HOW TO FIND LICENSED FACILITIES
Go online to www.gamap2care.info to search for licensed facilities in Georgia. More than 7,000 facilities and services are included and can be searched by location and types of care.
The 12 Gwinnett County homes were being run as personal care facilities. Long-term residences where adults unable to live alone or care for themselves could live, according to police.
Only the homes weren’t licensed or legal, and as many as 30 residents were left in unsafe conditions, at times with no supervision, police said Wednesday. Some residents were even forced to fork over food stamps and Social Security benefits in order to pay rent.
In Georgia, shutting down unlicensed homes has not proven easy, but law enforcement and social services have vowed to crack down on violations. On Wednesday, a months-long investigation culminated with a dozen homes being shut down.
Throughout the day, residents were removed from the 12 Snellville-area homes following an investigation into suspected exploitation and neglect, dubbed “Operation Mercury.” Eight people, all relatives and friends that allegedly ran the homes, were arrested during the sweep, Gwinnett County police said.
It began back on May 6, when officers were called to a Wrexham Drive to investigate a domestic dispute between residents. No one was arrested for the fight, but officers suspected the home was operating as a personal care facility. About two weeks later, two caregivers were charged with neglect, and residents were removed from the home and placed in other residences, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.
“While the investigator was at the home, he discovered that the refrigerator was chained shut and the food supplies were locked away,” Cpl. Michele Pihera said at the time. “The only person with a key to the refrigerator was a resident of the home. The investigator also learned that the residents were sometimes left unsupervised in the home.”
That was just the beginning of a much larger investigation, police said Wednesday.
Investigators determined that the Wrexham Drive home was unlicensed and had previously been cited. Gwinnett police got other agencies involved, including the Division of Healthcare Facilities Regulations, Gwinnett County Quality of Life Unit, and Gwinnett County Fire Marshal’s Office. Seven more homes were linked to the same group of caregivers, according to Cpl. Deon Washington.
At 9 a.m. Wednesday, investigators were at the seven homes. Evidence found there led investigators to look into five additional locations, bringing the total to 12, Washington said.
Between five to 10 people lived in each of the homes, and all of the residents were being relocated, Washington said in an emailed statement.
“The victims are living in unsafe and unsupervised conditions and some have a diminished mental capacity,” Washington said.
Many of the residents receive food stamp and Social Security benefits, but investigators believe the residents were forced to use the government assistance to pay rent. A 2012 AJC investigation into unlicensed care homes found a similar trend when elderly residents were often robbed of their pension checks and public assistance money.
Citing a Georgia code section that protects the identities of alleged victims and perpetrators of long-term care facility resident abuse, police declined to release the names of those arrested. But all eight were charged with one count of exploitation of an at-risk adult, according to police.
For many years operating an illegal care home was a misdemeanor. In 2014, the offense was elevated to a felony if there was also financial exploitation, neglect or abuse of residents.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation told the AJC last year that it was going to crack down on the illegal homes and requested a list of nearly 300 known operators of such facilities in the state. GBI Director Vernon Keenan told the AJC that he’d identified the 30 worst offenders and planned to work with local law enforcement agencies to investigate those individuals. It was not known Wednesday whether any of the Gwinnett homes were among those facilities.
The homes searched and evacuated Wednesday include:
• 3431 Pate Road, Snellville
• 3550 Imperial Hill Drive, Snellville
• 2470 Northbrook Road, Snellville
• 4026 Belgian Way, Snellville
• 1483 Virgil Pond Lane, Loganville
• 1474 Stephens Pond View, Loganville
• 1819 Rockdale Circle, Snellville
• 4060 Camaron Way, Snellville
• 1495 Stephens Pond View, Loganville
• 1505 Stephens Pond View, Loganville
• 3017 Sonya Lane, Snellville
• 2068 Englewood Way, Snellville
— Staff writer Rosalind Bentley contributed to this article.
About the Author
