Aug 20, 2018 3 min read

DONORA – A personal care home was evacuated Saturday in Donora after it appeared that its owner had abandoned the business, the borough solicitor said.

Solicitor Steve Toprani said 13 residents were removed from Miller’s Corner Cottage after he received calls expressing concerns about evictions there from some relatives of the residents.

“The conditions alarmed me,” Toprani said Monday as aging services officials were finalizing plans to relocate the last eight residents to other facilities.

The owner of the business at 116 Kenric Ave., Charles Miller of Greensburg, could not be reached Saturday afternoon, when a few of his employees had remained to help care for the 13 residents, Toprani said. The employees also told borough officials that their last paychecks had bounced, he said.

The home was notified by the state Department of Human Services July 2 that it needed to correct 55 violations that were noted during its last license inspections in February.

The letter to Miller’s Corner Cottage administrator Judy Faidley indicated that the home had issues relating to abuse reporting, an inoperable fire-suspension sprinkler system and failure to account for money withdrawals from patient accounts, online state records show.

“Residents do not have a system to safeguard their money and personal belongings. Multiple residents have indicated they have had money stolen,” the document states.

The alleged violations also involved issues with residents being accepted without a signed contract, while other such agreements did not list fee schedules for room and board, the records indicate. Another alleged violation involved the water temperature exceeding 120 degrees in areas accessible to residents.

Toprani said it was hot inside the building Saturday. Some interior doors were blocked, he said. Medications did not appear to have been stored properly, he added. He also said the food supply appeared to have been limited.

“It was not clean,” he said.

The home was licensed to house 80 residents. Sixty-six people were living there at the time of the Feb. 13 and 14 license inspections, the record show.

The borough called the county’s health director to the house Saturday, as well as representatives of the Area Agency on Aging, Toprani said.

He said he was told Monday that Miller had reached a consent agreement with Human Services to surrender his license to operate the home.

He said the borough planned to hold a special meeting Wednesday to review the local codes and occupancy permit for the home to ensure it does not reopen without a license.

“It’s not uncommon for people to house residents in unlicensed homes,” Toprani said.

The property and building are owned by Mon Valley Hospital, state records show.

The hospital leased the property to Miller, who is responsible for the licensing and operations of the former Kenric Manor, a hospital spokesman said Monday.

A no-trespassing signed has been posted on the front door to the business. A person who answered the telephone Monday at the house said the business had no comment on the issues.

Miller could not be reached Monday.