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Impacts of Funding Cuts Highlighted in Aging Agency Report · KMUD News

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Like other Nonprofit groups, Area 1 Agency on Aging is seeing more need for services and increased threat to funding. At its July 1 meeting, Humboldt County's Board of Supervisors fielded an annual presentation on Area 1's services and funding situation. The agency is one of 33 area agencies on aging in the state, part of a national network formed under the federal Older Americans act and carrying out its goal of providing supportive services to seniors. But there's concern over loss of funding as an era of federal cuts, possibly compounded by state cuts, advances. Area 1 Executive Director Maggie Craft described the agency's programs including assistance with transportation, health and nutrition, Aging in Place and and legal services. Housing assistance is provided through the agency's Home Share program and Kraft said the need for it is acute and increasing.
• 1:03
  Speaker B: Our program, North Coast Home Share matches people with housing with people who need housing. And I would say that most of the people that take advantage of this and find a room in a house could not afford housing here otherwise. And that is getting worse. We know that the fastest growing population of first time homeless people are people over 60 or older. Adults and women are the majority of those. We're seeing that. You're probably seeing that in our communities. You're seeing more people on the street, more older people on the street again. Arcade, House Partnership and other services that serve homeless folks are also being targeted and losing money. So we are looking at how we might need to shift what we do to deal what everyone else is losing.
• 1:57
  Speaker A: On the federal level, some proposed reductions in Older Americans act funding have been warded off, but Kraft said that quote doesn't mean there won't be cuts. Of even more concern is the possibility of federal cuts in tandem with with state cuts. Kraft said cuts to Medicaid and Medi Cal will have intense consequences and they'll be felt across the board.
• 2:20
  Speaker B: They're making a lot of changes to Medicaid, which is Medi Cal here. The challenge with that for a rural area is we need those Medi Cal dollars to pay for our health care, not just for people who are on Medi Cal, but they help pay enough of it so that those of us on private insurance or Medicare can also get coverage. It's not like there's a Medi Cal doctor sitting there just serving people with Medi Cal and when they don't have enough people to serve with that, they just still exist. It's like they're serving people, our doctors and all of our professionals are serving all of us. You take out a major funding source in a rural area and you're going to see big changes that impact the rest of us. So that is something that I think we're looking at right now. Also the CalFresh funding, the federal SNAP funding that is going to devastate our community. There's a lot of working people here who use food for people. Most of people using food for people are children, seniors or working adults.
• 3:28
  Speaker A: The 2024-2025 Area 1 budget is is $3.6 million through a combination of federal, state, local and donation funding. Kraft said the 2025-2026 budget is expected to drop to $3 million. Area 1 services are in addition to a broader range provided through larger pools of funding or the icing on the cake, she continued. She told supervisors there's concern that funding losses will impact services that are beyond the scope of Area 1.
• 4:03
  Speaker B: Our money that we get, we have to do specific things with it. We can't take the nutrition money and go and do something else. Our money is siloed and specific. We're the icing on the cake and the cake is health care. It's housing, it's food. If you damage those things in our communities, which is what we're seeing, you don't need icing anymore if you don't have a cake. One of the things we will be watching is how, depending on what happens at the state and federal levels as that cake gets taken away, what leeway do we have to stop giving people icing and maybe give them something more nutritious? I'm not saying this to minimize the services we provide. I just showed them to you. They're important services. But giving people rides to doctors doesn't make sense if they don't have insurance or they don't have a doctor anymore.
• 5:01
  Speaker A: During a public comment session, former Humboldt County Supervisor Virginia Bass said she's the newest member of the California Senior Legislature, which lobbies for senior services. She encouraged the board and county groups to work on senior issues with organizations that represent counties and rural counties. Supervisor Mike Wilson echoed that and motioned to direct the county's legislative consultants to send a letter to our membership organizations to voice concern over the potential cuts Kraft described. The board voted unanimously to do that. The letter will also be sent to state and federal legislative representatives in Eureka. For KMUD News, this is Daniel Mintz.