Reporting Kristine Johnson
NEW YORK (CBS) ― It's a crime that affects some of the most vulnerable – elder abuse.
In the fight to help protect them, advocates have begun reaching out to others for help. You might be surprised who's joined the fight.
"Sophia" is 89 years old and a victim of elder abuse. She was forced to flee the home she shared with her daughter and son-in-law after he hit her, as her daughter urged him on.
"I would've got killed (if she didn't leave)," Sophia said. "And then she says to him, to her husband, 'Hit her harder, harder, harder...'"
Sophia has found the peace she couldn't find with her own family at the Riverdale Home For The Aged, which provides shelter for the abused elderly.
When asked how she felt once she started living at the home, Sophia didn't mince words.
"I feel like a rich person without a dollar," she said.
Estimates are that as many as 2 million older Americans are abused each year. About 80 percent of them by family members, but experts say the real number is much higher because victims often keep silent out of shame, and that it's easy for the abuse to go unnoticed by the rest of us.
"Unlike kids who go to school every day, the older adults are so isolated that nobody even knows about them," said Joy Solomon of the Hebrew Home For The Ages.
But now the Hebrew Home is recruiting frontline help in the fight against elder abuse in a most unlikely setting.
In sessions at a West Side apartment building, they are training New York City's doormen to identify older people who may be in trouble and to report suspected abuse.
Hundreds of doormen throughout the city have already received the training. What's more, the doorman's union is launching an elder abuse awareness campaign for all its members.
(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Abridged
SOURCE: WebSTV
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