State Shutters Home for Aged in San Clemente

SAN CLEMENTE â€”  The state Department of Social Services has closed a local board and care home because officials found that operators failed to adequately care for four elderly residents of the facility.

State officials revoked the license of Sea Pointe Casa Royale on charges that the home’s staff had mistreated its residents, failed to provide adequate meals for them, employed inadequate staff and allowed “confused and disoriented residents� to roam the exclusive neighborhood.

In one incident, a Sea Pointe Casa resident was bitten by a dog after he wandered into a nearby yard, officials said.

The facility’s owner, Marizen S. Algaw, has not contested the state’s action and was unavailable for comment Monday. Sources said she has returned to her native Philippines.

Algaw received a license from the state in January, 1992, to convert her three-bedroom, ocean-view home in San Clemente into a residential care facility for four senior citizens. The single-story, beige-colored home is on a hillside on the inland side of Interstate 5, just inside the guarded gates of the upscale Sea Pointe Estates development.

Algaw charged her clients $2,500 a month to stay in the facility.

Records show that state officials had repeatedly warned Algaw that she and her staff had risked the health and safety of their clients. Algaw was ordered to pay almost $1,500 in fines for several violations.

In one visit last January, a department inspector found that food in the facility’s kitchen was contaminated and that residents were not provided with timely, nutritious meals. For instance, one resident received cake and coffee for breakfast and another was fed breakfast at 10:30 a.m.

On another inspection, an official noted that residents “were sent to bed at 6 p.m. the previous evening and not awakened till after 10 a.m., a period of 16 hours without activity.�

Algaw, who boasted in flyers that her home provided “trained, courteous, friendly and loving personnel on 24-hour duty,� left town on several occasions without leaving an adequately trained administrator in charge, officials said.

John Grant, a supervisor at the department’s Santa Ana office, said two residents who were still living at Sea Pointe when its license was revoked on March 15 were moved to another Orange County facility.

“Most board and care homes do a good job,� Grant said. “The few that are unwilling to comply with our regulations tarnishes the reputation of the entire industry.�

Times staff writer Len Hall contributed to this story.

Bill of Particulars

Why the Sea Point Casa Royale was closed: * Allowing staff to push, shove clients * Contaminated food * Too few meals, untimely service of meals * Inadequate supervision * No administrator during absences * Insufficiently trained staff * Insufficient number of staff * Allowing clients to roam neighborhood Source: California Department of Social Services