 So we're here to talk about New York's broken guardianship system for everybody watching. I think most people when they think of guardianships, they think of Britney Spears, maybe other celebrities who've made a lot of headlines. But my colleague Jake Pearson wanted to know what life was like for the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who don't have millions and who are living under legal arrangements where they can't make their own decisions. Their welfare has been entrusted to a guardian who's supposed to look out for them. So Jake spent six months investigating the guardianship system in New York state and he found that the system is in shambles, leaving tens of thousands, vulnerable, voiceless, and giving rise to a cottage industry of nonprofits who take advantage of the people that they're supposed to protect. So Jake, can you just start us off here, tell me the story of Judith, the woman that you focused on and what her experience was with the guardianship system. Yeah, sure. And thanks everybody for joining. And if you've got questions, put them in and we'll see what we can do to address whatever comes in. But as Mike said, the story that I did, which I hope you all have read, features a woman named Judith Spigniewicz who spent about a decade as a warder who relied on a guardian called New York guardianship services to care for what in the state is refers to her property needs, housing and finances. There's another guardianship power that can address people's health care needs and their personal needs. But Judith was for her property needs and she found herself or the guardianship placed her in this decrepit, deteriorating queen's home apartment on the second floor of this home. And there was a partially collapsed roof and there was sort of perpetual and persistent vermin rat infestations, bed bugs, mold, awful conditions. And she complained in a number of ways to a number of people, including the guardianship repeatedly and could not get her issues addressed in any real satisfactory sense. And what the story documents is the many ways in which the system itself, the way it's designed to sort of help folks in these situations and to check the work of the guardians just didn't do it in her case. And we found in the investigation really tried to show that she wasn't an isolated incident, that there is something structurally wrong. And we can talk more about it, but that for folks like her who rely on sort of this network of nonprofits, there are yawning gaps for their care to ensure that they're treated with dignity and that their needs are met. Can you talk about for a second, as you said, you investigated this for six months, you talked to a lot of people, you read a lot of documents, and you focused on Judy because she's representative of this group of people that the court system calls the unbefriended. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, in industry parlance the term is unbefriended, but for many people who are in need of guardianship or are alleged to be in need of guardianship, there is a family member or friend who can sort of step up and fill that role. And there are also sort of professional private guardians, usually lawyers who are approved by the court to be appointed to fill that role. And they can come in in any number of circumstances, but very often when there's sort of a disagreement among siblings or there's a contested guardianship. And so the thinking is by the court to appoint a third party and partial to do all this stuff. But what the investigation revealed in which we wanted to draw attention to which hasn't gotten the sunshine we think it deserves as a matter of public policy and public interest is that there are thousands of people in the city who have neither family or friends nor enough money to be attractive candidates for a professional guardian who makes a living doing this. And so what has emerged or what is in place are a series of nonprofits. There are about a dozen that I identified. Three of them have contracts with the city. And so when adult protective services, when APS gets involved, there are these three groups. Self-help, New York Foundation for senior citizens. And then there are other ones that are private nonprofits or a combination of public funding and private funding. And they can be appointed too for what they call low and no fee wards, folks who don't have substantial assets, who often rely on public benefits or pro bono who have nothing. And so this constituency, this group of folks, they don't have lobbying power. They are not wealthy and influential. They really do rely on either private attorneys who are going to do a pro bono or there are fewer and fewer lawyers do this. It's too much work. Or these nonprofits that are supposed to basically serve as the social safety net. This is what we as a society have sort of created. Yeah, these are the folks that are most in need, right? That's right. And what are the types of, you know, we've said sort of, you know, the system is in shambles, the system is broken. What are the types of outcomes you described in Judy's case, you know, and some really stark detail about her, you know, living with a rat infestation, bed bugs. I think, you know, there was a partially collapsed roof, no heat. You know, these are really sort of horrendous living conditions. What are the other types of outcomes that you've come across with some of