By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO– A Jewish community forum at Congregation Beth Israel heard several ideas on Friday, Feb. 21, for improving the lives of present and future senior citizens. All the suggestions required legislation at either the federal or state level.
The meeting was an outgrowth of ongoing consultations among local Jewish agencies to identify the needs in San Diego County that are going unmet. Michael Sonduck, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of San Diego County, said in past years such inter-agency consultations developed the “On the Go” program to provide free transportation for seniors. More recently, he said, “we had a blinding flash of the obvious: there is a silver tsunami,” a coming flood of senior citizens as the Baby Boomer generation reaches retirement age.
Michael Hopkins, CEO of Jewish Family Service of San Diego, said that in 2030, according to actuarial tables, California will be home to “4 million more residents over the age of 65 than we have today, pushing the number of senior citizens to 20 percent of our population,” whereas today the percentage is 10 percent. Currently JFS spends approximately one-third of its annual budget providing such services for seniors as transportation, older adult centers, and food delivery, he said.
Panelists including State Sen. Marty Block (D-San Diego); Paul Downey , president and CEO of Senior Community Centers; and Jack Christy, senior policy advisor for Leading Age California suggested that as the Jewish community contemplates what actions need to be taken in behalf of its graying population, it be aware of the following legislative initiatives affecting the senior population at large.
–Raising the Federal Poverty income level.
–Creating a perpetual trust fund in California to build affordable housing each year.
–Creating a public/ private insurance plan for families providing care for seniors living with them
–Requiring more hours of training for care givers in assisted living facilities.
–Requiring more frequent inspections of assisted living facilities.
The Federal Poverty Level is an annual income figure that is used to compute which citizens are in need of federal assistance and which are not. Currently, said Downey, the earnings figure is set at $11,670 per year, or $973 per month, and that is “one size fits all, so here in San Diego it is the same as Burlington, Vermont; New York City or Tampa, Florida.” Downey said a far more equitable way to measure need is to utilize the “Elder Index,” which was created by the UCLA Center for Health Policy and Research.
“What they do is go county-by-county in California and ask what does a senior need in order to have his or her basic needs met,” Downey said. “We are not talking about taking the grand-kids to the Zoo, or Sea World; we’re talking about basic needs.” In San Diego, the monthly totals broke down as follows: Food $255; Transportation $239; Housing (median price) for an apartment, $1,136; Health, $182; Miscellaneous, $219, for a total of $2,031, which is more than double the $973 Federal Poverty Index level.
“As you know most federal programs and state programs and local programs are paid through the Federal Poverty Program in some way,” Downey said. “So you have a gap of people who are being unrecognized and that presents a problem. … In San Diego, it is about 41 percent of seniors, or 2 out of every 5 seniors you see walking on the streets who do not have sufficient income to meet their basic needs. ”
That figure represents 131,000 seniors living in San Diego County today, and that number will grow tremendously in the future, according to Downey. Statewide, the percentage of seniors living below the elder index line already is much higher. It is approximately half the senor population, or approximately 1.7 million elderly persons. There is quite a variation by ethnic community, he added. For Non-Latino Whites, the percentage of impoverished seniors is 42 percent; Latinos 75 percent; African-Americans 63 percent and Asian-Americans 56 percent.
Besides the basic human issue of how we should be treating our elders, Downey said, these figures will mean there will be significant pressure for more housing and more health care facilities.
The second panelist, Jack Christy, said a measure by State Sen. Mark DeSaulnier to create a trust fund for affordable housing by charging a fee for every real estate transaction in California faces a rocky future. In the first place, he said, DeSaulnier, a Democrat, is now running for a Northern California congressional seat and so his attention is elsewhere. And even though Senate President pro tempore Darrell Steinberg , D-Sacramento, has said he will take over sponsorship of the bill, opposition from Realtors may be too strong for its backers to overcome.
At the federal level, a section of the Affordable Care Act that was “wiped off the books” called for private-public partnerships to finance insurance policies for families who take care of their elderly at home. It would have paid approximately $75 a day to these caregivers, which, while not a large amount, is enough to “bring your sister out from New York so she can stay with mom and you can get a couple days rest.” He said 80 percent of the elderly needing care receive it while living with their families, instead of in an assisted living facility. That saves state and local governments billions of dollars and should be encouraged, Christy said.
State Senator Block was the final panelist to address the breakfast meeting in Congregation Beth Israel’s social hall. He noted that the “Watchdog” section of the UT newspaper had a series about elderly residents of assisted living homes dying from neglect, a series which he said got a lot of attention from the Legislature. Various bills have been put in the legislative hopper to help remedy the situation, he said.
Senate Bill 911 would require additional training for care givers, Block said. Whereas manicurists need 400 hours of training, and someone giving a facial needs 600 hours before being licensed, a caregiver needs only 10 hours, “which I think is absurd, way out of line,” Block said. So the bill would require more training, but how much more ultimately will depend on how much more expensive for the consumers it will make the cost of assisted living. The bill also would require assisted living facilities that accept residents with special needs to provide special training for its care givers. A third section of the bill would give protection to “whistle blowers” who call 911 in instances that it seems warranted for the residents’ protection. In some facilities today, said the legislator, caregivers are threatened with dismissal if they call in outside agencies.
Another measure Block has been promoting would be to require more inspections of assisted living facilities. He said they are currently inspected only once every five years. A colleague, State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) of San Francisco would prohibit assisted living facilities which have not paid fines assessed against them from accepting any new patients, Block reported.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com