http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/1161177
Elder Abuse and Financial Exploitation of our most vulnerable citizens is on the rise at alarming rates.
The very systems that should be protecting these victims are failing miserably.
What's worse is some of those systems meant to protect these vulnerable people who are already hurting and need help have become a mechanisms that can and is used to perpetrate abuse and financial exploitation against them. In fact Guardianship are now being used as a tool to exploit money from estates and from their family members as well who are vulnerable to the complex legal system that are assaulted in.
This Share is dedicated to providing education to other so that they can help us help those who are in need.
Once a person is put into guaridanship (a legal instrument) they most often lose all of their civil rights and constitutional rights. It doesn't seem right that a person can become essentially a non-person, a person who has lost their birthrights as citizens of this great nation founded on these very principles. It doesn't seem right that a person can lose their right to their own property. But in happens every single day in America, in courts all over this land in our State Courts.
To protect is the goal of the instruments that appoint another as the "decider" for another. There are two such instruments: one is guardianship of the person and the other is guardianship of the property or conservatorship.
There are other less instrusive means of providing surrogate decision making for an person who is unable to manage their own affairs. For centuries family and loved ones have stepped in to help a loved one.
Guardianships were meant to be used as a very last resort for those who had no one else there to help them. Today however this instrument is being abused by those who find it as a means to reward themselves financially from the assets of a person who has no say whatsoever over their own money and property.
Quite simply put these people are easy pickings and the law has created the incredibly easy to abuse instrument for others including greedy relatives, lawyers, professional fiduciarys and others to abuse. When you had a elderly widow with an estate worth millions there are those who will jump at the opportunity to be that persons gaurdian because the system is set up for them to be paid from the fund that they manage, the ward's estate.
This opportunity leads to numerous petitions for guardianship that are entirely unwarranted and the unnessesary and inappropriate declaration of incompetance of a person who is just old and perhaps forgettful or just basically in need of a helping hand.
Today the abuse of our Elderly is being worsened by the abuses occuring in guardianships and conservatorship.
We need to all work to stop this problem or we will be victims one day.
ELDER ABUSE VICTIMS ADVOCATES
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