the unbefriended cases that you've reviewed? Well, you know, it can be very shocking and it runs the gamut. But in the most extreme of cases, there's a lawsuit that I found involving one of these groups that details a truly horrific situation in which a person who was under guardianship was living alone in a queen's home. And the guardian hadn't heard from her in some time and actually in an annual report filed with the judge discloses that over the course of a year they had no contact with their ward. They checked emergency rooms and everything and there was nothing. And indeed the case managers had knocked on the door, rang the doorbell with some frequency, maybe it was monthly. And the truth was, is that nobody went inside. And it wasn't until this person was, you know, in hawk basically to the utility to Con Edison that a meter reader came in with the city marshal to break down the door. And they found this poor person, this poor woman dead in her bed, actually mummified, covered in maggots. And, you know, so this is the degree I think that is the far end of the spectrum, but I think it illustrates it's a relatively recent case and it illustrates the gap in care, the reliance on a network of nonprofits that for many reasons are overcapacity and the lack of oversight. Yeah, let's, you know, who watches the Watchmen. Yeah, let's write right. Yeah, who watches the Watchmen let's let's get into sort of why you know how how all this happens right so so in New York State. What is how do people become a guardian and or how do companies, you know, become guardians and how is that different from from other states. It's really easy in New York to become a guardian, you have to take a class, you know, it's a day long course. And, you know, if you're, if you're going to be a professional guardian and get on the court's list of approved guardians, there's some vetting, you know, you have to attest that you haven't been convicted of a crime or face sort of professional sanction, nonprofits don't have to do that. And other states have more stringent reporting or requirements, you know, I think we write we write in the story that actually in New York. There are sort of, there's a higher bar to become a nail technician than than a guardian. There's a lengthier courses that you have to take you have to pass tests. And so in some ways, the reason why it's sort of low entry, and there's a history of this going decades is that you don't want to make it too onerous for a family or friend to get in place in an emergency situation. On the other hand, I think there's a growing recognition that it is such a sensitive position the stakes are so high that there needs to be more than just a sort of cursory understanding of what the law requires. And the truth is, is that, you know, maybe lawyers who do this for a living aren't the best candidates to be guardians that may be social workers or geriatric care managers or people who have experience with the elderly and the affirm that they may be better suited for this kind of job. You asked about guardians. I mean, we haven't even talked. There's someone above the guardian too, we should say, and the law that governs all this is called article 81 of the mental hygiene law. And the position of overseer is called the court examiner. And that person is usually also a lawyer or accountant and is responsible for reviewing the paperwork that the guardian is supposed to file per this law. There's an initial report. There's one every year. And that job is really supposed to be checking to ensuring the integrity of the report to make sure the money isn't misused and really to make sure that the care of the person is is adequate. But what in theory, what you what you found, right, was was that there is often a striking and kind of horrific gap between what's on paper and what's in reality. For sure. I mean, we actually quote a longtime judge and one of the original architects of article 81 who's been calling for reforms for a year, Kristen Booth Glenn, who says in the story, you know, paper is not enough when it comes to human lives. You have to visit the person. Now, in New York, what we also found is that there are just not enough examiners. I think there are 157 150 something examiners for more than 17,000 people under guardianship in the city across the five boroughs. So on the one hand, it's a matter of math. How could you possibly expect someone to visit let alone keep up with the paperwork on on the other hand that there is there's a real range in the examiner world about how much they're going to interrogate spending, how diligent, how stringent, how strict. I have heard from a source once tell me, you know, you want your examiner to be mean, kind of right, you want your examiner to be really kicking the tires to be putting the screws to you as the guardian to make sure that there are receipts to make sure that anything that looks inconsistent or that props a question is then asked. And, you know, we can talk about it some other day, but there's a very bureaucratic way that this is all done. There's a lot of paper filings. It's, it's, it's onerous. And I think there are legitimate questions to be asked about whether or not this could be streamlined improved fast tracks so that it's more user friendly. Anyway, but but yeah, there's, so there's a shortage of examiners. There's a real range and quality. And there has traditionally been a lot