Outrage as seniors are 'kicked out' of their homes in retirement mecca to make way for luxury housing boom

Daily Mail​

29-05-2025

A senior living facility in Florida is under fire for 'evicting' elderly residents to secretly make way for upscale luxury apartments as the infamous retirement hot spot undergoes a baby boom transformation.
Oasis Living Quarters, a senior care facility in Fort Lauderdale, came under intense scrutiny in March after allegedly telling some of its 180 residents they'd have to leave their homes without giving proper notice or obtaining the correct permits, Local 10 News reported.
The facility is now facing massive fines after a building inspector discovered construction he described as being 'much like hotel rooms' while many of the seniors are still living at the facility.
City officials are slapping Oasis with $1000 daily fines for 'unpermitted construction' - work they claim is a covert effort to capitalize on demand for luxury housing in sun-soaked Fort Lauderdale.
In a city long considered a paradise for retirees, a wave of anger and disbelief has been rising among residents and their families, many of whom are elderly and need extra care.
'It's heart-wrenching,' Jim Woods, whose mother was forced out of the facility in April, told CBS News.
'Some residents don't know what's going on.'
On March 5, Oasis residents were summoned to an emergency meeting where management abruptly informed them that they had until the end of the month to vacate.
The change left many feeling 'blindsided' and unprepared for such a sudden upheaval, with families demanding answers from building management.
'We are all depressed,' Alonso and Patseta Lawhorn, who have lived at the Oasis facility for more than eight years, told NBC Miami News in March.
'Some people had to go to the hospital and some people got sick,' they added.
'I suffer from hypertension and I have one kidney and my spleen is out and my husband suffers from PTSD, and everybody is all stressed and sick.'
According to residents, all units of the facility - Independent Living, Assisted Living and the Memory Care Unit - were impacted in the mass move.
'We have to move out because they are dismantling the memory care unit,' Steven DeLeon, whose 83-year-old family member lives there, told NBC.
Milton Amengual, whose 94-year-old mother had only moved into the facility three months prior to the 'mandatory' meeting, also joined other families grappling with the shock.
'My mother is nervous. She hasn't slept in a few days just thinking about the fact that she has to move,' Amengual told Local 10.
According to Oasis, the move was because the facility would be undergoing renovations to 'enhance the overall experience' (pictured: letter from Oasis management about renovations)
'She at first thought she did something wrong - but I said, no you didn't do anything wrong.'
According to Oasis, the move was because the facility would be undergoing renovations to 'enhance the overall experience'.
However, just days later, moving trucks and vans were already filling the facility's parking lot, concealing torn-out drywall and beginning to remodel units - all while residents were still in the process of finding new homes.
Last month, Fort Lauderdale building inspector Andrew Gebbia visited the facility in response to multiple complaints about the treatment of elderly residents.
During that visit, he uncovered unpermitted construction tied to the controversial conversion into Waterview Rental, prompting a scathing 30-page report that outlined dozens of violations.
The work, Gebbia explained, involved the 'replacement of kitchenettes, structural plumbing and electrical, and replacement of split-unit ACs', as reported by Local 10.
'As I walked through the building, I observed renovations being done in a number of rooms, much like hotel rooms,' Gebbia said, Local 10 reported.
'There were no permits issued for this work, so I issued a stop work order, left it on the counter in the main entrance,' he added.
The released state inspection report detailed a series of unusual exchanges between inspector Gebbia and Oasis administrator Steven Gottlieb, raising further questions about the facility's conduct.
While Gebbia accused the facility of kicking out residents while secretly converting the complex into luxury apartments, Gottlieb denied that any evictions had taken place, as reported by the outlet.
Instead, the administrator blamed the departure of residents since the inspector's last visit to natural deaths and rude nursing staff, rather than any forced evictions.
Also last month, Oasis was hit with a court injunction over the alleged evictions, after a civil court judge sided with a grieving attorney who had been advocating for the vulnerable seniors, as reported by Local 10 News.
On April 2, Broward County Circuit Judge William W. Haury, Jr. issued a court order requiring Oasis to stop evicting residents. The facility's attorneys requested that he overturn the order - which he didn't.
Oasis was also facing citations from the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration for violating rules meant to protect residents.
On Tuesday, it was announced that the senior living facility will now be fined $1,000 a day by the city if they don't come into compliance within 15 days.
'To me, this is why I'm so aggressive with this particular case,' Fort Lauderdale Building Committee Vice Chair Donald Karney III said during a meeting Tuesday morning, Local 10 reported.
'They've done these people extremely dirty and that's why I'm being such a stick in the mud about it.'
Karney also declared that he's 'going after big money for the city and giving them the same amount of time they gave these poor old people to get out of their places they call homes'.
With just 15 days to comply, many believe Oasis has no realistic chance of meeting the deadline, which could mean mounting fines soaring into the tens of thousands - potentially exceeding $100,000, the outlet reported.
Notably, the Oasis administrator skipped Tuesday's meeting, but members are demanding his presence at the next one scheduled for July 22.
Oasis Living Quarters management did not immediately respond to DailyMail.com for comment.
Fort Lauderdale, commonly known as a hub for retirees, is now appealing to young families as the city is witnessing a massive baby boom transformation.
According to the Downtown Development Authority's recent annual report, there has been an 83 percent increase in families with kids since 2018.
In the past five years, there has been a 47 percent increase in families with children under five years old migrating to the sunny area.
New data also suggests that families have chosen to flock to the downtown area because of its $10 million infrastructure expansio n, including the renovation of Huizenga Park and its enhanced dining scene.
Young families have also found that the area is a bit cheaper than that of nearby West Palm Beach or Miami, where the average rent is $3,000 a month, compared to $2621 in downtown Fort Lauderdale.