elder abuse in America!
Posted by admin on August 14th, 2010
A significant number of our families who are facing home loss by the agents of lenders are America’s senior citizens; these individuals are the very people who have spent 40 or 50 years working and paying taxes to underwrite our society, including underwriting the recent bank bailouts.
Emotional abuse includes: “Subjecting an individual to fear, isolation or serious emotional distress.”
Few things are worse than losing your home, particularly one you have been in for decades. Emotional abuse also includes “Verbal assaults, threats or intimidation.”
One of Marin Family’s Action’s members (image right) was taken from her home, handcuffed and sent to the county jail. This woman is A 74-year-old California native with degrees in economics and welfare from University of California at Berkeley. No notice was given. Earlier that week her pacemaker was replaced.
When asked what it was like to be in jail, she said she was “stunned as the reality of my circumstance had not yet sunk in.” Because her pacemaker had been replaced earlier that week, stress was to be avoided. Her arms were already bruising from rough handling and handcuffs “All I could do is wait. There is nothing to do, no means to go to the bathroom. I sat handcuffed.” The nurse checked her pulse: 195 over 97, pronounced the pulse rate “okay” and asked if the bruises on Mary’s arms were “needle marks.”
Elder abuse covers several areas. We are working with groups that focus on abuse as relates to one’s home and loss of one’s home through predatory lending, through lack of cooperation with homeowners with regard to loan modifications, home improvement scams, and illegal fees paid to individuals professing to be able to help with home loan modifications or restructures.
The State of California is quite clear on definitions of elder abuse. Their 39-page citizens guide may be important if you or someone in your family is a senior citizen and is being subject to harrassment by lenders — this includes loan modification agreements that are ignored by lenders and lenders’ agents.
Financial Elder Abuse: Financial abuse is the theft or embezzlement of money or any other property from an elder. It can be as simple as taking money from a wallet and as complex as manipuating a victim into turning over property to an abuser.
This form of abuse can be devastating because an elder victim’s life savings can disappear in the blink of an eye, leaving them unable to provide for their needs and afraid of what an uncertain tomorrow will bring.
California has designated $25 million to help senior individuals for elder abuse:
Anyone age 65 or older, who is suspected of being abused or neglected, is eligible for APS without regard to income. If you suspect that an elderly or dependent adult is being abused or neglected, call your local adult protective services.
America’s working men, women — and often children — shaped this country into the great place that it is (was?).
Why aren’t we being protected? How did we become “the enemy” and “inconvenient?”
We are being “internally displaced” (meaning having to move within our own country) and our displacement rivals or exceeds international numbers:
- 2009, Sri Lanka: 300,000 war-displaced Tamils forced into camps;
- 2009, Yemen: 150,000 people fled fighting;
- 2009, Sudan: 250,000 displaced;
- 2009, Georgians: 192,000 displaced (Moscow, Reuters);
- 2008, Columbia: 380,000 forced off their farms by guerillas, paramilitaries or drug traffickers;
- 2008, World: 4.6 million from armed conflicts;
- 2008, World: 20 million displaced because of natural disasters such as flooding, earthquakes and storms.
Unfortunately History Does Repeat Itself
It is time to stand up and be heard.
"If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem." — Eldridge Cleaver
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke
"Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.” — Edmund Burke
From Leo Tolstoy, one of the world’s greatest writers:
"Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us."
"I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means – except by getting off his back."
"If you want to be happy, be."
"In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful."
"In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you."
Tags: elder abuse, Wells money laundering, without due process of law
August 24th, 2010 at 1:12 am
I really wish these endless accounts of elderly abuse would just stop. It is very heart crushing.