96-year-old California woman facing eviction from seniors home unless she coughs up $110K to new owners: ‘I’m not going’
A 96-year-old California woman was served a three-day eviction notice from her senior living home demanding she cough up $110,000 or leave the unit she’s been living in for 22 years.
Jean Jacques says she signed a lifetime contract with California-Nevada Methodist Homes in 2002 to live at their Forest Hill Manor nursing home in Pacific Grove, Calif., for the rest of her life, according to KSBW.
She secured her spot with a $250,000 down payment and paid $5,000 monthly rent until her savings ran dry.
Things became complicated when California-Nevada Methodist Homes went bankrupt and sold the facility to Pacific Grove Senior Living in 2022.
The for-profit senior living community purchased the property with the clause that it would abide by previous contracts of the tenants who signed lifetime deals, an expectation Jacques thought would be honored.
However, Pacifica Senior Living, the San Diego-based parent company of Pacific Grove Senior Living, served the 96-year-old with the eviction notice on Aug. 16, saying she had three days to send it $110,000 or face eviction.
“I was shocked,” the full-of-life senior shared. “The reason I moved into Forest Hill Manor was to be taken care of for the rest of my life.”
Jacques and senior advocates discovered her previous contract was grandfathered in, but the policies ensuring she could live in her unit until she died were not.
“She’s devoted all of her savings and money into this place,” the president of Pacific Grove Senior Living’s residents’ association, Bob Sadler, told KSBW. “I don’t care what the legal ramifications are here. This is morally unthinkable.”
Sadler told the outlet that the “lifetime care” contracts like Jacques signed in 2002 were only considered unconditional with the previous owners, not Pacific Senior Living.
However, a project manager with the Alliance for Aging, Elizabeth Campos, told the outlet that the eviction notice was allegedly not approved by the Community Care Licensing Division, the California government agency that oversees these facilities.
Furthermore, the notice did not instruct Jacques on how to appeal the eviction, Campos claims.
“You know, it’s frustrating. You do get angry knowing that it’s an elderly person,” Campos told the outlet. “Where is this person going to go?”
Campos and others are fighting for Pacific Senior Living to do the right thing and uphold the original contract so Jacques can stay in the unit she has called home for the past 22 years.
Since receiving the eviction notice, the facility’s business office has not contacted Jacques.
The Alliance for Aging and the Residents’ Committee have attempted to contact the office but have yet to receive a reply, according to KSBW.
The Post has reached out to Pacific Grove Senior Living for comment.
Jacques, who turned 96 in July, says she has no plans to leave her home.
“I’m not going. They’ll have to bury me because I have no place to go,” she declared to KSBW. “They have all my money.”
