GREENFIELD — After recent cuts to the state budget, some residents older than 60 who are applying for subsidized home care will be forced to wait for an indefinite amount of time.
Statewide on Sept. 1, the state Office of Elder Affairs began putting elders classified as the lowest priority for care needs, level four — or those requesting home-delivered meals only — on a wait list.
Residents who require anything in addition to or other than meal delivery will not be affected and will not be wait listed. Examples of home care services that will not be affected by the cutbacks include home health services, transportation needs, personal care and grocery shopping.
Funding to institutions such as nursing homes will also continue unaffected.
According to a news release from LifePath, a private, nonprofit organization that implements state home care programs, “an estimated 150 to 200 elders per month will be put on wait lists, accumulating to 2,000 elders waiting by June 2017.”
Al Norman, executive director of Mass. Home Care, an organization that advocates for elders at the state level, said the wait list is the result of about a $3.5 million to $5 million budget shortfall that prompted state budget cuts to the Home Care Program.
Since the state started putting more money into home care, Norman said there has been a reduction in seniors spending their twilight years in nursing homes. On information from the news release, “there are more than 15,000 empty nursing facility beds” in the state. Norman warned that cuts to the home care program will eventually turn back those numbers.
He also said cuts to the home care program didn’t need to happen because the state was given enough in federal Community First money to balance the budget shortfall. However, instead of using the federal funding, which was given for programs such as home care programs, Norman said, Gov. Charlie Baker filed a supplemental budget on July 11 that replaced state funding with the federal funding, again creating a shortfall.
“We know the state has the funds needed to prevent waiting lists,” Norman continued. “This federal money is supposed to be used to provide new opportunities to serve more individuals in home and community-based settings, not to offset state spending.”
In response to the cuts, Mass Home Care “has asked the General Court to purpose $3 million of this Community First funding to alleviate the wait list.”
In spite of the request, the release said, the formal session “adjourned with no action on this request.”
Norman urged seniors looking for care to apply regardless whether they think they’ll be wait listed. This is the third time since 2009 elders looking for home care have been placed on a wait list.
You can reach Andy Castillo at: acastillo@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 263
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