Do They Protect, Really?

Multnomah County Adult Protective Services:
Do They Protect, Really?
By Ann Lambert

“I’ve been there for Bob, off and on for several years now” said Adult Protective Services caseworker Sheila Robinson, who is paid to protect the elderly and disabled for Multnomah County, her office is in the Aging and Disabilities office, on southeast Belmont St., just a few blocks away. This is an account of what I have witnessed personally, in the last 5 years that I have been here.

Oddly, during the same time period that Ms. Robinson says she was on guard, the basement of Bob’s house had been turned into a meth lab, the garage had been “remodeled” illegally, to turn the rear portion into a 24-hour drug store, ran by a convicted felon who was selling meth as fast as customers could get there with cash or something to trade. Before that, customers would walk between the houses and knock on a window for service. There were homeless people camped in every corner where trash could be pushed far enough aside for them to huddle and sleep. It’s hard to tell whether the condition of the house was the result of neglect, or a product of some of the homeless squatters’ attempts to “fix” things to suit themselves. Clearly, they were in charge and did whatever they wanted to.

The alcoholic/drug abuser named John Michael Madden, who had claimed ownership of the basement, had done so by threatening Bob, the elderly gentleman who actually owns the property. Every time Mr. Madden was denied whatever he wanted, he called the Portland Police and reported a meth lab (which was long gone by then) or reported some of the damage he himself had done to the property. It is said that Mr. Madden intentionally kept the basement fashioned after a landfill so that “nobody else could stand to live down there.” If nothing else, the smell of urine and human feces made this statement true.

During this same period of time when an APS case worker was “on guard”, another resident, Barry Bogh, was collecting some sort of disability allotment for his mental health issues, which paid his monthly expenses here. He had his own case worker and lived here for about 6 years, in which it appears nobody questioned his living conditions. In one incident, Mr. Madden was witnessed mentally intimidating this mentally handicapped gentleman. Mr. Bogh also suffered a fall and a compound fracture as a result of tripping on trash that lined the darkened hallway outside his room.

One might think that a strong presence from the Portland Police would be an indication that things were about to change---that was not so in this case. Sure, Portland Police came in quite often, sometimes without waiting for an invitation, to run warrant checks on everyone present and take those with warrants to jail. What was never revealed was that while police were in the house, they knew what the conditions were, but they harassed the victimized owner more than they did the unwanted guests who had taken up squatting rights. They called the elderly homeowner names, and spent most of their time watching from a distance and waiting to hopefully declare the property a nuisance. It was a Portland Police officer who once proclaimed that “we don’t want your kind in the neighborhood.” They were not referring to the homeless, they were referring to Bob.

The Portland Police were never there to help the elderly gentleman. This became crystal clear when Bob had called Portland Police to serve a restraining order he had gotten against Mr. Madden. Madden was gone when the Multnomah County Sheriff came to serve it, initially, and it was noted that the situation was serious, so it was recommended that Bob call on the Portland Police to serve the order as soon as Madden returned. What an experience that was… The records are public information, available to anyone who wishes to review them, and requests them. When Portland’s finest finally showed up, they argued with Bob about serving the restraining order. They told him they didn’t have a copy of it, so Bob offered them his. Then they told him that they thought the order could be a fake, and said they had no way to tell if it was real. They were reminded that Multnomah County had entered the information into their system, and would probably share that information with Portland Police. Portland Police served the order only as a last resort, when they ran out of excuses for why they couldn’t. The last thing Portland Police said to Bob that day, April 21, 2006, was “don’t call us if you need help anytime soon.” That retort has held true to this very day.

Portland Police never took any action against any abusive persons who threatened their elderly host---in fact, they made informants against the homeowner out of them. Those informants would later use their new status with PPB to harass the elderly gentleman, after he had forced them out of his home. To be fair, the Portland Police did respond to calls for vengeance---by harassing the elderly man, on no more than the word of their new informants, who were also former residents.

The City of Portland got to join the party also. Their building code enforcement representatives were only too happy to hand Bob code violations for the illegal modifications to his garage, and fine him a total of more than $2300 for it. What they failed to mention, is that every dollar paid for the homeless guests handiwork, was levied against him illegally, for a code violation that did not exist. Even once it was corrected, it took City Inspectors over 2 months to inspect and pass the corrections, as the homeowners pay until the violation is inspected, no matter how long it takes to get that inspection done. In this case, the City claimed an additional $400 they should not have, for simply taking their time to do their job. Again, the homeowner picks up the tab for their mistakes.

The original paperwork issued with the original permit to correct the garage violation, combined with aerial photographs, shows that the violation as it was originally written, could not have physically existed. You can’t put a watermelon in a banana skin, and that is exactly what the City of Portland did---and made the elderly homeowner pay for it. The City of Portland also took about $500 for a sidewalk repair. There was one square that was 1/8 of an inch high, so they had their contracted help replace 5 squares to compensate, at the homeowner’s expense of course. They did this despite the fact that there was already a contractor hired to do it. The City said they were “in the neighborhood” so it had to be done that day, by their contractor.

Of course, no one would expect a protective agency to protect their client from another abusive agency, as that would have defeated the whole purpose of these experiences. From the very beginning, each of these agencies worked cooperatively, with the end result being to force this elderly property owner off of his inherited property--- it just didn’t happen as easily as planned.

Fast-Forward To The Protective Services of Today…

Sheila Robinson is still “on guard”. Today, she has a more active role to play than she has had over the last few years, on and off. Today, she has been instrumental in forcing her elderly client off of his property.

At first, it appeared that she was going to do her job and protect her client from what seemed to be an attack on his assets. Sheila Robinson, in her capacity as Adult Protective Services case worker, requested confidential, financial documents pertaining to her client’s assets, to protect him from fraud. She said that by getting a professional fiduciary appointed by the court, we could cut off third party access to his property and bank account, thus, saving his assets. She never mentioned that the professional fiduciary did not get appointed to protect her client, but instead, petitioned the court to probate his parent’s estate without the knowledge or informed consent of the only heir---her client Bob.

Apparently, one document that Sheila Robinson obtained, a ten year old affidavit from probate, alerted the fiduciary to a legal loophole that is now being exploited, in order to rob the elderly gentleman of his inheritance. The property was never actually put into his name during probate, so they claim that he really doesn’t own it, per se. This may never have been discovered had it not been for Sheila Robinson’s diligent protection of her client’s rights, and then subsequently, her turning over confidential documents that she was entrusted with, to a third party with something to gain from that information, but who was never, at any time, assisting her client.

Adult Protective Services, as part of the Aging and Disabilities office for Multnomah County used to have a Portland Police Bureau detective assigned to them, for the express purpose of investigating abuses of the elderly when reports were made. Apparently, budget cuts have caused the detective that once championed our elderly to be reassigned , to an arguably more effective duty within the Bureau. As it is now, case workers who still have no more authority to investigate fraud against their clients than they had before, are shouldering the burden. It is a well established fact that crimes committed against the elderly is on the rise, and has been more prevalent in the last few years. This was not the best time to remove what little protections some of our elderly citizens have had.

If the City of Portland does not respect the rights of elderly property owners, and the Portland Police do not respond to protect them, even when called, and the Multnomah County Adult Protective Services case workers assigned to protect the interests of the elderly and disabled do not have the authority to protect their clients, absent the cooperation of The Bureau of Police---who does protect our elderly citizens from being victimized?

It looks to me like “open season” has been declared upon a vulnerable population, and not even a fox is guarding this hen house.

Ann Lambert, on behalf of Robert W. Lursen
An Elderly Southeast Portland Resident