{"id":267088,"date":"2010-02-01T19:59:19","date_gmt":"2010-02-02T00:59:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seattletimes.nwsource.com\/html\/northwestvoices\/2010953958_spotlightonseniors.html?syndication=rss"},"modified":"2010-02-01T19:59:19","modified_gmt":"2010-02-02T00:59:19","slug":"spotlight-on-seniors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/267088","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight on seniors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Not all adult family homes out of control<\/strong><\/p>\n

Editor, The Times:<\/p>\n

Your article \u201cSeniors for sale\u201d [page one, Jan. 31] might leave the impression that adult family homes are out of control.<\/p>\n

Until my father passed away a week ago, he resided at an adult family home here in Monroe. We dropped in several times unannounced before placing him there, and continued to do so afterward. He had both physical and emotional challenges that were addressed in a professional and timely fashion on an ongoing basis.<\/p>\n

Your readers deserve to know that while there are egregious examples of apathy and greed among all business types, compassionate and skilled adult family homes are out there \u2014 my guess is that there are more of this kind than the kind highlighted in your article.<\/p>\n

Yes, cost is an issue, but my father\u2019s adult family home costs were middle-of-the-road for private pay and we had an agreement that would have allowed us to go to Medicare if we needed \u2014 which would have been this month or next. One key indicator for us was that we knew the integrity of the owner from both word-of-mouth and personal experience.<\/p>\n

My suggestion: Start looking early, be diligent, get referrals from local agencies and people servicing seniors and talk to the caregivers themselves.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Joel Selling, Monroe<\/em><\/p>\n

Front page picture was victimizing<\/strong><\/p>\n

While The Times can be commended for continuing its expose of adult family home violations, your publication of [the picture] of that befuddled, bruised, half-naked senior citizen was as victimizing and cruel as any of the practices condemned in your article.<\/p>\n

Your readers need a little relief now and then from your now-routine daily dose of page-one downers. The Jan. 31 edition, for example, could have been vastly improved by transposing the depressing front page continuation of \u201cSeniors for sale\u201d with the uplifting B-section feature story: \u201cMoved in and ready to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Dean Trier, Redmond<\/em><\/p>\n

Less space for investigative reporting<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am so appreciative of your investigative work on senior housing. The decline of the newspaper industry is producing fewer and fewer investigative stories.<\/p>\n

Bloggers and online blowhards can\u2019t and won\u2019t do the kind of investigative research critical to sustaining our democracy: deep, thorough stories about government and industry that produce no profit, but are important to know.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Dave Ahlers, Seattle<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not all adult family homes out of control Editor, The Times: Your article \u201cSeniors for sale\u201d [page one, Jan. 31] might leave the impression that adult family homes are out of control. Until my father passed away a week ago, he resided at an adult family home here in Monroe. We dropped in several times […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2861,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2861"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}