One hundred and seventeen seniors — most of them Jewish — face eviction from a retirement home in Westwood within the next year, as new owners seek a $50 million overhaul.
The news of th—e evictions earlier this month at the upscale facility known until recently as Vintage Westwood Horizons seemed to spell the end for a close-knit community of seniors, who worry about what the future holds and fear they’ll lose touch with friends they’ve made.
“It’s breaking up,” said Diane R. Stewart, who sat in a parlor at the facility, holding a sign that read “Ole Lives Matter” on Dec. 8. “It’s going to be a disaster.”
Stewart joined dozens of other seniors and their children that evening for a meeting with city officials and a representative from Watermark Retirement Communities, the company hoping to renovate the newly christened Watermark at Westwood Village. The scene was tense as residents puzzled over their fate, and it was a packed house at the downstairs meeting hall. Those younger than 70 were asked to stand to make room for residents.
It was a tough crowd for Daniel Stimpert, Watermark’s attorney, who heard boos from the seniors when he got up to address the crowd. “Watermark wants to make this as easy as possible,” he said. “We know it won’t be painless.”
His reception was in stark contrast to the cheers that met Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Koretz, who represents Westwood and who opened the evening by panning Watermark and promising to fight for the seniors.
“It’s absolutely outrageous that the new owners of Westwood Horizons want to throw you out on the streets. … This company should be ashamed of itself,” he said.
The eviction saga began for the residents a week earlier, on Dec. 1, when they were invited to a meet-and-greet with Watermark officials, supposedly to get to know the new management. The Tucson, Ariz.-based retirement chain, which runs dozens of senior living facilities across the country, recently had bought the building, its second in Los Angeles County.
“We thought maybe they’d say, well, they were going to raise the rates or they were going to change the dining room or something like that,” said Alma Balter, 99, sitting in the seventh-floor living room of her neighbor, Ruth Frank, 95.
Watermark representatives had good news and bad news for the 117 tenants of the building’s 109 units — some 80 percent of them Jewish by residents’ estimates. The good news: They would be putting $50 million toward an extensive renovation that would transform the facility into a so-called “residential care facility for the elderly,” a state-licensed facility equipped to provide memory care, among other elder-care services. But the bad news was that everyone would have to leave for up to two years.
“The decision to close the building during renovations was made after careful consideration of the impact on current residents and associates,” David Barnes, president and CEO of Watermark, said in a Dec. 12 press release. “Our original plans were to move residents within the building. However, it became clear … there was no way to replace the 50+ year old, failing systems without putting the safety of the residents and associates at risk.”
He said in the company’s 30 years of managing and renovating senior facilities, this was the first time it had deemed it necessary to remove staff and residents from the building.
The news that everybody would have to leave came as a shock.
“We never dreamt of that,” Balter said. “None of us ever did.”
For some, the reality didn’t really sink in until notices appeared on doors the day after the Dec. 1 announcement, telling residents they would have until March 28 to move and citing the Ellis Act, a law that allows landlords to remove rental units from the market.
“I don’t think we realized it until we got the notices,” Frank said.
Though state law allows seniors who have lived in an apartment for more than a year 12 months to vacate when a landlord decides to remove rental units from the market, the deadline reflected on the notices was 120 days — the standard rate for non-seniors. Though most tenants are legally entitled to the full year, and Watermark has promised to work with the rest to arrange extensions, seeing March 28 on their eviction notices was an unwelcome surprise.
“Everybody is totally panicked,” said Florence “Flossy” Liebman, a spry 95-year-old who lives down the hall from Frank. “The average age is probably between 90 and 103 or something. And this notice was Scotch-taped to people’s doors. That’s how we were notified. It’s total trauma all around.”
Residents described Westwood Horizons as the right home for the right price, with spacious rooms and friendly staff. Proximity to UCLA means many seniors participate in weekly activities on campus and have easy access to their doctors and — when necessary —a hospital.
