Getting Old

Hopefully we are all getting older and one of my concerns and many other LGBTQ people is how we are treated in senior care and housing facilities.

AFTER FACING VIOLENCE IN HER SENIOR LIVING HOME, LGBT WOMAN GOES TO COURT
Medill Reports
By Colleen Zewe
December 11, 2018

After grieving the loss of her partner of 30 years, Marsha Wetzel, 70, moved into Glen St. Andrew Living Community, a senior housing facility in Niles in November 2014.

Wetzel signed a tenant agreement that guaranteed her three meals a day, laundry services and access to a community room. It also asked that she refrain from “activity that [St. Andrew] determines unreasonably interferes with the peaceful use and enjoyment of the community by other tenants” or that is “a direct threat to the health and safety of other individuals.” All other residents signed a similar agreement, binding them to this code of conduct.

Wetzel, who identifies as lesbian, was open about her sexuality with staff and residents. But instead of a warm welcome, she received hostility, she said. Other tenants called her derogatory slurs and made violent threats against her and these threats soon became reality, as other tenants spit at her and struck her in the head.
[…]
In a video produced by Wetzel’s legal group, Lambda Legal, she describes the parallels between the harassment she experienced early in life and what happened in the home.
[…]
Wetzel reported the abuse to staff, but court documents indicate that staff “dismissed the conduct as accidental, denied Wetzel’s accounts and branded her a liar.”

“When is it going to stop?” Wetzel said in the video. “I look out the window and there’s a cemetery there. That’s when I’ll stop being made fun of because I’m gay.”

So off to court she went, strike 1.

Wetzel filed a lawsuit against St. Andrew in July 2016, claiming they had broken the Fair Housing Act and failed to protect her from harassment. St. Andrew’s legal team argued that the home did not discriminate against Wetzel and instead offered medical care after Wetzel said she was pushed from behind while on her scooter. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois accepted St. Andrew’s argument that the staff did not discriminate, and the case was dismissed.

The pitch… and she gets on First Base.

Nevertheless, Wetzel filed for appeal, and in August, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago reversed the district court’s dismissal. The Court found that after Wetzel complained about harassment, St. Andrew staff began to treat Wetzel unfavorably by relegating her to a smaller dining room and banning her from the lobby except to get coffee. These actions violated a tenant agreement Wetzel signed upon her arrival at St. Andrew.

Her court date is November 2019.

It is not just long term care facilities that we fear but also home care, senior centers, and short term nursing homes.

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In January I am meeting with the Connecticut State Unit On Aging & Long Term Care so I am looking for your input…

What are your concerns as you get older?

Please leave your comments it will help shape the future of senior care here in Connecticut.