Assisted Living

Owners of the unlicensed assisted living facility in Owings Mills where a caretaker was fatally stabbed this week were running four other group homes in the area, health officials learned yesterday. One of the owners of A Touch of Love Assisted Living Group Inc. told health investigators last night that the company provided service to 24 mentally ill men and women at five group homes in the Owings Mills area. Four of the homes were in the Briarwood apartment complex where the stabbing occurred, and the fifth was nearby.

A $5,300 reward is being offered for tips that lead to the homecoming of James White, an intellectually disabled 64-year-old man who left his Owings Mills assisted-living home a month ago. White, who is black, 5 feet 7 inches tall and 186 pounds, left his group home in the 9200 block of Leigh Choice Court on Feb. 26. White was last seen between 3:30 a.m. and 4 a.m., after which time staff found the front door open. White's sisters, Rosanna Miles of Rosedale and Addie Bagley of Baltimore, urged the public to provide police with any information.

As a group of Catonsville residents awaits a zoning decision on an unapproved enlargement of an assisted-living group home in its neighborhood, its councilman is preparing to ask the county planning board to re-examine the laws governing such facilities.Members of the Old Catonsville Neighborhood Association have expressed concern over Parkside Assisted Living at 303 N. Rolling Road, whose owners recently built a three-story addition to the Victorian-style home. The facility would have a maximum of 15 beds for elderly residents.

I was fooled by the summer calm of old Lutherville, the Victorian village in Baltimore County that hides behind York Road, the Beltway and Interstate 83. On a cloudy morning, Lutherville's timeless homes seemed to be enjoying a July holiday, with abundant rose of Sharon bushes blooming near the rain-encouraged weeds. But something else was sprouting on the lawns of old Lutherville: a crop of signs devoted to a neighborhood zoning issue. It is a tricky issue. The longtime owners of the College Manor assisted-living complex want a zoning change that would enable them to build a new facility, move the residents into it, then renovate the old complex, portions of which are decades old. But the Lutherville residents say that once a zoning change is enacted, it stays on the books and remains permanent should the property change hands.

For some of Carroll County's aging population, retirement at a proposed $20 million community could mean spa days, dances and movies at their doorstep. The Westminster Common Council approved the annexation of the 162-unit Westminster Mews on Monday night after a public hearing in which there was only one dissenting voice. The latest senior-living project created by the Shelter Group, a Baltimore-based developer and property-management firm, the Mews is expected to encompass about 150,000 square feet upon completion in fall next year.

Names in the newsInternational Paperin Odenton recently named James Tanner as human resource generalist. Tanner will be responsible for all facets of human resources, including recruitment, management development, employee relations and salary administration.Kassie Foundoshas been appointed director of marketing by Regency Park Assisted Living. Foundos was most recently director of marketing for the Heartlands Assisted Living Community in Severna Park. Regency Park, a 60-bed assisted-living facility, will open soon in Gambrills.

An attorney for the owners of an assisted-living home in Columbia says they were surprised by a judge's ruling that will eventually close the facility.Brian Wallach also said the owners might appeal the opinion filed last week by Howard County Circuit Judge Raymond J. Kane Jr."We are considering our options, which obviously includes the possibility of appeal," Wallach said. "We're disappointed with the decision."Kane ruled that the owners of the assisted-living home violated a neighborhood covenant.

For the past 14 years, Joseph Abell has enjoyed the woods, the view and the gardens at his modern Winfield home.Last month he opened his home to seniors who need help with the tasks of daily living but don't require the skilled medical care of a nursing home.The facility, called Bloom Valley Senior Care, provides residents with all their meals, laundry service, assistance with bathing, dressing and monitoring of medications.Bloom Valley is the eighth senior assisted living facility to open in the county.

Moving to protect the state's burgeoning elderly population, Maryland officials are about to overhaul the way they monitor thousands of assisted-living homes, the fastest growing type of long-term care.The plan, unveiled last week, is intended to sew up gaping loopholes and replace a patchwork of contradictory regulations that the state has used up to now."In some places we've gone in and found very, very ill people, and we've had to intervene or move them to a hospital," said Carol Benner, director of licensing and certification for the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Moving to protect the state's burgeoning elderly population, Maryland officials are about to overhaul the way they monitor thousands of assisted-living homes, the fastest growing type of long-term care.The plan, unveiled last week, is intended to sew up gaping loopholes and replace a patchwork of contradictory regulations that the state has used up to now."In some places we've gone in and found very, very ill people, and we've had to intervene or move them to a hospital," said Carol Benner, director of licensing and certification for the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Starting this month, senior citizens who need help with daily activities have a new living option in Anne Arundel County. Brightview South River is an $11 million assisted-living rental community that will open in mid-December for residents 55 and older who can no longer live independently, including people with Alzheimer's disease and other memory impairments. The three-story building off the 3000 block of Solomon's Island Road in Edgewater will be constructed by the Shelter Group of Baltimore, a specialist in multifamily and senior living communities.

