{"id":215855,"date":"2026-04-02T10:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T10:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/215855\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T10:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T10:14:08","slug":"system-to-protect-florida-seniors-operates-without-oversight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/215855\/","title":{"rendered":"System to protect Florida seniors operates without oversight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Miami-dcf-ideas-home-final.jpg\"   width=\"1140\" height=\"641\" title=\"Illustration by Neil Nakahodo\" alt=\"Illustration by Neil Nakahodo\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        Illustration by Neil Nakahodo<\/p>\n<p>        READ MORE<\/p>\n<p>        The Gray Market<\/p>\n<p>        Expand All<\/p>\n<p>    The Gray Market<\/p>\n<p>Florida\u2019s timeless appeal as a retirement paradise and the aging of the Baby Boomer generation have combined to flood the Sunshine State with a \u201cSilver Tsunami.\u201d More elderly people could find themselves at the mercy of an obscure government program meant to save them from harm and preserve their dignity when their ability to take care of themselves is diminished.<\/p>\n<p>Yet a Miami Herald investigation shows that Florida\u2019s Department of Children and Families too often does just the opposite. The forgotten members of a society that glamorizes youth and devalues wisdom can become trapped in \u201cThe Gray Market\u201d \u2013 whisked away without their day in court, deprived of their autonomy and forced during their twilight years into grim, substandard homes for the elderly.<\/p>\n<p>Vulnerable, voiceless elders in Miami-Dade who are removed from their homes for their own good will likely wind up in the hands of an Adult Protective Services supervisor promoted to a position of unparalleled power despite the objections of family members and whistleblowing colleagues. That supervisor, alone, decides where elders will go.<\/p>\n<p>Living in a county with more than 800 licensed assisted living facilities, Miami\u2019s seniors may wake up in homes they did not choose tainted by critical records of poor care. They can be shipped off without the knowledge of their loved ones, help from an attorney or oversight of a judge.<\/p>\n<p>As one elder advocate lamented in a warning: \u201cThis could be any one of us on a bad day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"summary gray\">This story was originally published April 2, 2026 at 5:30 AM.<\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"https:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/profile\/263221143\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"author-thumb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ny1qYvFF_400x400.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" alt=\"Profile Image of Susan Merriam\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><br \/>\n                    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>                <a class=\"author-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/profile\/263221143\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Susan Merriam<\/a><\/p>\n<p>                    The Kansas City Star<\/p>\n<p>            Susan Merriam is a data and visual journalist at McClatchy, where she has published work with the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star and The Sacramento Bee among others. She has been part of teams honored by the National Press Foundation, Investigative Reporters &amp; Editors and the Society for News Design for their investigative and local accountability reporting.\n            <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illustration by Neil Nakahodo READ MORE The Gray Market Expand All The Gray Market Florida\u2019s timeless appeal as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124],"class_list":["post-215855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}