CALCRA News
California Continuing Care RESIDENTS Association
Volume X, Issue 1I
Summer 2015
Bob Thompson Chooses “Freedom”
by Walt Rozett, Past President and Vice President
Resident of University Retirement Community at Davis
Editor's Note: 2015 marks
CALCRA's 20th anniversary! This
is the second of a series of articles
by Walt Rozett to celebrate and
commemorate the occasion.
Last December Bob Thompson
retired from his position as
attorney for the Continuing Care
Contracts Branch (CCCB) of the
Department of Social Services
(DSS). Those of you who have
had contact with him over the
years understand that he is
knowledgeable and a great
communicator. With his experience dealing with
continuing care retirement communities and at a
young sixty years of age there were many
opportunities for him to continue his career after his
retirement. He had a number of offers and ultimately
decided to join Freedom Properties, the for-profit
provider of Freedom Village in Lake Forest and The
Village at Hemet.
Bob’s education includes two law degrees and an
MBA. He was with several law firms prior to joining
DSS where he worked for two years handling a large
backlog of cases involving abused children and
seniors. When he completed that task and was
preparing to leave, DSS offered him the CCCB
position since it related well with his legal and
business background. He accepted, and that
assignment lasted twenty years.
At Freedom Properties, Bob is now chief operating
officer working with Tom Stringer, a partner and chief
executive officer of the organization. They are well
suited to each other because of their years in the
business and, more importantly, for their true
integrity.
Freedom Properties operates in
a manner that resonates with
CALCRA’s mission to enhance the
financial security and quality of life
of CCRC residents. They have no
debt and the residents have a first
lien on the property. Management
communicates with and listens to
residents.
I first got to know Bob and Tom
about a dozen years ago when I
became president of CALCRA and
served with them on the
C o n t i n u i ng Ca r e A d vi s o r y
Committee, a working group convened to provide
input to DSS from both residents and providers.
When conflicts arose between the two groups, Bob
and Tom sought to do what was right, not merely
what served the special interests of either the
providers or residents. It has been a privilege and
pleasure to know and work with both of them.
Nominations to CALCRA
Board of Directors
Nominations will be accepted until August 10, 2015
for “at large” members of the Board of Directors. A
description of qualifications and duties of board
members can be found on the CALCRA website
(www.calcra.org). Nominations must be in writing
(email is fine) and include a statement certifying the
nominee meets the qualifications for the position.
CALCRA members may self-nominate, or be
nominated by a sponsor. Please send nominations
to Margaret Griffin at 1515 Shasta Dr., #1401, Davis,
CA 95616; or [email protected].
Visit CALCRA’s website: www.calcra.org
CALCRA is the only organization working solely for the interests of residents of California CCRCs
Page 2
Report on Board Meeting
The semi-annual meeting of the CALCRA board
was convened April 29, 2015 at Freedom Village by
President Margaret Griffin.
Present: Edward DeLaney (St. Paul's Towers),
Charles Greene (Valle Verde), Bob Googins, Casa de
las Campanas, Margaret Griffin (University Retirement
Community), Stefan Moses (The Village at Hemet),
Jacques Peeters, Vi at La Jolla, Walt Rozett (University
Retirement Community), Linda Saunders (Casa
Dorinda), and Len Schneiderman (University Village).
Absent: Karen Robison (Eskaton Village), and Carl
Otto (Channing House)
Minutes of the October 22, 2014 board meeting
were approved, and the interim email vote February
20, 2015 to accept the Treasurer's 2014 Financial
Statements, 2015 Projections, and 2015 Assumptions
was acknowledged.
Treasurer's Report. Linda Saunders presented the
following: 1st Quarter Statement of Income and
Expenses, Statement of
CALCRA
Cash Flow, Balance
1515 Shasta Dr., #1401 Sheet, and Summary;
Forecast of Income and
Davis, CA 95616
Expenses for 2015;
Phone: (530) 747-6471
F o re ca s t
for
20 1 5,
E-Mail:
Projections Notes; Inflation
[email protected]
Predictions, and Quarterly
Income through 4th
Executive Board
Quarter 2014. All were
approved.
Margaret Griffin
Carl Otto submitted a
President
written report for the
Ed Delaney
Governance Committee
Vice President
in absentia.
The
Charles Greene
committee has not met,
Secretary
but will continue to work
on organizing Board
Linda Saunders
d o c u m e n ts
and
an
Treasurer
evaluation process. The
Directors - At - Large report was accepted.
Margaret
Griffin
Bob Googins
reported
for
the
Stefan Moses
Legislation Committee.
