A 92-year-old man who clearly wants to spend his final days at home. Instead, he’s caught up in a legal and emotional battle that his family says they didn’t see coming.
Howard Rose is under a Ventura County conservatorship, which governs practically every aspect of his life. Now, his family is trying to bring him home, raising unsettling concerns about due process, medical judgments, and who truly has the authority to decide what is best for the vulnerable.
“It’s hard because he begs to come home, and I’m powerless. There’s nothing I can do right now because the decisions aren’t mine to make,” said Andrew Rose, Howard’s only son.
Ventura County has taken a conservatorship over Howard’s person and finances, despite his family’s pleas to care for him at home, as they have previously.
“We had no civil rights; he had no due process,” Howard’s wife, Cynthia Rose, explained.
Cynthia and Andrew claim that the county illegally placed Howard in conservatorship to conceal medical malpractice and seize control of his income. They allege the procedure began after a hospital visit resulted in bogus accusations that his family had abandoned him, which they categorically dispute.
The Rose family claims that Ventura County has incurred excessive medical expenses by transporting Howard between nursing homes, despite the fact that the family is entirely capable of caring for him at home.
“What floored me was when I saw the first bill. The nursing home was more expensive than the one we used in Santa Barbara, and the care was appalling—they had 129 cases of elder abuse there,” says Cynthia.
