t
think the owners and management realize that the people who live here have
worked and have a breadth of knowledge that is not available anywhere else. We have a man who was a plumber and who
understands the ancient heating and air conditioning system. We have a retired Marine gunnery sergeant who
worked as a manager for DMV for years.
My background is in business and civil rights. We have people who worked in food
service. There are people who are still
working, some for the State. When you
get these people together, it’s amazing the amount of information that is
shared. We are old, but we haven’t lost
our faculties yet.