of difficulty getting examiners to go beyond the paper to look and see what's happening. So let's rewind, you know, a little bit right where you reported that the state's current guardianship law article 81 lawmakers passed in the early 90s. Right. So 30 years ago, state lawmakers were talking about, you know, a system that didn't work then and needed changes. And they made changes. So what changes did they make and why didn't they work? Yeah, and so we should say, you know, I think if you're on this call, you might have an idea, but but guardianship has long been fraught, not just in New York, but across the country. I mean, this is a hard thing to get right for a whole bunch of reasons. But but the law, what existed before the article 81 passed, I think universally is recognized have been even worse. Okay. And so article 81 did a really important thing that everybody in this world that I talked to sort of agrees, which is that it puts the rights of the ward. First and foremost, it protects due process. It codifies civil liberties. It instructs the judge to really tailor the guardianship order to that person's specific needs. In other words, not a blanket order taking away all rights forever. So on paper, it does a lot of really good things that I don't think anybody argues should be taken away. The, the, you know, as in everything, the proof is in the pudding, the details matter. And in practice, there, there is a real gap between the promise of the law and how it's implemented. And so if everybody was following the law the way that it's written, and there was enough infrastructure for it to work that way, we might have a different system. But humans are fallible systems aren't perfect. There's a whole lot of reasons we could talk about why that hasn't happened, but it's not happening. And, and that is why there's starting to be this consensus that article 81 needs an upgrade in a bunch of ways, especially for oversight, because there is just not enough stringent oversight to ensure that people are not being taken advantage of and are living with dignity. So the, the, there was a really striking quote in the story where you talk to a former judge who helped craft, you know, article 81. What did she say about, you know, article, how article 81 has played out today? Yeah, well, she said, you know, she said in a more eloquent and sharper way than I just did that, you know, the gap between the laws promise and its practice has, has rendered it, I think she says, basically useless. And that, you know, keeping people out of guardianship in the first place is the most important thing, she says, because once you do, the quote is, it's the toilet you get, you get flushed out. And, you know, there is a growing movement in this world, you know, supportive decision making is the term to try and help folks who, who may need some extra help in ways that doesn't, that, that don't deprive them of key constitutional rights or key rights to make decisions. I think, you know, there are some circumstances where it's unavoidable, unavoidable probably to have a guardianship. But, so that's step one for a lot of folks in this world is just to, to rely on it less, that there should be fewer people in guardianship to begin with. There should be ways to help folks who need folks that doesn't include this sort of incredible deprivation of rights. I mean, if you really do think about it, besides being in jail, there's not another sort of legal arrangement that, that, that takes away liberty the way that a guardianship order can. It's, it's an incredibly important sort of awesome in the term of like awesome power, awesome responsibility. And because it's so often affects people who are vulnerable because they're old or sick or what have you, it doesn't really get, you know, that's not off that point really is and I think digested by the public at large of just how sort of an incredibly important and what the responsibility is for the judges and the lawyers and the prosecutors here. I mean, this is this is truly sort of a unique set of powers that are afforded others over somebody else's real life. Can you just for, you know, maybe just for a minute, especially for folks that are watching that haven't read your full investigation, you know, you detailed as we talked about, you know, a particular case. Can you talk about how the failure right to oversee the guardian, you know, to oversee the guardian in her case. How did that. How did that impact her day to day life what sort of decisions went unaddressed and situations went went unaddressed, because there was really no one watching the Guardian. Yeah, so, you know, in the story we get into it, but what we were able to do with by by really examining the case file and Judith's guardianship case and mirroring it with interviews and contemporaneous emails that she sent and so forth, was demonstrate that because the oversight process is so delayed literally it takes years for what's supposed to be an annual yearly guardianship report to get reviewed it can take years for that to be completed. And in that time, things happen, conditions deteriorate, things happen. So in Judith's case, actually, before the examiner had even reviewed an annual report that had that had key information that spoke to the living conditions she was in and the instability of her housing, including that the guardian had stopped paying rent. You know, she had been