Carl Otto
The committee made
Jacques Peeters
three recommendations:
Karen Robison
1) review, with a look to
increasing, the payment to
Walter Rozett
our lobbyist; 2) add to our
Len Schneiderman
list of legislative issues
approved at the October
Byline articles express the 2014 board meeting an
opinions of the authors and item regarding the status
do not necessarily reflect of residents in the event of
those of CALCRA or its bankruptcy; 3) adopt a
Board of Directors.
support position for AB 74,
AB 348, AB 601, and SB 648. The report was accepted.
Bob Googins reported for the Membership
Committee. As the new Chair, Bob is interested in
finding out what strategies have been effective at local
communities. The greatest challenge remains finding a
way to introduce CALCRA to those communities where
we have no members. Bob is interested in developing a
membership kit for use at local CCRCs. His report was
accepted.
Bob Thompson (former staff attorney for the
Continuing Care Contracts Branch of the California
Department of Social Services) was presented with a
plaque recognizing his unique service to the continuing
care industry in California. Bob retired from DSS in
December, and is now Chief Operating Officer for
Freedom Management Company (LLC) which operates
Freedom Village at Lake Forest and The Village at
Hemet. Bob then responded to questions regarding
current issues including: ● Need to review the CCRC
statutes and bring them up to date ● Bob again
acknowledged residents' concerns re: restraining fee
increases. While there doesn't seem to be an easy
solution, one proposal is to cap fees at the rate of a
common index (i.e., CPI or PCE) plus 1%. Bob
underscored that it is important that a person signing a
continuing care contract be able to anticipate future
costs for the life of the contract. ● Implementation of AB
1751 is proceeding with some questions regarding the
options for for-profit operations. ● There are instances
of facilities denying local CALCRA members use of mail
slots to distribute CALCRA material. This would appear
to be in violation of the statutes. ● Regarding the idea
of transferring oversight of CCRCs from DSS to the
Dept of Insurance, Bob pointed out that such a transfer
would result in an emphasis on financial aspects. It was
noted that under such a scenario, quality of life and
service issues would remain under the purview of DSS.
● Once he is settled in his new job, Bob hopes to
continue to be active in the CCRC industry on a
statewide level.
Resident Bulletin Board on CALCRA Website. It
was generally agreed that providing a venue for
residents to post questions and share information would
be pursued.
Next Meeting: October 28 at University Retirement
Community at Davis.
Speakers Available
Members of the board are available to speak at
your community. Contact Margaret Griffin at
[email protected] or (530) 747-6471 for more
information.
Page 3
Entitlements
by Flossie Lewis, resident, Piedmont Gardens
In our Gardens, a modest retirement community,
no longer are we Professor, Doctor, Judge, or C.E.O.
Even Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. Titles have disappeared.
Surnames, too. We are simply Joe or Mary or Syd. A
Miss may be attached to some of our ladies who
exhibit idiosyncratic behavior, but the ladies don’t
seem to mind. They take it as a mark of affection.
Our residents appear not to be uneasy with just
being who they are. Forget what they were. Our
biographies, should any busybody be interested in
the pedigree and accomplishments of a particular
resident are available, enclosed in a handsome
binder in our library that overlooks the local
cemetery. We are not in that cemetery, yet; we are
too well taken care of. But there is sometimes a
murmur that we have been too coddled, infantilized
by management, that we are back in first grade, if not
kindergarten, and yet should someone among
management or, God forbid, one of our own
residents attempt to play teacher, we turn a deaf ear,
or we shoot him down. More likely her. The lasses
outnumber the lads two to one. Most of us are
comfortable with this simulacrum of equality. We
address our executive directors by their first names,
unashamed even, to show them affection, should
they need it, for we have several ways to
demonstrate our smarts, without portfolio. It doesn’t
diminish us to hug our directors. They have their
credentials. We have ours. We know who we are.
Well, maybe.
What does distinguish us are those times when we
don’t know who we are, because we have been
forced by circumstance to forget who we were. I am
not speaking of dementia. Nor am I speaking of
those times when telephone solicitors greet us with
the hysteria of a long lost relative, and call us by our
first names. And we want to strangle them instead of
pitying them, reminding them haughtily that we are a
Mr. or a Mrs. or a Ms. The test of who we really are,
occurs when someone who does not know our
name, certainly not our titles, treats us with disdain or
even contempt because for a moment we are down
and out and look it.
