At about 3 o’clock on the morning of Dec. 13, 2024, Shirley Pullen pulled the emergency cord in her bathroom at the Harbor View apartment complex in Cadillac.
One alarm sounded in the first-floor hallway just outside her apartment. Another alarm is supposed to sound in management’s office.
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But the building no longer employed security for nighttime concerns, so no one would have been there to hear it.
A neighbor did hear it, though, and later told police he waited to see if anyone was going to address the alarm.
Two hours later, at about 5 a.m., the neighbor knocked on Pullen’s door, but did not receive an answer. It took two more hours until the same neighbor finally called the police.
When they arrived shortly after 7:20 a.m., Pullen was dead.
Details of the incident are spelled out in a Cadillac police report IPR received through a Freedom of Information Act request.
And despite the four hours it took for help to be called, the call-for-aid system in place at Harbor View still meets federal requirements laid out by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Call-for-aid confusion
Perhaps you’ve seen these emergency cords in hospitals, hotels or — most likely — facilities that serve older adults or people with disabilities. These systems are meant to let someone call for help when alone, and they do that. But they can also create a false sense of security, especially for seniors living independently.
Around 242,000 Michiganders live in buildings subsidized by HUD – with 42% having a head of household 62 years old or older. In those buildings, HUD does not actually require pull cords or “call-for-aid systems.”
But when call-for-aid systems are already present, the building is required to maintain the system – which can send an alarm either to an offsite central supervised location, a continuously monitored switchboard, or sound in the immediate corridor, along with a visual signal where the alarm was pulled.
Whether or not something could be litigated, that's what the juries are there forr. That's what the legal system is there for.Jeffery Robert, lecturer of finance at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
Harbor View appears to have complied with HUD standards as alarms sounded both in the hallway and in management’s office, former staff said.
IPR spoke with a number of Harbor View residents to ask them what they thought happened when emergency pull cords were pulled. Some correctly knew the alarms were local and only sounded in the immediate hallway and management office, but others expressed confusion as to whether the alarm also went to the Cadillac Fire Department or a third party.
IPR reached out to Harbor View and their management company Millennia Housing Management for comment but received no reply.
Lawsuits and affordability
It’s exactly this kind of question that opens up buildings and their management companies up for litigation, said Jeffery Robert, lecturer of finance at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
“The liability stems from the fact that you have to maintain these systems,” said Robert. “Ultimately, what this boils down to is increased liability from somebody saying, ‘My elderly father was in your care, pulled the cord and you didn't do anything about it. You are the owner of this building. You are responsible for my family.’”
Even if systems are maintained properly to HUD requirements, Roberts said this does not rule out litigation.
“Whether or not something could be litigated, that's what the juries are there for,” said Robert. “That's what the legal system is there for.”
In Oregon, two separate lawsuits involving call-for-aid systems were filed against the same apartment complex. A case in 2010 involved a man who pulled alarms in two different rooms inside his unit. Allegedly, there was no response and he was found dead by a relative the next day.
The older lawsuit dates back to 2004. In that case, a woman living at the complex pulled the apartment’s emergency cord to no response. That lawsuit alleged the alarms were intentionally turned off after previous false alarms – although the woman was never told.
Both cases were ultimately settled out of court.
In a climate where legal challenges are common, Robert wrote in a report for Scott Insurance, the requirement for continual resident monitoring by way of pull cord systems represents a significant liability for potential future legal action.
Robert said the increased liability from the risk of litigation can drive up insurance premiums, making senior living centers with pull-cords less affordable.
In the Scott Insurance report, Robert noted that “some affordable housing community owners and operators reported premium increases of 25-75%.”
Additionally, Roberts noted at least 10 major insurance providers who have claimed higher risks with call-for-aid systems and have stopped writing policies for buildings with these systems altogether.
Robert’s study was small — consisting of conversations with just over a dozen independent living providers in Virginia and Maryland — but others in the insurance industry have also come to similar conclusions.
The wholesale insurance broker Amwins also wrote in 2022 that “some carriers have begun to deny coverage for properties where pull cords are installed and other carriers are following suit, leaving retailers scrambling to find coverage for their clients.”
“It's also a challenge,” Robert said, “because if insurance pulls out of these organizations, you can't have a mortgage. If you’re in that industry, you know you must maintain insurance on that property at all points in time. So what do you do?”
Is there a solution?
A fix often depends on the motivation of those who own and run the buildings.
“I think it depends on what problem you want to solve,” Robert said. “Do you want to solve overall affordability?”
Or do you want to solve for safety?
If management companies feel uneasy about using emergency pull cords, Robert said, they can use personal emergency response systems like Life Alert – which can be worn on a resident’s wrist or around their neck. Alerts are then sent out to call centers monitored by staff 24/7.
Robert also said that HUD could help affordability by laying out clearer guidance for call-for-aid systems in multifamily properties. Updating their guidance would help ease concerns of owners and operators of elderly affordable housing communities about whether they could lose insurance.
The “most transparent policy update” Robert writes in his report would be for conditional waivers which would allow for buildings to remove call-for-aid systems if insurance providers are looking to cancel coverage.
“If there's opt in, if there's opt out, that might reduce the liability,” said Robert. “It's sad to say, but it does come down to the money aspect.”
