103 Elderly Face Eviction From Retirement Village

A Thousand Oaks retirement village’s 103 residents were told Monday they have 30 days to move because the complex can no longer pay its bills and must close.

Officials of Pacific Homes, which operates La Serena Retirement Village, issued eviction notices to residents of the 150-unit complex for senior citizens.

Company officials said they have not made loan payments since April to two banks that financed the complex and only have enough operating capital to keep the doors of La Serena open another 30 days. About 60% of the retirement home’s 80 employees were laid off Monday, said Myrna Gordon, a company spokeswoman.

Many residents of La Serena said they were shocked by the news and feared that they no longer had enough money to find similar housing in the Thousand Oaks area.

Pacific Homes officials said they have offered to move residents to one of their five other Southern California retirement homes.

Nearly all of the residents paid between $25,000 and $110,000 for an apartment at the 6-year-old complex, on about 3 acres near Olsen and Moorpark roads. The apartments range from studios to two-bedroom units.

“I expected to live here the rest of my life,” said Anna Wanner, 82, who moved to the complex in 1983.

Wanner and other residents also have paid monthly rents of from $850 to $2,800, depending on the size of their apartments and how much daily care they receive, Gordon said. All residents have received one daily meal, as well as local transportation and weekly laundry and housekeeping services, she said.

Financial problems at La Serena began after Pacific Homes was unable to obtain a state license for specialized nursing care, Gordon said. The firm took over management of the property in March, 1986, after a bankruptcy and reorganization, believing it could make the complex profitable, she said.

But the firm found that “the building was not originally designed to meet state requirements for a skilled nursing facility, despite representations to the contrary,” according to a written statement by Mort Swales, president of La Serena Manor.

“The inability of La Serena to provide a skilled nursing facility has caused numerous residents to cancel their agreements with La Serena and to request a refund of accommodation fees,” Swales said in the statement. “Honoring these refund demands has caused severe financial instability.”

Those problems, along with the refusal of banks to provide short-term loans to continue operations, are forcing officials to close the facility, Swales said. The company owes about $14 million to creditors, with the bulk owed to Bank of America and Security Pacific Bank, Pacific Homes officials said.

An additional $750,000 would be needed to make the building improvements required by the state, company officials said.

On Tuesday, several adult children of La Serena residents met to discuss securing short-term loans to keep the facility operating for another three to six months so that residents will have time to find new homes.

David A. Wismer, who is organizing the effort, said that he will meet with bank officials later this week to see if the facility can be sold to another management firm that will continue to operate it as a retirement village.

Meanwhile, nearly 60 residents who moved into La Serena after the 1986 bankruptcy fear that they will not be able to recover any of the money they paid to move in.

Pacific Homes officials said residents have agreements with La Serena Manor to receive a portion of their money back if they are forced to leave within five years. All residents were told they would receive 80% of their one-time move-in fees if they moved after the first year, 60% if they moved after the second year, 40% after the third year and 20% after the fourth year, officials said. After the fifth year, they would receive nothing, officials said.

But, officials said, the residents can only be repaid after all other creditors.

Pacific Homes has offered to move residents to three retirement complexes it owns in San Diego, one it owns in Claremont and another it owns in Los Angeles.

But one resident, who last week visited the Los Angeles facility near Santa Monica Boulevard and Western Avenue, said she did not want to live there.

“You take your life in your hands walking around there,” the 81-year-old woman said.