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All retirement homes have rules, and sometimes those rules get violated. Things like respect for other retirees, bill paying, and so on all play a crucial role in how long someone can stay in a retirement home. Let’s look at this below.
A resident can be kicked out of a retirement home because of a failure to pay the facility or because they need more help than the facility can provide. In addition, the home may remove them for disrespecting other residents or for being violent and uncooperative.
It can feel overwhelming if your loved one gets the ticket to be removed from a retirement home. Today, we’ll examine why your aging parent may be kicked out of a retirement home and what you can do about it. Let’s get started.
6 Reasons People May Be Removed From Retirement Homes
While retirement homes seem cut and dry, residents must abide by quite a few things to continue living in the facility. The rules are laid out so residents and staff feel respected and safe in their environments.
In addition, retirement homes are built to accommodate only certain conditions. Unfortunately, if your loved one develops a physical or mental issue the retirement home doesn’t cover, residents are nearly guaranteed to be removed.
Finally, there are issues surrounding payment. Unfortunately, no special laws for seniors can guarantee a safe place to live. Seniors, like anyone else, can be removed from their housing due to a lack of payment.
In more detail below, let’s examine why retirement homes may choose to remove seniors.
1. The Resident Became Violent
Violence is strictly prohibited in retirement homes – no exceptions.
Residents may become violent if they feel like the staff or other residents violate their wishes. Many disagreements happen with staff because the resident feels their personal boundaries aren’t respected. Feeling disrespected can cause the resident to lash out at the staff – never a good experience.
They may also show violent behavior if they have too heated of a disagreement. Often, retirees are still full of energy, and that energy has to go somewhere when it turns to anger.
Violent behavior isn’t typically on a striking scale. One incident can, and often does, lead to removal. Usually, violence is dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
2. The Resident Refuses To Cooperate
Retirement homes typically have fairly strict schedules that a resident must abide by. They have designated meal times, alone time, and group time. For many residents, their lives are run by someone else.
The idea of this can be disheartening for the resident. Most people in retirement homes don’t realize how much independence they’ve actually lost. It can come as a hard shock to realize and accept how much help they need and how much of their lives are regulated by someone else.
Before they realize this, it’s not uncommon for residents in retirement homes to be completely uncooperative. A lack of cooperation can lead to the resident’s removal after a few warnings.
Don’t worry, though! In most cases, you can easily solve this problem by moving the person to a different retirement home or another type of care that offers more independence.
3. The Resident Isn’t Obeying Smoking Laws
Smoking is a major fire hazard for any building, including retirement homes. Because residents have their rooms, it’s common for those who smoke to try to get around the designated smoking area rules and light one up in their room or another common area.
However, this puts other residents in danger and jeopardizes the retirement home from a physical and legal standpoint.
Retirement homes almost always have a designated smoking area. Residents can usually enter and exit at will unless they need assistance getting from one location to another. With this in mind, this leaves little excuse for the resident to choose not to use the smoking facilities.
4. The Resident Is Harassing Other Residents
Harassment isn’t just a workplace phenomenon. Harassment is everywhere, including in retirement homes. It can come in a few different types.
Sexual harassment is one of the most common types of harassment. While you may think this doesn’t happen with older adults, it’s more common than you may initially think.
Many older people feel lonely, and this energy sometimes gets taken out as provocative comments or inappropriate touches to other residents or staff.
In addition, harassment can come in the form of disrespect towards another resident. Perhaps the resident is harassing someone else about how they look, a disability they have, or something similar, which causes major issues for everyone involved.
As such, it’s no surprise that a person can easily be removed from a retirement home because of harassment.
5. The Resident Needs More Care Than the Facility Can Provide
Sometimes, the care an individual need goes beyond the capabilities of the retirement home with their current staff. Retirement homes seem to be perpetually short-staffed in many areas, and this can produce limited options that the home can offer.
It’s important to note that retirement homes are specifically designed to house residents that can take care of themselves, for the most part. As such, if the resident needs help with most of their daily activities, it’s advisable to consider assisted living facilities. Do Seniors Always Need an Assessment for Assisted Living?
When a resident needs more care than the facility can provide, they will normally contact the children or other family members of the individual and discuss other options. In these cases, the residents aren’t pushed out immediately. They’re usually given a couple of months for the family to decide what can be done.
6. The Resident’s Living Expenses Aren’t Being Paid
Unfortunately, all businesses need income to survive, even when those businesses are focused on helping other people.
How lenient the retirement home is before the resident is removed varies from home to home. If you’ve built a good relationship and have shown consistency of payments over a long period, they will likely be more lenient.
