Jill Porter: How a life ended in an unheated, illegal boardinghouse

ROY PARKER'S grueling

sojourn on the streets of Philadelphia had finally come to an end; he'd rented a room in a place where he thought he could start rebuilding his life.

And that's where he died.

Parker was found dead on a bitterly cold night last month in an unheated, illegal rooming house operated - incredibly - by the notorious Rosalind Lavin.

Hypothermia contributed to Parker's death from heart disease, according to the Medical Examiner's Office. The temperature outside was below freezing all day.

Parker was one of 10 people living in the Roxborough carriage house, paying Lavin $450 a month for a room in the violation-ridden house, according to a city official.

There was no heat. No fire alarms. No license to operate.

It was a year ago that Lavin was forced to shut down the squalid Ivy Ridge Assisted Living facility at the same Ridge Avenue address, as part of an agreement with the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Instead of prosecuting her, the feds allowed Lavin to pay a $700,000 fine and sign an agreement to permanently cease operating personal-care facilities.

Lavin's assisted-living homes were infamous for being filthy and for providing substandard care. Three other homes she ran had already been shut down by authorities.

But predators like Lavin apparently can't resist exploiting the poor, sick and disabled, so she turned the carriage house into a human warehouse.

Lavin lives in a Villanova mansion; I couldn't reach her yesterday.

Parker was found dead three days before Christmas on the floor in a first-floor rear room of the unheated two-story house.

The temperature ranged from 15 to 27 degrees that day. Parker was ill with heart disease, and the cold proved too much to endure.

Scott Mulderig, chief of emergency services for the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections, arrived to find 10 people living at the house, including an elderly man and two couples. It's zoned for a single-family residence.

"They'd been there for a while," Mulderig said.

They told him they were paying Lavin $450 a month for each of the seven rooms.

Also on the premises was the property manager, who said he was running it for Lavin, Mulderig said.

The residents were evacuated to homeless shelters, and an order to cease operations was posted on the property.

Lavin was cited for a series of code violations, according to L&I Commissioner Fran Burns.

"We have a history with this woman, with this owner," she said.

That's an understatement.

Roy Parker was "a great guy, a nice man," said Brother Kip Ledger of St. John's Hospice.

"He was excited about getting off the street."

Brother Kip, the day-services caseworker at the homeless shelter, met Parker about two years ago and didn't know why he was homeless or how long he'd been on the street.

"He'd come to me to keep documents or send faxes or make phone calls or try to help him get his benefits," he said.

"He'd come sometimes every day for a few months then I wouldn't see him for a few months, off and on like that."

Parker told him the place he rented wouldn't let him get his mail there - presumably to cover the illegal operation.

Another homeless man who gave me his initials rather than his name - A.C. - said Parker was "a man-child. He was a lovable guy but he didn't think as an adult."

A.C. said he, too, was among the homeless recruited to live at the carriage house by a one-time HIV counselor at St. John's Hospice. The man would visit homeless shelters and promote the Ridge Avenue house as an opportunity to turn life around, he said.

A.C. lived there briefly.

"He had to report to this mystery woman," A.C. said.

"He had to give her the money and he had to be on time, too. He kept stressing that."

It's clear the U.S. attorney missed an opportunity to put the obviously unrepentant Lavin truly out of business last year.

She should have been criminally prosecuted instead of being let off with a fine and a worthless agreement.

By allegedly housing people illegally, she violated the spirit of that agreement - and she ought to be held accountable for it.

Roy Parker may not have been murdered. But he was clearly the victim of foul play.

He thought he was embarking on a new beginning when he rented the room in Roxborough.

Yesterday, his body remained in the morgue while the city tried to find his next of kin.
 
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E-mail porterj@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5850. For recent columns:

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