SAN ANTONIO – A San Antonio woman has told neighbors and KSAT Investigates to mind their own business after concerns were raised about the care of elderly people living in two homes she owns in the same North Side neighborhood.
“I can have friends, I can have ambulances if I need, anyone can. So what, so what?” said owner Lidia Negrila when questioned by KSAT outside one of the homes last month.
People living near the properties, which are blocks apart in the Crosstimber-Rogers Ranch neighborhood, documented a flurry of medical activity outside both homes for months.
Pictures and videos obtained by KSAT Investigates show a stream of caregivers, older adults, medical supply trucks, transport vans and even ambulances outside a home on Rogers Loop owned by Negrila.
KSAT recorded similar activity at the property this summer, including three caregivers at the home on a single day just before Fourth of July weekend.
At a second home owned by Negrila on Rogers Bluff, neighbors recorded comparable activity outside the residence.
Negrila, at first, denied to KSAT that she has cared for elderly people in the homes, before conceding that she is caring for elderly people but is not required to be licensed by the state.
Negrila hurled a threat at a KSAT photojournalist outside her home on Rogers Loop last month after answering several questions on camera.
“What’s up with that? I’m the most scary person in San Antonio and a lot of people know me, so,” Negrila said.
A spokesman for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the agency responsible for licensing and regulating care homes, confirmed that neither address holds a long-term care license.
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Byron Cordes, owner of Sage Care Management and one of the country’s leading voices on managing geriatric care, said care home operators in Texas often bypass licensing by HHSC since the agency does not monitor facilities where three or fewer non-relatives receive care.
Cordes, whose company helps families manage care for aging loved ones, said this scenario means no continuing education requirements for owners and caregivers, or state-mandated training for those people working with patients with dementia.
“The reason that folks I think elude the licensure is purely for profit, so that’s frightening to me as well,” Cordes said. “The only reason I can ever find that families choose an unlicensed facility or an unregulated facility is for cost, just ease of cost.”
Negrila, who said she has worked with hundreds of care homes in San Antonio for over 20 years, declined to tell KSAT how many non-relatives are living at her two properties.
Negrila registered the Rogers Bluff home as a business entity with the state in 2020 under the name Rogers Ranch Senior Care home, the same name used by Negrila on an Instagram page promoting her company.
The Secretary of State terminated the property’s LLC registration in August 2024 after the entity failed to maintain a registered agent or a registered office address, as required by law.
By then, however, Negrila had registered her home on Rogers Loop as First Senior Care Home.
That entity’s registration remains active, according to Secretary of State records.
A representative for the homeowners’ association did not respond to an email from KSAT seeking comment for this story.
Footage shows elderly man walking through neighborhood without shoes on
In early June, a resident of the neighborhood recorded an elderly man walking down the street without shoes on, showing obvious signs of medical distress.
In the footage, Negrila identifies herself and confirms that the older man lives at a home on Rogers Bluff.
“He has dementia. I take care of him and I left the house. I left my friends to watch him and they left the door unlocked,” Negrila said in the video, as water spilled from a bottle held by the elderly man.
She first answered “yeah” when asked by the man recording if it is a nursing home before repeatedly saying “no.”
Negrila, in the footage, scoffed at the concerned onlooker’s suggestion that a welfare check be done on the aging man, and she refused to provide the specific address of the home.
The video ends as Negrila tries to pull the older man into the front seat of her SUV.
“Don’t worry about it. That’s my father. He’s my father. Listen to me, he’s my father, I don’t have to identify to anyone, any neighbor, who he is,” Negrila told KSAT.
A woman contacted KSAT in the last few days confirming the patient is actually her father, but said she holds no ill will about the incident and knows the challenges of caring for someone with dementia.
“There’s no way, in my mind, that anybody working in the home would do anything neglectful,” the woman told KSAT via telephone Monday. “She (Lidia) is doing an incredible service to this community. He has a life that I could never give him and I am forever grateful to this woman. She’s my angel on earth.”
Cordes, when asked about the footage, said, “I think it absolutely could have been prevented if it was a licensed facility.”
Cordes, who was not familiar with either of Negrila’s properties, said it is common for people with dementia to attempt to walk away from their living surroundings and that licensed facilities typically have safeguards in place, like wearable bracelets attached to alarms or specialized door locks.
Negrila’s care home placement firm, San Antonio Senior Living Options, had an office on Sonterra Boulevard, a background check shows.
A receptionist at the multi-story office complex confirmed to KSAT that Negrila moved out of the office earlier this year.
KSAT could find no record of Negrila, her company or people working in her homes being cited for the care of aging adults.
None of them have been charged with any crime in connection with the care of the elderly.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.