However, if payments have been frequently missed, the next time might just be the last time a missed payment is accepted.
Retirement homes taking such a hard stance about missed payments can come as quite a shock to you if you’re paying for your loved one to obtain care. You may feel like the retirement home should be more understanding of your situation, and sometimes they will be.
It’s important to remember, however, that ultimately they need finances to survive just as much as you do. For this reason, they have to put their foot down at some point.
The best thing to do in this situation is to try negotiating with the retirement home and see what you can do and how you can continue paying for assisted living.
What You Can Do About Someone Being Kicked Out of a Retirement Home
Unfortunately, once legal notice has been given for removal, there isn’t always much you can do. Depending on the situation you may get your request to keep your loved one at home approved, but it varies depending on the situation.
If notice to leave a retirement home has been given, you’ll usually file an appeal to the retirement home. The process will be different depending on the retirement home.
Some homes have a specific appeal process that you’ll need to follow. For others, you may need to contact the head of the retirement home.
You should be aware that there isn’t a clear process to file an appeal in some places. You’ll often jump from office to office with no clear direction.
Keeping your loved one in a retirement home after the process for removal has begun has plenty of challenges, and the likelihood isn’t enormously high that they will approve them to stay. These are things you should know upfront.
1. Discuss the Notice for Removal
The first thing that will happen is a notice for removal. The retirement home must provide a written notice for the removal to be official, but they may first approach you or your loved one.
Most often, they will come to the family before speaking directly to the resident, especially if the resident is being removed due to violence or because the facility can’t handle the resident’s care.
The office staff may contact you and discuss possible options for the resident. This time frame is your best chance at keeping your loved one in the same retirement home should you decide to do so. You can have a conversation with them about what your options are and what could be done differently.
Sometimes the retirement home will be flexible, and sometimes it won’t. If they’re not flexible, they’ll then provide you with a legal notice for the removal of the resident.
As with any other home, the resident should have about thirty days to vacate the premises, assuming the resident isn’t making major threats to the staff or others living there.
2. A Conversation With the Person in Charge
After notice for removal has been given, the next step is to speak with the person in charge. You may need to do some digging to get in contact with the person who runs the retirement home, but if you ask enough questions, you’ll be able to obtain their contact information.
This conversation can go one of three ways.
- The individual will be allowed to stay at the retirement home. This is the best-case scenario most of the time, but it’s not the most likely outcome. However, there are many times the situation is misunderstood, and a simple conversation can fix the problem.
- The individual will be allowed to stay on probation. This would be a relatively likely outcome if the home decided to remove the individual because they violated the rules. The length and severity of the probation will be highly dependent on the offense.
- The individual will be removed from the retirement home, regardless. The third and most probable outcome is that the individual will still be removed from the home.
If there’s nothing you can work out with the person in charge of the home, and you would like to keep your loved one in this specific home, you’ll want to move forward with an appeal.
3. File an Appeal
If all else fails, it’s time to file an official appeal if this is an option. It may not be an option in every place.
The appeal process will look a bit different for each state, but you should be able to determine how to proceed directly with an appeal from the retirement home. Once an appeal is filed, it may take a month or more for the process to be completed.
Depending on state laws, you may be required to temporarily remove your loved one and bring them back if the appeal is approved. Things may also be kept as is so long as the resident doesn’t threaten the safety of the other residents or staff.
4. Relocate Your Loved One
In the end, even after going through these processes, you may still be required to remove your loved one. While this is frustrating, it won’t be difficult to find another retirement home in most cases.
The exceptions to this will be if your loved one has a history of harassment or violence towards other residents or staff. This background can make it extraordinarily difficult to relocate to a new retirement home.
When this happens, you may need to look at hiring a caregiver to come into the home. Hiring an at-home caregiver is often a huge financial burden, but it might be simpler than finding an appropriate facility.
A home nurse or caregiver is also a great way of keeping your loved one in familiar surroundings.
If hiring an in-home caregiver isn’t an option for your family, there will be other options. However, your loved one may need to go through specific counseling or similar before they are allowed to move into a new retirement home if the removal was due to violence or harassment.
Final Thoughts
People can be kicked out of a retirement home if they don’t follow the home’s rules, become violent, or harass other residents. They may also be removed if the facility cannot adequately provide care for them or if payments have fallen behind.
If notice for removal has been given, you can either have a conversation with the person in charge or sometimes file an appeal. If worst comes to worst, you may need to relocate your loved one to another retirement home or set them up at home with a caregiver.
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