'A nice place,' despite sqaulor

ROSALIND LAVIN has a personal aircraft, a gated Villanova mansion with a swimming pool and tennis court and mansions in Florida and New Jersey.

But the Main Line multimillionaire says she doesn't have enough money to fix bent sprinkler heads and other "life-threatening" code violations city inspectors found at Ivy Ridge, the Roxborough assisted-living home she owns and was forced to close this week after federal authorities pegged her as a slumlord.

"I have 150 sprinkler heads - where do they think we're going to get the money for that? I don't have the money to pay for that," Lavin said yesterday, even as painters worked inside her Villanova mansion and prepared to renovate her master bedroom.

As five Ivy Ridge residents scrambled to find a new place to live yesterday, Lavin squabbled with them about money, eager to make sure she got whatever rent money was due her.

She also briefly discussed the violations with several employees, boarders and visitors, according to a source familiar with the conversation.

She complained about city inspectors labeling conditions at her dilapidated facility - which she called "a nice place" - as life-threatening when so many homeless people live on the street or in squalid shelters.

"I don't get it. You ought to see the places people are living; it would break your heart," Lavin said.

But federal authorities contend Ivy Ridge was the heartbreaker. For nearly 20 years, neighbors, city and state authorities tried to close down Ivy Ridge, a structurally unsafe building where residents lived in filthy clothes and bed linens and received insufficient food, limited medical care and intermittent dispensing of medicine.

On Tuesday, Lavin agreed to a settlement with the feds that forbids her from ever owning or running a health-care facility again. Three other assisted-living facilities Lavin owned in Philadelphia and Media were shuttered several years ago after similar allegations of improper management arose.

Under the settlement, the five remaining Ivy Ridge residents - two assisted-living patients and three boarders - had until Aug. 10 to leave the sprawling, gray-stone building on Ridge Avenue near Kingsley Street.

But Thursday, the residents received a form letter from the city's licenses and inspections department telling them they had 24 hours to find a new home.

Boarder James Debrow remained unsure yesterday afternoon where he would end up.

"I ain't got nowhere to go," said Debrow, 56, who relies on a cane to walk since he was injured in two unrelated car accidents and was in pain yesterday "from my neck all the way down to my daggone feet."

Lisa Faulkner of the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania spent most of yesterday on the phone trying to find Debrow someplace to live.

"There's a real need for supportive housing for people with mental-health and physical disabilities in Philadelphia," she said, vowing to help Debrow relocate by early next week.

Yesterday, L&I Deputy Commissioner Dominic Verdi reversed the 24-hour eviction order and said his agency would honor the federally set Aug. 10 deadline.

That news apparently sounded like ka-ching! to Lavin.

"So you mean I can take [more] boarders in?" Lavin asked yesterday after hearing of the reprieve.

The federal settlement specifies that Lavin is no longer permitted to own or operate a patient-, personal- or residential-care facility, or program or center that receives federal health-care money. It's unclear whether a boardinghouse falls under that description.

Verdi said that Lavin is not permitted to have boarders at Ivy Ridge - at least until the code violations are fixed and she secures the proper licenses.

Lavin, 65, could not be reached for comment late yesterday. Her attorneys Larry Besnoff and Lawrence J. Tabas didn't return telephone calls. She denied wrongdoing in the settlement.

Several of Lavin's boarders described Lavin as a money-grubbing slumlord. Yesterday, she refused to return their security deposits. Boarders said they typically paid $350 a month for a room or up to $500 a month, with meals.

"She's so rotten that even God don't want her," said Jane Urban, 62, a boarder since February.

Lavin recruited at least three of her boarders in the past six months from a North Philadelphia homeless shelter.

Yesterday, Debrow simmered as he thought about Lavin recruiting renters from homeless shelters, even as she knew the feds were closing in.

"If you were back and forth in court for this and knew this might happen, why would you mess with people's lives like this?" demanded Debrow, a disabled, retired mechanic and cement-layer who now faces homelessness again. *