For over twenty years the Advocacy Coalition has been fighting to ensure that seniors and people with disabilities have a voice on legislation and budget issues that affect them. This is accomplished through face to face contact with legislators, testifying at committee hearings, organizing and participating in lobby days at the Capitol and doing outreach to encourage members to call, write and visit their legislators. The Coalition also works collaboratively with other like-minded groups to advocate on specific bills and budget/revenue issues to maximize the chances of success.

To learn more about the Advocacy Coalition for Seniors and People with Disabilities or to find out how you can get involved please email Bill Olson at fwolson@comcast.net or Robert Lawrence at lawrence2243@comcast.net

Bill Olson, Chair of the Advocacy Coalition for Seniors and People with Disabilities

Thank you, members of the Campaign for Oregon’s Seniors and People with Disabilities. You worked together and collectively wore your yellow scarves and buttons. You rallied at the Capitol for Legislative Action Days. You testified at hearings, met with your legislators, turned out to Town Halls and Ways & Means hearings, and made thousands of calls and e-mails. You hand wrote postcards to your elected officials and showed up at community forums across the state.

You made a difference.

• You helped stop deep budget cuts that would have devastated Oregon’s innovative and cost-effective model of long-term care.
  • More than $30 million in proposed budget cuts to Oregon’s home care workers and those they serve were restored.
  • More than $18 million in proposed budget cuts to seniors in nursing facilities that would have negatively impacted quality of care were reversed.
• You helped preserve one of Oregon’s flagship long-term care programs — Oregon Project Independence — at its current funding level that helps keep vulnerable Oregonians in their home and from entering more costly care options.
• You helped leverage millions in funding for special needs transportation to help seniors and people with disabilities stay mobile and connected in their communities.

Thanks again. Together, we can keep Oregon working and a place that respects those at the dawn, twilight and shadows of their lives despite these tough economic times.

Please stay in touch. We can be reached at 503-513-7375 or info@oregonspromise.org.

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.”

Salem, Oregon - The Campaign began running a radio spot about the disproportionate cuts to services for seniors and people with disabilities.

With 40 percent cuts to in-home and nursing facility care, the proposed cuts seek to balance the budget on the back of some of Oregon’s most vulnerable. The consequences are  too devastating: 

• Thousands of seniors and people with disabilities will suffer - from losing their in-home supports to facing reduced quality of care;
• More than 6,000 caregiver and other jobs in Oregon’s long-term care sector will be lost;
• Nearly $200 million of critical federal matching funds will be forfeited; and
• Oregon’s innovative home- and community-based model of long-term care will be further dismantled.

We must find a balanced approach that preserves core services and maintains jobs. Oregon’s seniors and people with disabilities, their families, our communities and economy are depending on it.

Please speak out today. Call 800-711-4539 NOW.  Tell your legislator that we can’t afford such drastic cuts,  and that Oregon’s seniors and care workers deserve better.  

Federal-State Partnership Creating Hundreds of Jobs, Improving Nursing Facility Safety and Quality
Oregon Department of Human Services
Spring 2009

Joyce had a very successful career as a clinical psychologist in northern California. Then about 11 years ago, he was suddenly and seriously injured in a car accident, resulting in both cognitive and physical impairments. Shortly after the accident Joyce moved to Oregon to be both closer to his sister, who would assist with his care, and to undergo experimental medical treatment at Oregon Health and Sciences University. In yet another unexpected turn of events, Joyce’s sister and primary caregiver, suddenly passed away. Without family in the area, Joyce’s physician referred him to Friendly House, an organization in Northwest Portland.

“Friendly House has been a big part of my recovery,” says Joyce. “It’s been like having another person in the family.” As a provider for Oregon Project Independence (OPI), Friendly House helped him find and move into his current apartment, where he’s lived on his own for the last two years. For the most part Joyce can manage living on his own, but sometimes he needs a bit of assistance lifting things or cleaning. Through OPI he is able to get three hours of in-home assistance each week and a case manager who ensures that his essential needs are met.

If Oregon lawmakers make cuts to long-term care services, as they are considering in the 2009-2011 budget, programs like OPI and seniors like Bob Joyce will most certainly be caught in the middle. Rather than living in his apartment with minimal in-home supports, Joyce will probably be forced to seek out more costly facility-based care, forgoing his personal choice as well as his independence and likely costing the state far more.

When asked what he would say to policymakers if given the opportunity, Joyce recited this quote by former Vice President Herbert Humphrey, “It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.” Joyce added that “there is an underlying hostility in any system when the basic needs of individuals are not being met. Right now the system is like a deer caught in headlights. Policymakers need to realize that there is no magical solution and they need to listen to what the issues are.”