California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform

During the 2022-23 Fiscal Year, CANHR staff responded to thousands of inquiries and requests for services from legal services, social workers, long term care professionals, attorneys and consumers via CANHRs statewide hotline and the CANHR website feedback form, providing counseling, information and assistance with Medi-Cal, home and community based services, and resident rights issues. CANHR staff participated in 44 presentations and outreach events for community groups, Long Term Care Ombudsman, family councils, social workers, health care providers, advocates and policy makers throughout California. Serving over 1,450 people, on topics including Medi-Cal, home and community-based services, incapacity issues, estate recovery, nursing home and residential care rights, among others. As a qualified Legal Services Support Center funded by the State Bar of California, CANHR staff provided California's legal services project staff with training, advocacy assistance and technical assistance. CANHR staff also assisted individual clients referred by legal services programs and others on a variety of long-term care related issues. CANHR staff organized and presented 28 virtual or in-person training sessions for California legal services staff, serving a total of 783 legal services professionals. Programs were also provided with free bulk copies of consumer education materials, training manuals, quarterly newsletters and consumer self-help booklets on Medi-Cal and elder financial abuse.CANHRs main web site, www.canhr.org received 260,199 visitors over this fiscal year (637,275 page views), 99% of whom were new visitors. The most frequently visited pages were fact sheets on Med-Cal Overview, Challenging Nursing Home Discharges, In Home Support Services, Medi-Cal Recovery and various other fact sheet pages. A website feedback form allows consumers to submit questions online and receive answers by email on resident and consumer rights, legal services support and referrals through CANHRs Lawyer Referral Service. All of the consumer fact sheets can be downloaded, and many are available in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Tagalog and Russian.

Lawyer Referral Services CANHR's Lawyer Referral Service is the only statewide, State Bar certified LRS in California that specializes in long term care issues. CANHR's Lawyer Referral Service offers free, low fee and regular fee referrals to current and potential residents of long- term care facilities and their family members and provides access to legal representation in such areas as elder financial abuse, estate planning, protective services and residents' rights. The LRS currently has 91 participating attorneys on six specialized panels, all of whom agree to accept at least two pro bono and two reduced fee cases per year. CANHR receives 15% of attorneys fees to support its advocacy work. In 2022-23 the LRS referred 381 clients to panel attorneys in California, and assisted hundreds of other consumers with various legal and consumer problems.

Homeless Prevention CANHRs Homeless Prevention programs, funded by the State Bar of California, provided counseling and representation on long term care transfer and eviction rights and denial of benefits which provide housing to consumers throughout California and resulted in several successful outcomes, with many individuals avoiding homelessness. CANHR staff attorneys provided direct representation to individuals facing unlawful eviction from skilled nursing facilities, and provided technical assistance training to staff of local legal services programs on nursing home eviction. These programs also developed new training programs for staff of qualified legal services programs, and new consumer education materials including the CANHR Home and Community Based Services Quick Guide. CANHR hosted 3 virtual Town Halls for 339 consumers and caregivers on residents rights related to Nursing Home eviction, specifically targeting residents, caregivers and advocates involved with the possible closure and eviction of residents of Laguna Honda Hospital.