Evictions from care home disrupt lives of vulnerable

The owner and operator of the Fulton Rest Home, an independent living facility for men with disabilities in Berkeley, told residents last month they had 60 days to clear out.

Annie Jacob, who has run the facility at 2555 Fulton St., gave residents notice on April 20. They have to be out by June 20.

More than a dozen men live at the home and many, especially those with limited resources, don’t know where they’ll go. And there isn’t an abundance of housing options for them.

Jacob’s attorney, David Finkelstein, said his client sold the property to another party. He wouldn’t say who.

“The house did sell,” he said. “I am very confident in telling you that is has sold.”

Reached by phone Thursday, Jacob said, “I don’t own the building anymore,” before abruptly hanging up.

A private operator of a residential care facility can close the business and evict the tenants with only a 30-day notice, according to Disability Rights California, an advocacy group that runs a website listing tenant rights for people in care homes.

“This unfortunate situation is reflective of the broader challenges in the Bay Area housing market and the general trend of closures of licensed facilities as longtime operators move out of the business,” Robert Ratner, the housing services director for Alameda County Behavioral Health Care Services, wrote in an email to parents and guardians of the Fulton Rest Home residents.

“As long as these sites remain

privately rather than publicly held, there are few restrictions on these types of closures,” Ratner added.

Meghan Gordon, an East Bay Community Law Center attorney who has met with two parents and several residents, said it is unclear whether there is “legitimate legal basis to evict the tenants.”

“We also believe that based on the notice that (the Fulton Rest Home operator has) given, if they were to proceed with an eviction lawsuit, they might have some difficulty prevailing,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a slam dunk.”

The property has a long, college dorm-like hall with rooms — two beds, two chests of drawers, maybe two lamps — on either side of the hallway. It’s near the UC Berkeley campus.

One woman, who requested her name not be printed, said her son has lived at Fulton Rest Home for 18 years. He’s 47 and was diagnosed with schizophrenia as an adolescent.

Her son walks the five blocks from Fulton Rest Home to her apartment almost every day. It’s part of the routine that allows him to maintain a sense of independence. Sometimes he takes a long nap in his childhood room. Sometimes he washes dishes.

“I just feel so grateful, because that’s an amazing thing,” his mother said.

He stays with her every other weekend. When they go out together, they like to shoot a couple of games of pool. And during almost every visit, her son flips through an old family photo album.

She’s begun the search for her son’s next home, a move she knows will be disruptive for him.

Parents and relatives of the men feel they weren’t given adequate notice. They say Jacob gave the men the notice and didn’t notify their guardians. Two people told me they haven’t gotten an explanation from Jacob.

Calleen Fulcher is the guardian for her brother, Leslie Fulcher, 57, who has lived in the rest home for 27 years. She said she didn’t find out about the closure until a parent of another resident called to ask if she knew anything about it.

Fulcher went to the facility to talk to her brother.

“He said, ‘Yeah, the lady came at bedtime and gave us’ ” the notice, Calleen Fulcher told me. “Even if you were going to share that kind of information, why share it with them at bedtime?”

Fulcher says she sees herself as more than just an advocate for her brother. She’s thinking about the other residents, like the man who has been at Fulton Rest Home for 30 years but whose parents are dead. Another man only has his mother, who is 94.

“And there’s not much out there,” Fulcher said about adult residential facilities.

After living there for so long, many of the men are attached to their routines. And for them, a routine is essential for their independence and wellbeing.