evicted. The house had gone through a foreclosure. There was a very sort of shady ownership history at this house. The, the new owners were were writing in court filings that they couldn't get a response from the guardianship. There was a separate lawsuit in Queens housing court brought by the city against this new owner for not providing heat and hot water. In other words, these are documented serious court cases lawsuits that's that spoke to the sort of germane core issue of the guardian, which was her property needs, how she was living and how her money was being used. But because of this delay, because of this broken oversight system, it isn't clear even today that any of this information filtered its way up even on the on a delayed basis to the judge who sort of quarterbacking the whole thing. And who's in charge who issued the order who's being briefed. So, so this is a sort of fundamental flaw in the system, because key decision makers a may not even be getting the information they need and be if they do get it. The whole operation is operating on a year's long delay. And if there's something critical, you know, and you're not able to raise an alarm, you know, some folks and guardianship can't speak, literally. If you think about how dangerous that can be, it takes your breath away. So hearing all of all of this right reading your story, you had another story this week that that sort of detailed the stories. The tales of some other people in guardianship who also were harmed, you know, by the by, you know, under the under the care watch of this of this company New York guardianship services. It can all add up right to a pretty depressing bleak picture. So, is there, you know, is there anything on the horizon in terms of policy making in terms of the state legislature, the governor, are there things that can be done to improve this system that respects as you say, you know, the dignity of the unbefriended. Yeah, so, you know, look, a few days after our story ran, the Albany Times Union published an editorial that said the governor and the legislature should address this in a serious wholesale way. In fact, I think they said this is not a whack-a-mole situation. And, you know, the problem is that, well, there are a number of problems, but for a long time the issue of guardianship has sort of been a political football. Because, you know, there are three different sort of committees in the ledge in the legislature that own it in some fashion, there's aging and health and judiciary. And, for whatever reasons, none of them has traditionally taken this on as something that they're going to be responsible for to commit funding to. So, that said, you know, we have a story coming soon, probably next week, that details not just the history of efforts that many people have made over time to try and improve the law, which is the case. I mean, this is not a sort of an open secret, but it's not a secret. But also sort of concrete things that legislatures, that politicians and elected officials in Albany could do to try and improve Article 81 and its promise, and to, you know, fund it in some fashion. Because the system right now sort of operates by taking money from the accounts of wards, but if those wards don't have money, or have too little money, it's operating at a loss. And we just know, we just know from the numbers that there are too many folks who have too little, and there needs to be some sort of dedicated, you know, money alone doesn't do it, but it is a measure of how seriously people take it. And so, yeah, we're going to write about it. There are other people out there who have ideas and have proposed them and are lobbying the legislature currently. But, you know, as I've said earlier, this is not a folks in guardianship don't have high powered lawyers and lobbyists. And this is not the real estate industry. And so a solution comes, I think, if there's enough desire for public interest for common good improvements. And, you know, there has been in the past the question is, is this going to be a priority today. We shall see. And you're going to be continuing to report on this right. Yeah, I'm very I'm committed to this for the year I've got some ideas that I'd like to pursue further. I'm always interested in the themes of oversight. I'm always interested in gaps in care. And, you know, if you're interested, if you're watching this and you feel like there's something I should know, I'm happy to chat or to read an email. You can always get to me by emailing it's on the website, but it's just my first name Jake dot last name Pearson at ProPublica dot org. And, you know, we're really committed to this as a news organization. We think this is an issue of extraordinary public interest and public concern. And so the degree to which you or people you know out there have information or have insight or think that there's a case that speaks to a broader structural flaw do get in touch. You know, we can't do our job well if people who know things don't talk to us. So, you know, open invitation, open door policy. Great. Well, I think that's a good place to end for today. Thanks so much for everybody tuning in. You can read Jake's investigation at ProPublica dot org backslash guardianship and to receive important investigations like Jake's sign up for our big story newsletter for free at ProPublica dot org backslash newsletters. Thanks everybody. Thanks everybody be in touch.