What’s more, many described a welcoming atmosphere where friendships came easily and remained strong. Jeannine Frank, Ruth’s daughter, said that within days of her mother moving in, she seemed to already have dozens of friends.
“That’s the hardest part,” said resident Judy Flax. “Some are going here, some are going there. … It’s not so easy for us to get around anymore.”
Flax, 87, is planning to move into Belmont Village Senior Living Westwood, nearby on Wilshire Boulevard, into what she called a “tiny apartment.” At Westwood Horizons, where she’s lived for four years, she has two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a spacious living room, she said.
While some residents are planning their next move, others are watching and waiting.
“It depends on when we find out what the legality is,” Liebman said. “Do they have the right to do that? Some people panicked and already signed up elsewhere. But we’re trying to see if we can keep everyone together.”
Meanwhile, some wonder what will become of those without the means to move or close family to help them negotiate the process.
“My mother is pretty able to get around and do things,” said Jane Blumenfeld, Liebman’s daughter. “But a lot of people — there’s no way.”
“I’m far too old for this — 93 and a half,” said Esther Grundfest as she sat at dinner in Westwood Horizon’s high-ceiling dining room, painted with frescos of an ocean cruise.
Grundfest was born in Poland and survived during the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. But that was many years ago, and now the prospect of being uprooted is enough to daunt her.
“Where shall I go?” she said. “I don’t have the strength to move.”
Residents were provided lists of other retirement homes in the area that have openings. But some complain that there are few vacancies and that nowhere quite compares to Westwood Horizons.
“Just be honest: You say you’re going to help, but those of us who have looked, we know what’s out there,” Marlene Canter, whose 94-year-old mother lives at Westwood Horizons, told the building’s executive director, Allison Marty, at the Dec. 8 meeting.
Nonetheless, Marty repeated promises to assist in the transition and said residents’ services and amenities would continue uninterrupted until the last tenant moved. Meanwhile, representatives from the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department and from elected officials were on hand to offer the residents messages of support and advise them of their rights.
Representatives for L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and California Assemblymember Sebastian Ridley-Thomas stood up to assure the seniors of their support.
For some, a sense remained that the evictions could be fought.
In a phone conversation with the Journal on Dec. 9, Jessie Kornberg , executive director of Bet Tzedek Legal Services, said her nonprofit is looking into the legality of the eviction, saying, “The Ellis Act may not even apply here.” She expressed concern about the impact the eviction could have on the health and well-being of residents.
Bet Tzedek wouldn’t be alone if it decides to join the fight. On Dec. 12, Koretz appeared at a press conference outside the facility alongside Larry Gross, executive director of the tenant’s rights organization Coalition for Economic Survival (CES).
Koretz said he’d asked the city’s Planning Department to hold a hearing about the proposed renovation. The following day, Dec. 13, at a City Council meeting, he introduced and passed a motion, 13-0, calling on the City Attorney’s Office, the Building and Safety Department, the Planning Department and the Housing Department to look into the city’s options, including seeking an injunction against the eviction.
“I don’t know that they knew who they were dealing with,” Jeannine Frank said of Watermark officials. “These are some very feisty seniors and their very feisty offspring.”
Frank, a talent manager, lived in the building when it was a UCLA dormitory in 1967. She’s spent the better part of the last week getting in touch with anybody who might be able to help the seniors stay in their homes. “It’s been a wild ride,” she said.
Yet even Koretz admitted that the eviction may well be legal, if underhanded, since per the law, owners can evict tenants when changing the use of the building, as Watermark has proposed to do.
And so, the prevailing attitude was not anger but dejection.
“We feel like we’re a family here,” Ruth Frank said. “It really and truly is. Like, when Flossy was in the hospital, people were there. They were greeting her when she came back. I mean, you know, they felt it was someone in the family. I mean, that’s the way we feel here. We want to be living here and not leaving here.”
