No Place Like Home - Published in San Diego CityBeat
1. http://sdcit ybeat .com/article-1568-No-place-like-home.html
NEWS
April 28 2004 12:00 AM
No place like home
El Cajon mom wages campaign to save home-healthcare program
BY DANA RAYMOND
Last Wednesday Teresa Lindhardt made a bold attempt to introduce her story
and her 5-year-old son Trenton to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by holding a
press conference in her living room.
“He needs to see my son; he needs to meet us,” Lindhardt said. “He needs to
know that we're people.”
Trenton, the poster child for United Cerebral Palsy, and his mom have been
battling the Governor's proposed elimination of the residual In-Home Supportive
Services (IHSS) program, which allows elderly, blind and disabled people to
remain at home and be cared for by a minimally paid family member.
Some 20,437 people in San Diego County are enrolled with IHSS-3,241 of them
benefit from the endangered residual program.
Lindhardt, a former X-ray technician, supports Trenton and two daughters, ages
12 and 3, on $8.50 an hour for a maximum of 159.4 hours a month-money she
gets from the county through a state-funded program. In order to determine
compensation, the care she provides for Trenton is broken down by the minute,
such as 18 minutes a day to dress him.
2. “There's 13 components to getting his [leg] braces on,” said Lindhardt. “That's
just one brace.”
Corinne Chee, a consultant with the Sacramento branch of Porter Novelli, a
public relations firm, was moved by Lindhardt's determination to make her voice
heard to politicians. Lindhardt wrote letters, made calls and spoke at rallies in
support of IHSS, all to no avail, Chee said.
“I wanted to help her rise above the clutter,” she said. Through Chee's efforts,
KOGO-AM radio, camera crews from local NBC, ABC and Fox affiliates and a
Union-Tribune reporter crammed into Lindhardt's two-bedroom apartment-with no
central air-in El Cajon.
David Thatcher, who works with Trenton through the San Diego Regional Center
for the Developmentally Disabled, engaged Trenton in a playful mock sword fight
and made him laugh for the cameras-an easy task-while Lindhardt spoke to
reporters. Thatcher currently works with Trenton 40 hours each month, but
proposed cuts will diminish that to 24 hours per month.
A day after Lindhardt's press conference, Schwarzenegger chose the odd forum
of a legislative budget subcommittee hearing to announce that he would not
eliminate the IHSS program, provided that the federal government step up and
foot part of the bill-an estimated $200 million in Medicaid funds to cover half the
cost of the program.
Nicole Evans, spokesperson for the federal Health and Human Services Agency
(HHS), said the Governor's plan requires a waiver on a rule prohibiting Medicaid
from compensating family members who care for their elderly or disabled
relatives. The decision whether to grant the waiver will be made by HHS, which is
3. under Schwarzenegger's control. Once the waiver is granted, it must be then
approved by the state Legislature.
Marty Omoto, director of the California Disability Action Network, said the state
Legislature considered cuts to the IHSS program two years ago but backed off
because lawmakers thought they could get federal funding. “So, it's not a new
proposal, it's just that the Governor revised it,” Omoto said.
For Lindhardt, Schwarzenegger's proposal isn't good enough. The
administration's decision to shift the dollars from state to federal funding is all well
and good, but she wonders if the politicians realize what they're doing to people's
lives. “I needed [Schwarzenegger] to say... that until federal funding comes, he
will not eliminate residual IHSS,” she said. “I still feel like I've got my same fight
going.”
Evans said the administration is confident about the waiver, but she doesn't know
how long it will take. “The Governor's deadline for the Legislature to vote is July
1, but we don't know if they'll vote on time,” said Evans. “Some years they meet
the deadline and other years they can go to December.”
“What scares me is on July 1, I have no income,” said Lindhardt. “I'm relying on
IHSS and SSI; I can't just fall back on that big nest egg,” she said.
Still on the cutting board is the hourly wage for non family-members who provide
in-home care. Under the Governor's proposed budget, those workers would see
their wages cut from $8.50 an hour to the state minimum wage of $6.75. Those
same workers would also lose their state-funded health coverage. Turnover in
the home-healthcare industry is already high, but the cuts are expected to make
it even more difficult for those in need to find someone willing and qualified to do
the job.
![“There's 13 components to getting his [leg] braces on,” said Lindhardt. “That's
just one brace.”
Corinne Chee, a consultant with the Sacramento branch of Porter Novelli, a
public relations firm, was moved by Lindhardt's determination to make her voice
heard to politicians. Lindhardt wrote letters, made calls and spoke at rallies in
support of IHSS, all to no avail, Chee said.
“I wanted to help her rise above the clutter,” she said. Through Chee's efforts,
KOGO-AM radio, camera crews from local NBC, ABC and Fox affiliates and a
Union-Tribune reporter crammed into Lindhardt's two-bedroom apartment-with no
central air-in El Cajon.
David Thatcher, who works with Trenton through the San Diego Regional Center
for the Developmentally Disabled, engaged Trenton in a playful mock sword fight
and made him laugh for the cameras-an easy task-while Lindhardt spoke to
reporters. Thatcher currently works with Trenton 40 hours each month, but
proposed cuts will diminish that to 24 hours per month.
A day after Lindhardt's press conference, Schwarzenegger chose the odd forum
of a legislative budget subcommittee hearing to announce that he would not
eliminate the IHSS program, provided that the federal government step up and
foot part of the bill-an estimated $200 million in Medicaid funds to cover half the
cost of the program.
Nicole Evans, spokesperson for the federal Health and Human Services Agency
(HHS), said the Governor's plan requires a waiver on a rule prohibiting Medicaid
from compensating family members who care for their elderly or disabled
relatives. The decision whether to grant the waiver will be made by HHS, which is](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)