Cutting off the helping hands.

Susan Ferriss' article, "In-home care may face budget chopping block" in the Tuesday Feb.10 edition of the Sacramento Bee, discusses the possibility of In-home caregivers not being able to help those in need of their services due to California budget cuts in order to cope with the recession.
Ferriss describes 92 year-old Leona Heydenryk who struggles to unload a few bags from her car using an oxygen tank to help her breathe. Seniors just like Leona would score too well on ridiculous "functional indexes" to merit the part-time aid of caregivers who help her shop for groceries, clean house and prepare her meals. Leona's only surviving son, 69 is not able to help his mother with these tasks because of his frail health and fixed income.
According to the article California's In-home Supportive Services program which pays the salary of people like Consuelo Lopez, caregiver of Leona Heydenryk and other disabled people, would cost the state nearly 1.7 billion dollars more than it's willing to pay. California has more than huge deficit problems in common with the rest of the nation; its also seeing an enormous surge in senior citizens, along with this comes a higher need for the treatment of dementia or other side effects of the natural deterioration that comes with age.
Therefore;the demand for In-home caregivers has skyrocketed, much quicker than any other social service program.
The governor proposed a cut-back of In-house caregivers wages even though many of them are paid less than living wages. This creates a more specefic, more rigid means of qualifying who deserves care based on what it will cost the state rather than helping disabled people who are struggling in their day-to- day lives.
In the end people like Leona who is someone's mother, grandmother and daughter will be the one who suffers alone and with no to turn to for help.