September 15, 2006

By Sandy Meyer
Copyright Sandy Meyer

AARP has been collecting billions of dollars for membership dues for decades and enhancing their lobbying ads with promises to lobby for laws that protect seniors. Most seniors live in homeowner associations. Many have lost their home equity and even their homes to homeowner association and insurance lawyers.

Believing that the membership fees that AARP collected from them would be used to help them, many seniors who are victims of homeowner association scams called AARP for help and received none. e.g. Desert Crest Seniors in Riverside, California

Volunteer homeowner advocate groups who are working to help the seniors , asked the administration of AARP and AARP lobbyists to get involved, help the seniors, and actively promote legislation that would protect the seniors who were already financing their lobby activities. Groups that asked included: AHRC, Texas Property Rights Foundation, and Citizens for Constitutional Local Government. For two decades AARP refused.

Advocates were told by Christine Kehoe, a California lawmaker, her legislative consultants and other lobbyists, that AARP "representing seniors interests" was the main supporter of her bill, AB 2289. She was attempting to justify the provisions in her bill that were adverse to homeowners. Others that supported her bill included CAI and lobbyists financed by various othe rindustry groups. The AARP lobbyist at the time,Lupe Dela Cruz denied that AARP had any involvement in the bill. As he had done in the past, he again repeated that the AARP corporate agenda specifically did not allow AARP to get involved in issues or bills involving homeowner associations.

Homeowners have built up a strong national network and presence using their own resources. They work together, with lawmakers, media and others to protect their homes and equity. They made equity and home losses in homeowner association lawsuits and foreclosures one of the hottest news topics.

To vendors including insurance companies and brokers, homeeowner associations are one of the most profitable marketplaces and AARP has decided to begin its marketing to association homeowners.

Recently Andrew Kochera of AARP contracted with attorney David Kahne to do an "AARP Report on Homeowner Associations"

David Kahne was brought to the attention of the homeowners when the late Texas activist Geneva Brooks, Texas Property Rights Foundation, put out a press release with photos of her visit with the Houston ACLU directors. He was one of the ACLU directors them. Geneva attempted, as others had done in California, to persuade ACLU to take on the issue of civil rights violations and property theft by homeowner association lawyers. ACLU did not take on the issue.

Geneva employed David Kahne in 2001 to represent her in her case against Northglen Homeowners Association. Geneva's press releases said Northglen's CAI lawyer had put one of her rentals into foreclosure over "peeling paint". Geneva also said she wanted her case to set a precedent and she refused settlement offers from CHUBB insurance.

When AARP contracted David Kahne to write them a homeowners association report, David used information homeowners had compiled and published. He acknowledged this and gave credit to some sources. David's report also included a summary of a Homeowner Bill of Rights.

The Homeowner Bill of Rights is a compilation of ideas from many homeowner victims and advocates that was created and developed over ten years ago. Homeowners continue to add their ideas to it via the AHRC interactive website.

AARP copyrighted this summary of the homeowners ideas and calls it the "AARP Homeowner Bill of Rights". Homeowners who contributed to the original Homeowner Bill of Rights are not happy that an insurance-drug-travel-sales business is privatizing their ideas and calling it the "AARP Bill of Rights". AARP is a for-profit business.

The AARP website advertises "Reprint with permission only". However when reprint permission was requested, Andrew Kochera of AARP refused. He stated that any website that published it did not have AARP's required consent.

AARP , who says it advocates for seniors, spent millions of seniors dollars advertising, lobbying and colluding with President Bush and the Republicans to privatize Medicare and make it a $728 billion government funded windfall for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and sales partners like AARP. The Medicare bill has been disastrous for seniors.

For decades, seniors have been battling the privatization in homeowner association and loss of property rights and equity losses to corporate interests including insurance companies.

After bringing in millions in insurance profits privatizing the senior health care, homeowners wonder if the " AARP Homeowner Bill of Rights" is merely a mantle that AARP will don to lobby for more AARP insurance profits.