When an older family member needs supportive housing, there's often a rush to find a place with the "best quality. " But what is quality? Do family or friends value the same things as the future assisted-living resident? Assisted-living settings are extremely diverse. To find a good fit, it is essential to look beyond the factors highlighted in marketing tours: cost, room size, staff ratio and appearance. Opinions on which factors are truly essential to quality vary, but one voice should receive the most attention as you decide on housing: the voice of the person who is to live there.

How dreadful. My husband and I are going to the home sometime this summer or fall, assuming that we sell our apartment for enough money. "The home," of course, is assisted living - a nice, bland euphemism. What it means is that we'll be leaving our lovely apartment on the first floor of a condo looking over an Olmsted garden for an apartment on the seventh floor of the retirement home, which is half the size for lots of money. Yes, I know that we're lucky to be able to do this.

An early-morning three-alarm fire that heavily damaged Holland Manor, a Riderwood assisted-living facility, early Saturday morning resulted in more than a dozen staff and residents being evacuated from the building. Twelve residents and staffers were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, according to WJZ-TV. The historic home in the 800 block of Landrake Road had been known as Bush Manor for years. During the 1920s, it had been part of the estate of Baltimore-born silent movie star Francis X. Bushman, who starred in the 1926 classic "Ben Hur. " The fire is under investigation.

Construction already has begun on the new 10-bed inpatient Gilchrist hospice facility in Harmony Hall Assisted Living in the Howard County Health Park. A “demolition party”  - where a wall was ceremoniously broken down within Harmony Hall to be replaced by the facility's entranceway -   was held Oct. 27. “Howard County patients and their families, as well as local government and community leaders, have advocated for many years for an inpatient presence within Howard County,” said Lori Mulligan, director of development and marketing at Gilchrist's Hunt Valley facility.

Anne Arundel County police are looking for two men in an overnight burglary and armed robbery at an assisted living facility in Davidsonville. Two caretakers at Kris-Leigh Assisted Living in the 3900 block of Birdsville Road told police that two men, one of them armed with a gun, kicked in the door of the facility's day room at about 3:13 a.m. Saturday. The suspects demanded the caretakers tell them where valuables were stored, according to Anne Arundel County police. The suspects then kicked in an office door searching for valuables, then fled with some personal property that belonged to the caretakers, police said.

Being a pioneer isn't easy. Ask Brenda Walker.She wanted to open the first assisted-living home for senior citizens in Baltimore County. Two years of plowing through the bureaucracy and thousands of dollars later, Miss Walker still isn't there.But in part because of Miss Walker's experience and those of others, the county is trying to make it easier for operators of these small group homes to get past the county's development and zoning hurdles and provide housing for members of a rapidly aging population.

The initial public offering yesterday for Integrated Living Communities, the assisted living division being spun off by Integrated Health Services of Owings Mills, raised less than half of the amount anticipated when the parent company filed for the offering in June.The company initially planned to offer 6.5 million shares at $15 to $18. It wound up selling 4.2 million shares at $8.Marc B. Levin, executive vice president of Integrated Health, said the drop in price and number of shares was "a response to market conditions over the last few months for assisted living.

Residents and staff at a Columbia assisted-living facility got front-row seats to the political show put on by Maryland's competing campaigns, as candidates from both sides blitzed the county in the long election season's waning days. Mary Kane, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, arrived at the 99-bed Brighton Gardens assisted-living facility off Snowden River Parkway at Minstrel Way on Sunday to find a smiling Gov. Martin O'Malley, U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Howard County Executive Ken Ulman, all Democrats, depicted standing with more than 30 staff members on a large photo poster in the lobby.

Baltimore County firefighters at the scene of a fire in a home for senior citizens in Essex are reporting that all the residents were evacuated safely and that no one was injured. The fire in the Maryln Place Assisted Living Facility in the 900 block of N. Marlyn Avenue was reported at 9:57 a.m., according to Elise Armacost, a spokeswoman for the county fire department. "It sounded at first as though someone might be trapped," she said, "but the firefighters never know until they get there."