Around California, disability advocates continue protests against in-home service cuts

From The Bay Citizen in Calif.:

SACRAMENTO -- John Sargent, 44, is a former Fairmont Hotel security guard, who stands an imposing 6-feet-2-inches tall. On a blazing hot day on the lawn near the steps of the state Capitol, he choked back tears.

“There is a better way to balance the budget. There are better ways to cut the fat. We are not the fat,” he said. “This is what a civilized society does. It takes care of its most vulnerable.”

In 2005, Sargent contracted shingles. The illness left him permanently blind. He also suffers from vertigo, which makes him chronically dizzy.

Due to his disabilities, he lost his job at the hotel. He had to stop taking classes at San Francisco State University, where he’d been a junior studying film.

Yet he has been able to continue living on his own in his apartment in San Francisco on Eddy between Gough and Laguna with the help of John Yarrington, 68, who cooks, cleans, shops and does laundry for him.

Under the state funded In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, Yarrington, a retired restaurant worker, is paid $11.49 an hour for 62 hours a month to work as Sargent’s caregiver. He also escorts the younger man to doctors’ appointments and gives him foot massages, which help relieve the vertigo.

“I get to have some semblance of a normal life because of his help,” said Sargent, who calls Yarrington “my guardian angel.” Without his help, he fears he’d no longer be able to live on his own.

With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposing to slash 45 percent of the state's IHSS funding, fear of losing their normal lives sent Sargent, Yarrington and more than 1,100 other low-income disabled and elderly people and their caregivers to Sacramento last Wednesday to lobby for preservation of the program. The day of protest was organized by SEIU-United Healthcare Workers-West, which represents home care workers in 11 counties, including Contra Costa, San Francisco, Marin and Sonoma.

The state’s $19.1 billion budget deficit drove Sargent to Sacramento, along with Ophelia Franklin, 92, of Richmond, who uses a wheelchair, and Lionel Burton, 55, of San Francisco, who hugs his elbows to control the tremors of Parkinson’s disease. All of them fear losing the independence that living at home gives them.

Last week, Bay Area protesters spoke out in defense of IHSS, too. At 3 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, about 20 people, most of them seniors or disabled, gathered outside an Arco gas station in San Jose. They want state legislators to impose a new oil severance tax on companies that extract oil in California to raise revenues in order to prevent the cuts. California is the only oil-producing state in the nation that does not have such a tax.

In Berkeley, a handful of protesters have been camped out since June 22 to protest cuts to IHSS and other services for seniors and the disabled. Pitching tents in the median at Adeline and Russell streets, they’ve dubbed their encampment ArnieVille Tent City in homage to the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression.

Schwarzenegger proposed cutting the state’s contribution to IHHS by $637 million in his revised 2010-2011 budget proposal. The state chips in $1.4 billion of the program’s total $5.6 billion annual budget, which is also supported by county and federal funding.

State legislators haven’t yet taken any action on the program. On June 9, the Conference Committee discussed how to reduce 10 percent of the state’s spending on the program. Republicans favored cutting the budget, while Democrats want to find new sources of federal funding to make up the difference.

“From the day Schwarzenegger was elected, he has targeted this program each and every year for very severe reductions. Last year was the first time the legislature agreed with him,” said Karen Keeslar, executive director of the California Association of Public Authorities for IHSS, a statewide organization of local agencies that provide services under the program. “It’s a very frightening time because our state budget situation is terrible, and with every year there are fewer and fewer options in front of the legislature.”

In the 2009-2010 budget, Sacramento attempted to cut caregivers’ wages and reduce the program’s caseload. Federal district court Judge Claudia Wilkens blocked California from implementing either of those cuts. The state is appealing both cases.

Some debate whether cutting the state’s budget for the program would actually save taxpayers money, and a 2010 analysis by the state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office provides evidence that it might. It all depends on how many people would be forced into nursing homes.

Some clients who lose services would have to enter skilled nursing facilities, which cost on average $50,000 per person. By comparison, the average cost of IHSS is $12,000 per person. There are 448,102 disabled and elderly people receiving care through IHSS from 369,470 caregivers.

California has 1,288 nursing homes, according to the California Department of Public Health, with approximately 139,000 beds. On any given day, Medi-Cal beneficiaries occupy approximately 68 percent of those beds, with many of the others occupied by other clients. If there were to be a sudden influx of former IHSS recipients seeking beds, there likely wouldn’t be enough.

Ironically, the budget crisis has already deepened Sargent’s dependency on the state. In 2008, he was undergoing vocational rehabilitation, learning Braille and computer skills. He was receiving mobility training and re-learning how to cook and clean.

But his rehabilitation was abruptly cut off at the end of 2008. “If it had not been for the budget cuts initially, I could be very close to a career,” he said. “I would love to work.” Instead of subsidizing Sargent’s re-education, the state is now paying Yarrington to do it for him, and the chances of him becoming a taxpayer again anytime soon are slim.

At the state Capitol, Sargent walked holding on to Yarrington’s shoulder with one hand for guidance, the other hand gripping a white cane to help navigate. The pair joined a flood of caregivers and their clients streaming into the Capitol to pass by the closed doors of the governor’s office. Sargent had dictated his story to Yarrington, who wrote it out on a piece of paper to be given to one of the governor’s aides.

The closest Sargent got to the governor or any legislator that day was running his hands over the imposing stature of a California Grizzly, which stands sentinel in front of Schwarzenegger’s office. But other caregivers and their clients at the Capitol met with legislators or their staffers, including state Sen. Leland Yee, and Assembly members Fiona Ma and Tom Ammiano.

With so many other groups also lobbying the legislature right now in hopes of saving programs they care about, Sargent has doubts about the impact of the Sacramento trip.

“I’m sure that they heard us, but whether or not they gave us much credence, just seems doubtful,” he said. “We did garner some attention but maybe not enough to have much of an impact.”