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Town Hall Meeting on Nursing Home Deaths
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New ICF Eviction Fight Readied
Obon dancers form a circle at the Kansha Obon held on Saturday at Rissho Kosei Kai in Boyle Heights.
By ELLEN ENDO,
Rafu Shimpo
Despite a looming eviction deadline for Sakura Gardens Intermediate Care Facility (ICF) seniors, supporters are preparing for a new round of challenges, it was learned during Saturday’s Kansha (Gratitude) Obon.
Rev. Ray Fukumoto
Mike Dark, staff attorney for the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform (CANHR), outlined a plan of action to fight the evictions. “Sakura is not a facility, it’s a neighborhood. It’s a community, and a community is always worth fighting for,” he said, pointing out that “although July 20 has been set as the date for closure by Pacifica, that date will not stick because the people here have the power to prevent it.”
Kotoko Toji has lived in Los Angeles since the 1950s but speaks little English.
When it came time to move to a retirement home 15 years ago, she had a request: Sakura Gardens.
Like Toji, many of the residents are Japanese Americans in their 80s and 90s. Most of the staff speaks Japanese.
On the Japanese holiday of Girls’ Day, Toji and her friends eat sakuramochi a sweet rice cake filled with red bean paste and encased in a pickled cherry blossom leaf.
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Sakura Gardens is a last vestige of Japanese American culture in Boyle Heights.
Since the facility opened in the 1970s, most businesses catering to Japanese residents have closed as the neighborhood solidified into a working-class Latino enclave.
De Leon Seeks Extension of Conditions on Senior Facilities
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With two weeks to go before the conditions-of-sale placed upon Pacifica Companies expire on Feb. 1, Los Angeles City Councilmember Kevin de Leon has asked California Attorney General Xavier Becerra for an extension.
Kevin de Leon
In 2016, as a condition imposed by then-State Attorney General Kamala Harris, Pacifica agreed as part of the purchase that it would not substantially change the culturally sensitive living environment at the former Keiro facilities, including the Intermediate Care Facility in Boyle Heights, for at least five years.
In September 2020, Pacifica presented a proposal to replace ICF and construct a multi-unit family apartment complex and parking garage during a meeting of the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council’s Planning and Land Use Committee (BHNC PLUC).
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