claire E. Conners AG hawaii questions

March 27th, 2019

Dear Attorney General Clare E. Connors,

Please help our elderly senior citizen from becoming homeless, due to yearly rent increases.

Does the State of Hawaii have laws to protect our elderly senior citizens from abuse? If so please direct us to those guidelines.

If the rent for elderly senior citizens is allowed to continue increasing every year at Retirement Communities and “Rate Lock In” programs are not monitored we may have an epidemic of homeless elderly senior citizens.

The Holiday Retirement Corporation which has over three hundred Communities across the nation offers a “Rate Lock In” program that is not transferable. Once those who have signed up realize they can no longer afford the larger units, and need to move to a smaller unit, the “rate Lock In” is non transferable.

Often after signing over two months of rent plus 4% or up to 10%, they realize they can no longer afford the larger unit and must move to a smaller one. Or another situation is one spouse dies and the remaining spouse can no longer afford the larger unit, again the “Rate Lock In” is non transferable.

This is happening in States that have no oversight from their governing laws. This may be legal in some states, but is it moral or ethically correct to treat our elderly seniors this way? Many have diminished cognitive skills by the time they sign the “Rate Lock In”, without reading the fine print.

As you must know most elderly senior citizens are on a fixed income with little or no savings. These are the very citizens who fought in wars to keep our country free, and worked hard to help make our country the great country it is.

It is this same generation who still vote and have faith in our political system, not like the younger generation who seem to have lost that faith. Please help the people who most likely voted for the Governor, by putting into place measures to ensure our elderly senior’s citizens do not become homeless. Shouldn’t their last days be worry free without stressing about if they will be able to keep up with the yearly rent increases, which are imposed annually on our Kapuna by large corporations and privately owned Retirement Communities?

Many of these same Corporate owned Retirement Communities offer a stress free home with home cooked meals, cleaning services and maintenance of the common grounds. Yet fall short of fulfilling these promises, with meals that are not elderly senior citizen appropriate, cleaning service that is minimal from what was described, and lack of maintaining the common areas and unit repairs.
Yet these same places continue to raise the rent every year, with no oversight from the state.

Are you aware that many states have implemented laws that specifically protect elderly senior citizens from all types of abuse? Research shows that psychological and emotional abuse can be just as damaging as physical abuse, maybe even more damaging, if it affects their ability to stay in the home they choose to spend the rest of their days in.

Due to the age of these senior citizens, if they can no longer afford to stay in their home because their savings has all gone to rent increases, they will probably become wards of the state. This would be an enormous burden on the tax dollars, when it could be avoided by regulating rent increase for elderly senior citizens.

Should the corporations be allowed to profit from these elderly seniors, and ultimately put our State and Country further into debt?

Please would you take the time to look at our website, the link is provided below. There are a few stories from the many who have shared their stories, of a high end Retirement Community that we feel is not up holding their end of the contractual agreement, yet continues to raise rent every year. The pictures tell their own story.

Thank you so much for your time, we so appreciate any help or suggestions. Our goal is to protect our most treasured citizens, the elderly seniors, for without them we would not be. Also we need to remember we will one day be the elderly and we need to take measures now to ensure we do not suffer the abuse that many do now!

Thank you for your time, Much Aloha,
Staff at Prevention of Elderly Abuse

Site Content

Clare Connors: Hawaii’s Attorney General Is ‘Answering The Call’

It’s hard to be any more Catholic than Clare Connors, Hawaii’s 16th attorney general.

Connors is the daughter of a former priest and a former nun. She was raised in the Maryknoll missionary tradition and still attends the same church — St. Anthony’s in Kailua — where she had her First Holy Communion as a child. Even her wedding took place there.

Find out more

The Waimanalo Retirement home had 3 residents that had a rent increase of $400 per month.

The Waimanalo Retirement home had 3 residents that had a rent increase of $400 per month.
The Hawaii Kai Retirement Community has 375 residents that all had increases from $150 to $400 plus per month.

U.S. PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN, NOV, 21 1864

“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”

—U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864

U.S. PRESIDENT THOMAS JEFFERSON

Thomas Jefferson once said: "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered." This quotation is often cited as being in an 1802 letter to Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, and/or "later published in The Debate Over the Recharter of the Bank Bill (1809)."

Share the big news

Have you opened a new location, redesigned your shop, or added a new product or service? Don't keep it to yourself, let folks know.

Display their FAQs

Customers have questions, you have answers. Display the most frequently asked questions, so everybody benefits.

Prevention Of Elderly Abuse.com