One grey morning at Circle Of Concern, long before the doors officially opened, a volunteer wanted to talk. The day before he and his wife delivered Meals On Wheels: one of the diners (who received help from Circle) didn’t answer her door.
A couple of minutes later I knocked on that door and called her name. No answer. The previous day’s mail still filled the boxes.
Since it was Valley Park and I knew the local firemen always said ‘call on maybe’ I summoned the fire department. They sent a pumper and an ambulance. An adroitly maneuvered fire ax opened the door and there was Judy, eyes open but unable to speak on her living room floor. They had her at the hospital in about ten minutes. And, being Valley Park, the public works guys stopped-by and repaired the damage done by the ax.
Speaking to reporters at the daily White House briefing, budget director Mick Mulvaney argued that cuts on everything from Meals on Wheels and after-school care to foreign aid are aimed to improving government. “Meals on Wheels sounds great,” he said, arguing that it’s the sort of program that is “not showing any results.”
[ http://time.com/4704540/trump-budget-meals-wheels/ ]
Often results don’t line-up neatly in an Excel file with self-adding columns and outcome formulas. Yet, when dealing with people that ‘call on maybe’ philosophy isn’t a bad thing.
In Jefferson City, the Missouri House of Representatives concluded – right before running away on Spring Break – that low-income seniors could have either the ability to get some in-home personal care help or get a tax break to cover part of their rent going to property taxes (the long-time Circuit Breaker program).
[ House Committee Bill 3 at www.house.mo.gov ]
Yes, member after member went to the microphones to argue that it was a false choice, that the legislature could find a way to fund both care and the Circuit Breaker. No deal. That roughly $555 per senior refundable credit died so the home health worker program could live.
Meanwhile, in Washington the Trump skinny budget not only cut money for Meals On Wheels (distributed through the Community Development Block Grant), they also eliminated the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. In Missouri much of the LiHEAP money goes to seniors, paying up to $800 (though around $300 is more common) towards winter heating bills.
Okay, let’s forget that malarkey about the “Golden Years.” A substantial number of senior citizens in Missouri and across America remain trapped below the poverty line. While some seniors play golf every day in Florida, close to 200,000 in Missouri can’t make ends meet. [ The state estimates that by 2020 Missouri will have almost 1.3 million seniors. http://health.mo.gov/seniors/seniorservices/pdf/state-plan-on-aging.pdf Based on the known poverty rate that works out to around 200,000 low-income seniors today.] They depend on part-time work (if they can), Social Security, food pantries, food stamps, Medicaid Medicare buy-in (139,000 seniors this January [ https://dss.mo.gov/re/pdf/fsd_mhdmr/1701-family-support-mohealthnet-report.pdf ]), Meals on Wheels and LiHEAP and the Circuit Breaker, and, the kindness of their neighbors.
So, these vulnerable people now find relatively small government programs which help them targeted.
Yes, to a legislator getting better than $100 a day just for showing-up at work (plus their salary), losing a few hundred here and a few hundred there doesn’t amount to much. To a senior struggling to survive on less than $1,000 a month the LiHEAP and Circuit Breaker together equal most of a month’s income!
Then add the loss of the healthy food and companionship of the Meals on Wheels deliveries.
Now, poverty does not kill directly. A shortage of money makes it harder to afford health care and buy the proper foods and medicines, contributing to significantly shorter life spans among the elderly poor.
[ http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/11/473749157/its-not-just-what-you-make-its-where-you-live-says-study-on-life-expectancy ] In other words, when these programs get cut the government is essentially slowly killing grandma.
What can be done? Well, in Washington they can trim the military budget back down to just what the generals and admirals asked for and save enough money to fund heating grants, Meals on Wheels and a bunch more good stuff.
In Missouri the Hancock Amendment allows the state to increase income a bit without an election. The current limit is about $90 million a year, more than enough to eliminate that “either or” and fund a couple of enhancements to other programs.
How to raise that money? Remember, Missouri only taxes beer 6¢ a gallon and our cigarette tax is so low it’s below embarrassing. A legislature which put Right To Work on a governor’s desk in a month could solve this problem before May Day.
No, I’m not holding my breath either.
Since we don’t live in a fairy tale world, Judy didn’t get better and enjoy many extra years. She did get time with her family and she was not alone at the end. That’s not a very tangible result for the spreadsheet but it still means something to me, and, I think, to Judy and her family.
Submitted by Glenn Koenen, WCD Member