The County Board of Supervisors yesterday braced for severe cuts to the County’s In-Home Supportive Services program, which provides home assistance for eligible seniors, people who are legally blind and people with disabilities.
For many of the 184,000 County’s recipients, receiving a few hours of monthly care allows them to remain at home instead of moving into a nursing home or board-and-care facility.
If next month’s state revenue forecast falls short of $87 billion, the California Dept. of Social Services will be required to slash the hours of monthly service to in-home recipients by 20 percent.
Current revenues indicate that the planned cuts are likely to be implemented by Jan. 1. The majority of their 140,039 providers, will lose an average of 16 hours of service and/or work.
“These potential budget reductions could have far reaching implications on the quality of life of more than 300,000 residents of the County of Los Angeles,” said Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, before the Board vote. “In-Home Supportive Services impacts all five districts in a very important way.”
Acting on a joint motion by Mr. Ridley-Thomas and colleague Gloria Molina, the Board directed Chief Executive Officer Bill Fujioka to assemble a task force that will develop an outreach strategy to inform consumers of the change.
The task force is to prepare to process the anticipated high numbers of consumers who will request and submit applications for exclusion.
Although the 20 percent reduction is not subject to appeal, consumers can request an evaluation to be excluded from the cut and maintain the same level of service. To do so, however, recipients must submit an application for exclusion to the Dept. of Public Social Services within 15 days of receiving a notice of action.
Rachel Scherer of Disability Rights California applauded the steps taken by the Board, warning that the service cuts could trigger a “humanitarian crisis.” People with Alzheimer’s disease who need prompting from workers to take their medication or to eat, she said, could be left to languish.
“People will die in their homes or will have to go to a nursing home or facility,” Ms. Scherer said.
The Board also approved a friendly amendment by Supervisors Michael Antonovich and Zev Yaroslavsky instructing the Dept. of Health Services to evaluate the impact of the 20-hour reduction on in-home providers. The workers who care for the at-home population are themselves vulnerable to losing healthcare coverage, should their hours of work fall below state requirements.
Kiya Stokes of the Service Employees International Union also spoke in favor of the supervisors’ motion, noting that care providers who do not meet the 77-hour monthly quota could themselves need County assistance obtaining healthcare.
The Board directed Mr. Fujioka to determine how many workers would lose their healthcare benefits, what the impact would be to the County and whether those workers would be eligible for alternative coverage, such as that provided by Healthy Way L.A.
Ms. Moon may be contacted at SMoon@bos.lacounty.gov
