Judge Says Wife Erred in Not Licensing 4 Convalescent Homes Owned by Couple

It was a mistake, admits Orange County Superior Court Judge Leonard H. McBride, for his wife, Betty, not to obtain a state license for their four East Tustin board-and-care homes for the elderly, which have been in operation about two years.

But she is attempting to get that state Department of Social Services license and is going through the laborious application process, McBride said Sunday.

“Now, I’m not saying (the procrastination) is a valid excuse,” McBride said. “I think we should have a license just like everyone else.”

McBride said Sunday that he has little to do with the operation of the homes, which are located in a quiet neighborhood south of 17th Street in unincorporated county territory east of Santa Ana. He said he is listed as the owner of two of the homes and co-owner of the others, but only because his wife could not obtain credit for the purchases.

Betty McBride could not be reached for comment Sunday on published allegations that she has been warned by state officials since 1985 that she was in violation of the law for operating homes without a license. Judge McBride said in an interview at the board-and-care home where they live that his wife probably wouldn’t want to comment anyway.

State officials ordered that the homes, which Betty McBride operates under the name Bishop’s Board and Care Inc., cease operations in May, 1985. However, the judge said his wife called the department immediately and they modified that notice to an order to obtain licensing.

McBride said Sunday that he did not know how long it would take to obtain licensing. But he said his wife already has gone through an “indoctrination” conducted by the state and will complete forms that include financial information, bank statements and employee information.

“It’s nothing so difficult that it shouldn’t have been done,” he said.

State officials could not be reached for comment Sunday.

The judge said state social service officials have visited the home several times, including a tour within the last several weeks during which, he said, they offered compliments on the clean quarters but reiterated their demand for licensing.

“The licensing people have been very courteous and also very businesslike,” McBride said as he conducted a tour Sunday through the homes on Brenan and Stratton ways. “I have no quarrel with them at all. But as I told them, my wife handles everything.”

McBride said there are other similarly unlicensed facilities in Orange County that have drawn no public attention. He argued that there wouldn’t be any publicity about his wife’s unlicensed homes were he not a jurist.

“I’m a judge so everything I do gets a write-up,” he said. “There are other unlicensed homes (in Orange County). If I wasn’t involved, nobody would care.”

Betty McBride started her board-and-care facility in 1984 to care for an elderly friend and neighbor on Brenan Way. McBride said his wife would take the friend out to do her shopping and other activities until the woman, who died last year, fell and broke a hip.

“She was put in a convalescent hospital and just detested it,” he said.

So the McBrides, whose eight children already had grown up and moved away, opened their home to the woman.

“She started it just by chance and it grew from there. People just kept coming to us,” he said, noting that neighbors and friends refer people to them. Two residents, he said, are mothers of lawyers who have heard of the homes by word of mouth at the courthouse in downtown Santa Ana.

Now the four facilities house a total of 22 elderly residents, and the McBrides still live upstairs in their home on Stratton Way. Betty McBride and nine employees, including a 24-hour live-in resident at each house, do all the cooking, cleaning and yard work.

Lupe Gonzales, who manages the facility, said she prefers the uncrowded conditions and friendly atmosphere of the McBrides’ homes to a convalescent hospital where she had worked in Mexico prior to her employment in Orange County.

“When I first started this job, (Betty McBride) asked me, ‘Do you like to help old people?’ ” Gonzales said.

Gonzales declined to say how much residents pay to live at the homes, saying only that they’re profitable but not lucrative.

McBride said his wife does not accept anyone who is seriously ill, although some of the patients require medication. So far, there haven’t been any serious problems at the homes, he said.

Obtaining licensing, he added, “wouldn’t change a thing.”