Seventy-four year old Lyda Overton is a second-generation Oregonian. Now retired, she used to spend her days selling real estate in the Portland Metro area. She also spent several years giving back to the community as a case manager for Multnomah County.
Today Lyda lives alone in her North Portland home, which she purchased nearly 30 years ago. She spends most of her days volunteering at a senior center in North Portland, where she helps plan activities and interacts with the center’s visitors. There are plenty of activities there to keep her busy.
A few years back Lyda had a stroke and now has trouble standing for long periods of time. She also requires a little extra help around the house with things like laundry and cleaning the bathroom. Because she doesn’t have family in the area, there aren’t many people she can depend on other than close friends. This leaves Lyda and thousands of other seniors like her, dependent on a state program called Oregon Project Independence (OPI). OPI allows disabled and low-income adults, who are not eligible for Medicaid, to get help with necessities like grocery shopping, house cleaning, and meal preparation - all things that enable older adults to continue living in their homes and communities.
Without this type of in-home assistance, minor as it may seem, Lyda would not be able to continue to live on her own. Her only alternative would be to move in with someone else or into a nursing home-a level of care that is more than she truly needs.
For these reasons, Lyda cringes when she hears of potential cuts to OPI and other programs that help seniors living on their own. Lyda was impacted several years ago when state budget cuts reduced the in-home assistance she was eligible for each week. “I used to get twelve hours a month, now I only get 6. That’s only 3 hours every two weeks.” As is, her caregiver can barely get done with her laundry in the allotted time, let alone other household cleaning. “Sometimes I have to wait a whole month before she has time to clean my bathroom.” Any additional reduction in hours is almost unimaginable to Lyda. “Without her help,” Lyda says, “I don’t know what I’d do. We need this. Disabled people need programs like this.”