By If submitting electronically, please copy the text below, and we encourage you to add your personal stories and perspective to it. If submitting by mail you can DOWNLOAD A WORD FILE to edit and print out.
Your support letter can be uploaded using the Position Letter Portal at https://calegislation.lc.ca.gov/Advocates/. You will have to create an account if you do not already have one.
Dr. Jasmeet Bains, Chair
Assembly Committee on Aging & Long-Term Care
1020 N Street, Rm. 153
Sacramento, California 95814
sent via CA Legislature Position Letter Portal
RE: AB 1309 (Gómez Reyes) – Support
Dear Chairperson Bains:
I write to you in support of AB 1309, a bill that would curtail the epidemic of unsafe evictions from California nursing homes.
Nursing home evictions are typically haphazard, inappropriate, and dangerous. When residents’ lucrative Medicare coverage ends, often days or weeks after their admission, facilities have enormous financial incentives to evict them in favor of new residents with fresh Medicare coverage. Evictions are closely tied to profitability which is why residents are often rushed home with inadequate care or sent to motels or homeless shelters.
Bad evictions have long been one of the most common complaints filed against nursing homes. In recent years, the problem of illegal evictions has been reported by local and national media and federal government oversight agencies and has led to several noteworthy lawsuits filed by state and local prosecutors.
Under current law, nursing homes need only check a box on an eviction notice to justify its reason for an eviction. There is no requirement to provide any details to support its reasoning. In Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly (RCFEs), eviction notices must include “specific facts to permit determination of the date, place, witnesses, and circumstances concerning” the reason for discharge. Nursing home residents do not get this information and are thus significantly hampered in their ability to fight their eviction.
AB 1309 would require nursing homes to include the same level of detail to justify a resident eviction that is required of RCFEs. Requiring this additional information will enable residents to better defend against inappropriate and unsafe evictions on appeal. Nursing homes are already required to comprehensively document their basis for evicting residents; AB 1309 requires that the facilities share some of this information with the residents.
Please vote yes on AB 1309.
Sincerely,
[Your name]