I was in a nursing home. It was close to where I
lived. My stay, I believed, would be short, so I did not
bring enough clothes. I hung out in a hospital gown
secured by a safety pin. I looked a mess and felt
worse. Thus attired, I waited on a line of equally
bedraggled clientele—or so I thought—to be called
into the gym for a physical therapy session. It was
first come-first served. “Who’s next?” the therapist
asked, as he stepped out of the gym. A poorlytrained nursing assistant pointed me out with a
gesture of consummate contempt. “That One,” she
said as she looked down at her shoes.
I hit the ceiling.
“That one?” I exploded! “That one is Mrs. Lewis,
Dr. Lewis!” I threw out a few more credits to my
name as I almost fell leaning over my walker. I blew
my stack. She was not impressed. She thought I was
shit. So did I. But she didn’t know better. I did. If I
were really entitled to my titles, I might have
reminded her that I needed her help as well as her
sympathy. I might have suggested that she would not
like me to refer to her as “that one.” But I had
become someone who had to call up her titles to
hide her shame, because she hadn’t bothered to pull
some kind of robe over her hospital gown. And those
titles didn’t work. She had judged me for my
shabbiness, my dishevelment. And I judged her
immediately for her ignorance and her poverty of
spirit. Only I had a vocabulary to give voice to my
contempt. I too had been raised in poverty, where
survival came first, but life had given me a chance to
remake myself. It hadn’t done as much for her.
It is good that titles have disappeared from our
Gardens. For many of us are fairly close to needing
help from people who have not enjoyed the
privileges to which we have grown accustomed. Our
families may be far away or have other lives to lead.
We have to reckon with who we are, not who we
were, as we come to rely on the kindness of
strangers, who don’t give a hoot who we were but
may respect who we are.
Are Your Dues Overdue?
The CALCRA membership year runs from January
– December. To find out if you are paid up, look at
your mailing address on this newsletter. Following
your name is a four-digit number. This is the year for
which you have paid (e.g., 2015). If it doesn't say
2015, and you haven't submitted your membership
renewal in the last couple of weeks, YOUR DUES
FOR 2015 ARE NOW DUE. Payments ($25 for an
individual, $35 for a couple) may be sent to Al Hale,
1515 Shasta Dr., #4104, Davis, CA 95616.
Contributions in addition to dues are always
welcome!
CALCRA needs you and you need CALCRA.
Page 4
Legislative Update
This year CALCRA is sponsoring SB 475
(Monning). This bill is intended to address problems
that have arisen with the repayment of funds due on
resale of a resident's unit.
Many CCRCs offer contracts that provide for the
repayment of a certain percentage of the entrance
fee when the resident dies or moves out, conditioned
upon the resale of that unit. Unfortunately this
repayment has not always gone through without a
hitch. For example, one provider had not paid
$530,600 to the estate of a resident who died more
than three years earlier because the refund is
conditioned upon resale of the unit and it had not
been sold. In another example, a deceased CCRC
resident’s estate has continued to pay a monthly
maintenance fee of $4,161 for a unit that has been
unoccupied for almost a year.
Residents may be attracted to these types of
contracts because they want to leave an asset in
their estate for their heirs. Instead, residents would
be appalled if they knew that these funds would
remain tied up for years and the value of their assets
drained by ongoing maintenance charges. Imagine
being the executor of an estate and unable to close
probate because this repayment was still pending.
On April 29, SB 475 passed its first hearing before
the Senate Human Services Committee; it passed off
the floor of the Senate on May 14. It now heads to
the Assembly where the next step will be a hearing
to be scheduled before the Long-Term Care & Aging
Services Committee. The current version of the bill
can be viewed at www.leginfo.ca.gov. Click on “Bill
Information” and enter “SB 475” in the search box.
Click on the bill number again, and you will see links
to several pieces of information including the text of
the bill and any amendments.
It is not too late to register your support for this
important legislation. Correspondence should be
addressed to the author: Senator Bill Monning, State
Capitol Room 313 Sacramento, CA 95814; fax (916)
651-4917. Emails should be sent to Monning's staff
person who is coordinating efforts on this bill for his
office: [email protected].
Correction
The Spring issue of CALCRA News contained a
Letter to the Editor attributed to Dr. Bernard Richter.
The correct name of the author is Dr. Burton Richter.
We apologize to Dr. Richter for the error, and thank
him for sharing his thoughts on the topic of residents
as voting members of provider boards.
WWW.CALCRA.ORG
We’re on the Web!!!
Davis, CA 95616
1515 Shasta Dr., #1401
California Continuing Care Residents
Association, Inc.
CALCRA