Senior home care threatened in budget crisis

Sandy Bressner –  sbressner@kcchronicle.com Monica Emeritz chats with Ruby Smith in her Carroll Tower apartment over lunch Monday afternoon. If Illinois lawmakers do not raise income and other taxes, human services programs will be cut in half. Emeritz, who works for the Community Care Program, cooks, cleans, does laundry, takes residents to doctor appoinments and does the grocery shopping for several residents of Carroll Tower.

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Ruby Smith and Rowena Carter love their independence. Smith, 70, uses a walker. Carter, 80, is on oxygen. Both need help with basic living activities – such as cleaning, laundry, doctor visits and grocery shopping.

But both cherish their ability to live alone in Carroll Tower, a senior apartment complex in St. Charles.

They rely on Monica Emertiz for assistance. She helps Smith five days a week and Carter twice a week. Emertiz’s services are paid through the Department of Human Services Community Care Program. The program would be among those cut 50 percent July 1 if lawmakers do not come up with a plan to plug the current $9.2 billion budget gap. Lawmakers are currently in Springfield trying to address the budget issues.

Smith and Carter hope their services are not cut.

“It means everything to me,” Smith said of the program. “It means my life. I like living alone. I like my independence. She takes me to my doctors – I got a lot of doctors. She takes me grocery shopping too, because I can’t get around. Monica does everything for me. If they put me in a home, it’s going to cost a lot more – and I would lose my independence.”

Carter can still cook her own meals and wash dishes, but she needs Emertiz’ help for housekeeping, laundry and shopping.

“I just could not handle it if I was in a nursing home or assisted living,” Carter said. “I know my family would take over and not put me in a home – it would kill me, flat out.”

Officials at Senior Services Associates, a nonprofit agency that serves elderly clients in Kane, Kendall and McHenry counties, say seniors like Smith and Carter would be hurt by cutbacks in community care.

Judith Smith, a case worker at Senior Services, said Emertiz “is indispensable to 15 people at Carroll Tower.”

Without the state’s help keeping the elderly independent as long as possible, Smith said it would cost more for a nursing home or supportive living.

Bette Schoenholtz, director of senior services, wrote a letter to State Rep. Tom Cross, R-Plainfield, on Monday, asking his help to stop the cuts.

“It would be extremely detrimental to frail seniors if we do not find a way out of this budget crisis,” Schoenholtz wrote. “As a result of a directive from the Department on Aging, we are looking at the termination of over 500 frail seniors from the Community Care Program in Kane, Kendall and McHenry counties, effective July 1.”

Many would lose services altogether, or have what they receive reduced by more than half, her letter states.

Although Cross did not directly respond to Schoenholtz’ letter, his spokeswoman Sara Wojcicki said he did not vote for the budget that cut human services, nor does he want to see necessary programs cut.

“Representative Cross and house Republicans are meeting with the governor and other legislative leaders, trying to come up with a resolution so these services are not impacted in the way the governor is proposing,” Wojcicki said.

“The governor is saying they will lose half of their funding,” Wojcicki said. “What we are saying is, that does not need to happen. We want to have structural reforms in Medicaid and pensions ... then talk about new revenue.”

State Sen. Chris Lauzen, R-Aurora, called the threat to funding cut funding to social services “political gamesmanship” and “a cruel negotiating tactic to extort a tax increase.”

Lauzen is against increasing taxes that would cost a typical Illinois family an additional $1,000 or $2,000 a year. Lauzen said he has suggested a three-step budget alternative to bring $15 billion over the next two years that does not involve a tax increase.

However the lawmakers sort things out, Emertiz hopes she can continue looking after her elderly charges at Carroll Tower.

“I feel like they are like my mom,” Emertiz said of her clients. “And I am also thinking someday, I will be old and I would like to be treated in a nice way.”