SLO County woman recovering from a devastating fire faces eviction during coronavirus
A medically fragile burn patient who survived a devastating fire at her home in Cambria could soon find herself without housing near her ongoing treatments at UCLA — right in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
Sherry Hilber, who was badly injured when a fire destroyed her home in 2018, says the management of Tiverton House, where she’s been staying since December 2018, has for months been threatening her with eviction from her $179-a-night hotel room, saying she’s been there too long.
The 100-room hotel in Los Angeles is “designed to meet the needs of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center patients and their families,” according to Tiverton House’s website, “making it possible to be nearby when support and closeness are needed most.”
As much as she wishes she could return home, living at the facility has allowed Hilber to stay close to her doctors as she undergoes regular treatment. But it’s unclear how long that will last.
“Would I be better in Cambria? Emotionally, yes. Physically, up in the air, an unknown,” she said.
The uncertainty couldn’t come at a worse time, as Los Angeles County reels from thousands of cases of coronavirus, ordering people to stay home and urging its 4 million residents to protect themselves by wearing non-medical face coverings whenever they leave their residences.
Cambria resident injured in rental home fire
Until late on May 29, 2018, Hilber had been a quiet, almost reclusive resident of Cambria, the town she still adores.
Then a devastating fire of unknown cause destroyed the rental home in which she was living, along with all her possessions. Hilber was rushed by ambulance to the intensive-care burn unit of West Hills Hospital and Medical Center in Los Angeles.
Hilber said she was “operated on for several hours.”
She was then treated in the intensive care unit, “then isolation, then after a few months to a skilled nursing facility, then to UCLA guest house briefly to start outpatient wound care, which they said would take a year or more,” she said. Her treatment included painful skin debriding and numerous skin grafts.
After a month or so in the UCLA guest house, she said, “I moved to the Tiverton House to have weekly UCLA treatments. They never said there was a time limit to stay here — only that I could stay at Tiverton as long as I receive health care from UCLA.”
Hilber’s current treatments include “wound care, rehabilitation, breast cancer surgery and follow-up care at UCLA,” she said.
She’s also anemic, she said, “and each room change exhausts me. They know this.”
Will hotel evict burn patient?
In a lengthy series of email interviews since February, Hilber said her most recent eviction day was to have been April 3.
By that morning, she said, Tiverton management had finally indicated that her stay had tentatively been extended for another two weeks.
That extension was filled with rules, contingencies and parameters. Hilber might be moved to a different room for the third time, and every couple of weeks thereafter until she leaves. Or she could be evicted at any time.
“I’m exhaling for right now,” Hilber said, but she’s not letting down her guard, knowing she still could be transferred or evicted with little notice.
She credits the latest time extension to her pro bono attorney, who wants to remain anonymous. “I finally sought the assistance of counsel out of desperation and worry, due to their (Tiverton management’s) constant and changing reasons for my eviction,” Hilber said.
She said that hotel management keeps moving her around the hotel to different rooms and demanding that she leave by a certain date, which could change if she doesn’t adhere to their demands.
“This creates exhaustion for me as it means moving my medical supplies and other items and puts me into close contact with the staff,” she said. “It also distracts me from focusing on my healing. Each time I move, it is an upheaval physically and emotionally, even though it is in the same hotel. It creates uncertainty and instability.”
What Tiverton House says
For months, The Cambrian has sought responses about Hilber’s case from Tiverton House management, most recently on April 2.
The only relevant statement came in late February, when Phil Hampton, communications director for UCLA Health, said he couldn’t comment directly on Hilber’s case.
“UCLA Health adheres to laws governing patient privacy, so we are unable to publicly discuss whether a specific person is a guest or the circumstances of his or her stay at Tiverton House, which is intended for patients and families of patients,” Hampton wrote in an email.
“Tiverton House policy is that guests who do not live within 100 miles of UCLA may check in three days before their UCLA medical appointment and shall check out three days after such appointment, with 29 days being the maximum length of stay,” he added.
In another email later that month, Hampton said, “Our desire is for Tiverton House to allow patients and their families to focus on healing during times of prolonged treatments and medical emergencies. When patients express extenuating circumstances, we consider extending stays beyond the 29-day maximum referenced in their registration paperwork.”
Alternate housing not available
Hilber says if she’s evicted from Tiverton, she has no place else to go, as any alternate housing is too far from UCLA, too expensive or both.
“I looked into Airbnb’s, hotels, furnished short-term, long-term unfurnished,” she said, and found the latter impractical because she has no furniture and cannot afford new items, even linens, dinnerware and glasses.
All the options “were very expensive; $5,000 a month for a decent place (and) many had limited availability,” Hilber said.
Also, Hilber relies on the UCLA shuttle for transportation, and that likely wouldn’t be available to her at many of those housing options.
“It’s too hard to move,” she said, and with possible COVID-19 contamination issues, being around “movers could pose health risks now, due to the virus.”
Could she return to SLO County?
Hilber’s heart is still firmly in Cambria.
That passion is reflected in many of her wistful, longing Facebook posts in which she yearns for even a brief visit to her beloved Moonstone Beach area and other North Coast experiences.
In San Luis Obispo County, Hilber said said, she “would still have same Medicare health care but the availability of surgeons for me is very limited,” although “surgeons are on hold at UCLA and at SLO, so there’s no difference there” for now.
“Daily home health for my wound is the critical immediate factor,” Hilber said, “as I would need someone who would not mind driving out to Cambria from San Luis Obispo daily.”
“The conflict for me now is my quality of life while waiting” through the healing process and other treatments, she said.
That quality “would be much more healing in Cambria,” Hilber said. “But the general physical issues are worth considering. My doctors are here. If I ever have some unexpected urgent matter or need different home health care, there is more proximity and more choices” in Los Angeles.
However, she added, with the COVID-19 crisis, “everything here is largely shut down and home health nurses are not even as easy to find here due to contagion concerns.”
Nevertheless, she can’t stop thinking about home.
“I miss it with all my heart. But I have no movers, no help packing. And the move might completely exhaust me and put me in contact with strangers who may be contagious now. My heart is there but my practical issues are of concern.”
And so Hilber waits for the next directive from Tiverton House managers, who are controlling her fate during a global medical crisis.
This story was originally published April 8, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
