Nashville-based property management company investigated for elder abuse

Taliafaro, a Nashville-based property management company that oversees a senior living facility in New Orleans, LA, has been accused of abandoning and allegedly abusing residents before and after Hurricane Ida. Many residents at Boyd Manor have chronic illnesses and say the heat, lack of water, power and medicine made their conditions dire for almost two weeks.

Hurricane Ida was a deadly category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of 150 mph, according to the Royal Meteorological Society. It made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday, Aug. 29. Following the storm, the U.S. Energy Information Association says more than 1.2 million people lost power in eight states. For the 40 or so residents of Boyd Manor, located in the Lower Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, that power outage stretched for 11 days with no water, air conditioning, cell phone communication or elevator service.

Yolanda Lewis, a 58-year-old resident who is retired and lives with her disabled fiancé, says conditions were nearly unlivable. Lewis says a neighbor who uses a wheelchair attempted to use the stairs during the power outage, and she found him lying some hours later in the stairwell completely naked and unable to help himself. Lewis is her fiancé's caretaker, and says during the power outage his entire supply of insulin went bad. She says her fiancé had a stroke on his “good side,” and that he has a prosthetic leg on the other side.

“For 11 days in here, they didn’t come see about us.” Lewis says of Taliafaro management.

Lewis and community organizers say Taliafaro’s on-site manager evacuated during the hurricane but did not provide evacuation services to residents. Lewis says at no time did she know of any means or plans to evacuate. Because many of the residents are disabled and low-income, they needed help to escape. Although Taliafaro did not respond to repeated requests for comment, Rosalind Swinger, a Taliafaro representative, told a local Louisiana news outlet that Boyd Manor residents were given information to arrange their evacuation through the city’s 311 service.

Read more: https://tennesseelookout.com/2021/10/20/nashville-based-property-management-company-investigated-for-elder-abuse/