Summit convened on vulnerable adults

TUMWATER, Wash. – More than 100 specialists from across the state met in this former brewery city Friday to discuss a bleak topic: the abuse, neglect and financial exploitation of vulnerable adults.

“It just makes sense to gather in one place and talk about how we can work together more effectively,” said Attorney General Rob McKenna, who convened the “summit” of officials from state and local governments, advocacy groups and nonprofits.

The state Department of Social and Health Services says it fielded nearly 14,000 complaints of abuse and neglect of adults last year. Given a population whose average age is steadily increasing as people live longer, McKenna said, such complaints nationwide rose 20 percent from 2000 to 2004.

The problem isn’t an abstraction to McKenna. Two years ago, a relative of his was being stripped of her savings by her son until relatives and law enforcement intervened. The woman was moved to a family home under the protection of state officials, McKenna said, and the son was arrested.

“He was gambling heavily and may have been involved in drugs, and he was just looting her bank account,” McKenna said. He wouldn’t specify the relatives, saying he didn’t want to embarrass family members.

“A lot of people have these stories,” he said.

Last month, DSHS Secretary Robin Arnold-Williams joined McKenna in calling for more coordination among social services, law enforcement, prosecutors, families and courts. She was one of several co-chairs for Friday’s meeting.

“We’re not just going to identify the problems,” she said at the time. “We’re going to take determined action.”

Others at the summit included Louise Ryan, the state’s long-term care ombudsman, the King County prosecutor’s office and attorneys in the Olympia and Spokane offices of the attorney general’s Medicaid Fraud unit.