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Budget
Cuts Reduce Services for Region's Senior Citizens By Elizabeth Simpson, The Virginian-Pilot September
4, 2003 Senior citizens will lose two
hot meals a week at community centers. Some will not be able to get rides
to senior centers to socialize. And others may lose exercise classes,
health news, and housekeeping services that helped them stay in their
homes instead of moving into nursing facilities. Those are just a few examples
in nearly $400,000 in cuts that Senior Services of Southeastern Virginia
announced this week. The agency for aging sent letters to 24 community
groups that get money or services from it to let them know of cuts that
will take effect Oct. 1. Leaders of many of those groups say they will try
to find other sources of funding, but expect some loss in services. John Skirven, executive
director of Senior Services, said state budget cuts are forcing the local
agency on aging to trim the money from its annual budget that begins in
October. When the state budget
shortfalls were announced last year, the agency was able to absorb the
difference the first year by not filling some staff positions and by using
a one-time federal grant. But Skirven said the agency
cannot avoid service reductions for a second year, as the agency also
suffered the loss of some federal dollars. The cuts are expected to affect
about 3,500 people in South Hampton Roads and Western Tidewater, unless
community groups and cities are able to fill the gap with other funding. In its letter, Senior Services
outlined these changes: -- Hot meals served at 18
nutrition sites will drop from five days a week to three days.
Transportation for seniors to those facilities - which are generally
senior and community centers - will be eliminated on the days without hot
meals. On those days, Senior Services will provide ``shelf stable'' meals,
such as sandwiches. The nutrition sites each serve
10 to 70 people a day. -- Transportation funding for
groups such as Jewish Family Service of Tidewater, Portsmouth Parks and
Recreation and Norfolk Senior Center will also be reduced. Those funds
have provided rides to centers and adult day-care programs for seniors. -- Funding for
housekeeping-type services and personal care, such as meal preparation and
grooming, will be reduced for older people living at home. Skirven said
the agency plans to help cushion that blow by starting a program that will
train senior citizens for jobs providing those types of services for
home-bound elderly. The letters sent community
groups scrambling for ways to maintain services. At Norfolk Senior Center,
director Barbara Lifland said she's concerned that disabled older people
who need day care may have to be turned away because of the cut in
transportation. She said a drop in funds for health education, exercise
classes and medical screenings will also hurt people who come to the
center. She said the center will try to
make up for its $35,500 share of the cuts. It plans to increase membership
fees. Also, it may open more classes to younger people and charge them
fees that would subsidize services for the elderly. Still, she said, the center
will probably not be able to avoid some reduction in services. Eighty-two-year old Angelo
Macaluso comes to Norfolk Senior Center every day for a hot meal, which on
Wednesday included meatballs, mashed potatoes, peaches and carrots. He said that when he was
younger he volunteered for a similar program in Vermont, peeling potatoes
and serving meals. Now that it's his turn to receive, he's not happy about
the cutback in hot meals. ``I won't starve to death, but
I hate to see it happen,'' Macaluso said. ``We're all seniors here, and we
deserve what we get here.'' Yet the World War II veteran
didn't let the news dent his sense of humor. On days without hot meals, he
said, ``I'll just bring a can of soup with me.'' Diana Ruchelman, director of
older adult services for Jewish Family Service of Tidewater, said that
agency will lose about $20,000 in funds to help people with housekeeping
and personal-care services. That agency, too, will try to find other
sources of funding. ``We don't want to shortchange
our people _ they need the services,'' she said. But it may require the
agency to accept fewer new clients. Slightly more than 100,000
people 65 and older - or 10 percent of the population - live in the five
South Hampton Roads cities, according to the most recent census figures.
All of America is growing older, but the census showed that the population
of Virginia and Hampton Roads is aging at a faster rate, particularly
among people 85 and older, the group most likely to need services. Skirven said those
demographics, combined with dwindling state and federal dollars, put his
agency in a bind. He sent the letter about the cuts to city, state and
federal legislators as well, hoping to impress upon them the importance of
public support to help to the elderly. ``It's going to be rough over
the next few years,'' Skirven said. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
