Neglect Is a Misdemeanor

The Kansas attorney general's office has charged KCK foster home owner Christine Allen with five counts of mistreatment of a dependent adult, after an investigation by the office's Medicaid Fraud and Abuse division. Officials shut down Modern Concepts, Allen's adult foster care home for the mentally ill, in November after a state trooper discovered the squalid home while returning a resident who had wandered onto Interstate 635 (,a href="/issues/2001-01-25/feature.html/page1.html">"House of Horrors," January 25).

The state's complaint focuses on the period beginning January 1998 and charges that Allen deprived Modern Concepts residents of proper treatment and the goods and services necessary for their physical and mental health.

When the trooper brought the disoriented man to Modern Concepts, he was so appalled at the living conditions that he called Kansas Social Rehabilitation Services, and officials shut down the house within the hour. SRS had issued state licenses to Allen for ten years -- until 1999, when a no-nonsense investigator refused to renew even a provisional license. Allen continued to operate anyway with a city business license and money she received from Social Security for the residents of Modern Concepts.

The residents -- all of whom were schizophrenic -- were removed in November, and one died five weeks later while recovering from a stroke. Allen insisted that government officials acted rashly and that she had given her residents "tender, loving care." Allen had been in business for nearly twenty years and had dozens of residents over that time.

State law requires group homes to be licensed and inspected. Yet according to a decade's worth of state records, Modern Concepts was a mess virtually every time SRS visited -- and community mental health agencies often refused to bring residents back on the rare occasions that they were allowed out for treatment or evaluation.

Allen was arrested and booked into the Wyandotte County Jail on February 6 but was released on $1,000 bond the same day. If convicted of the class A misdemeanor, Allen could face up to one year in jail and fines of up to $2,500 on each count.