Budget Cuts Hurt Real Maine People

[To share your story about what current budget cuts would mean to you, email stories@mainecandobetter.org.]

Cuts that Hurt Seniors and People with Disabilities:

These cuts will eliminate vital services that help these people stay in their homes.

 A 61 year old woman is on a waiting list for home based care services.  She is so medically compromised that she qualifies for nursing home care, but wants to stay at home as long as she can.  She completely relies on her one family caregiver but cannot do so for long. If this budget passes, she will likely be admitted to a nursing home, at far greater cost to the State, if she cannot get help from the home based care program soon. Over 450 others on this indefinite waiting list face similar problems.
 
 A 77 year old man, who lives alone in a mobile home park, is recovering from cancer surgery. He has no transportation and no family caregiver. He needs help with grocery shopping, prescription pick up and some housekeeping. Right now, over 250 people others in his situation are on a waiting list for these critical services. If this cut passes, over 1,000 more people who now get this service will be added to the existing waiting list.

 A 79 year old woman with dementia and other chronic illnesses lives at home with her elderly husband and attends adult day care. Her exhausted spouse, who is otherwise responsible for her care, can rest while she receives medication management, weekly bathing and incontinence care from the Adult Day Services Program.  If this program is eliminated, as proposed, she will likely enter a nursing home as her husband is unable to care for her by himself. 70 other people are at similar risk.

 A disabled individual in his forties who has a spinal cord injury needs significant assistance with dressing, grooming, toileting, bathing, meal preparation, housekeeping and medication management. Right now he is able to work with the help of a personal care attendant that he trains and directs. With a cut of three-quarters of this program’s funding proposed, many of the 140 people served are at risk of losing this critical service.  

 A 93 year old woman has chronic medical problems and relies on her wheelchair to get from place to place. She lives independently in her own apartment with the help of personal care and housekeeping services. She also depends on the housing services program for community meals, activities and a 24 hour “awake staff” person in her building. The proposed budget would cut off her service and that of 170 others. 

Cuts that Hurt adults and children with Mental Illness:

These cuts will eliminate critically-needed mental health services for approximately 2,300 children and 1,700 adults.

 A man diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia suffers from delusions and hallucinations. He is not vocal and does not ask for help.  He manages to remain in the community with intensive case management and help with medication management, including assistance with injectable medications.  Without these intensive services his psychiatric nurse practitioner believes, “he would most likely die”. He has been hospitalized numerous times in the past and has suffered from malnutrition because he forgets to eat. When he is not doing well, he believes that beings are coming through the walls and windows, that there are witches in his belly.

 A woman with a history of homelessness lives with uncontrolled psychosis brought on by her refusal of treatment. She has only recently gotten treatment when she was involuntarily hospitalized for stabbing a person.  After her release, she began receiving intensive case management services and is slowly beginning to respond to therapy.  With the help of medication, she now has the insight to regret losing so many years of her life to uncontrolled mental illness. In the past she ate from dumpsters, was estranged from her family and was assaultive and continuously in fear. Today, with the help of intensive mental health services she has a home, sees her mother regularly and has even become reacquainted with her sister who has become her staunch advocate.

 A mother and her two children, all of whom have some form of mental illness, are trying to put their lives back together after years of severe domestic violence and sexual abuse. Mom suffers from mental illness and is mildly retarded, both children have been diagnosed with mental illness and one child needs specialized services as a result of physical disabilities.  The family has received the specialized supports and services that have allowed them to stay together, including counseling and targeted case management services due to the complex needs of one child.   Today, Mom has a job, the family has stable housing, and both children have improved behavior at home and are making progress in school. If these services are lost, this family’s circumstances will deteriorate rapidly.

 A deaf teenager with post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression and a history of substance abuse had to be placed in a specialized residential facility for mental health treatment in another state at significant cost because there were no appropriate services for her in Maine.  Eventually she was able to come back to Maine and after getting help from targeted case management, counseling, and other services, she is now able to remain in the community and out of residential care.  She has graduated from high school.  If she loses these services, she may have to return to more costly residential care.

 Cuts that Hurt Poor Families with Children:

These cuts would eliminate access to General Assistance for 23,000 very poor children and their families. The municipal general assistance program is the state’s most basic safety net program protecting people in emergencies when they can’t pay for food, rent , heat or other basic necessities. 

 A widowed single parent living in north-central Maine with her two young sons, including a 10-year old with a traumatic brain injury, is recovering from ovarian cancer. Despite her illness, she has just recently completed a Certified Nurses Aid Program course and is looking for work.  Her total family income is only $485 a month.  Without access to help from her local General Assistance program, this family is at risk of homelessness.

 

Cuts that Hurt Very Poor Individuals without Health Insurance:

This cut would deprive access to needed health care through the MaineCare “childless adult” waiver program for nearly 8,000 adults living in poverty.

 A 45 year old woman from Waldoboro is unable to get the treatment that she needs to manage her chronic health conditions.  She suffers from a great deal of pain every day and has lost feeling in her feet creating problems with balance.  She has worked for years in jobs such as CNA and home health, but now is having great difficulty working.  She cannot get help from MaineCare because there is a freeze on enrollment begun by the Governor’s curtailment order and continued in this budget bill.  Now she is on waiting list with nearly 5,000 others.  Every day the waiting list continues to grow because enrollment is closed.  While she waits her health condition continues to deteriorate. 

 MaineCare saved the life of a home health care worker from Gardiner suffering from chronic illness. It improved her health so that she was able to return to work. Unfortunately her symptoms are returning, but she can’t get back onto the MaineCare program because enrollment for her group is closed. If she can't get health care soon, she'll likely end up in the emergency room for treatment and may lose her job. 

Cuts that Hurt Elderly and Disabled Legal Immigrants and Refugees:

This cut would eliminate the only source of income for thirty-one elderly and disabled legal immigrants and refugees. 

 An elderly refugee couple from Rwanda relies on the state-SSI program as their only source of income.  Their five children were killed in the genocide in Rwanda.  They fled their homeland, leaving everything they owned behind.  The support they receive through state-SSI program is the only income they have and is essential to help them meet their basic needs as they work towards becoming citizens. 

 

Cuts that Hurt Adoptive and Foster Care Families:

This cut would take away assistance that helps families care for foster and adoptive children, including many with multiple special needs.

 This family has been fostering children for the last 16 years.  They adopted seven children with special needs.  At the request of the Department of Health and Human Services, this family recently brought an 11 year old girl into their home to prevent her from being institutionalized. The many long hours they have spent working to stop her violent behavior are paying off.  They fear that if subsidies for her care are cut back, they may no longer be able to afford to care for this very needy child.   If they cannot, the child would have to have to go back to State care and custody.

 A family from central Maine adopted two girls aged 5 and 7 in 2004 after raising three biological children of their own.  Their adopted daughters came to their family with serious emotional, physical and behavioral issues.  If the proposed budget is approved, they will not be able to pay for the services that their daughters need.  They also fear that other families will be far less likely to adopt children with special needs if these cuts go through. 

Cuts that Hurt Victims of Domestic Violence:

This cut will limit access to critical domestic violence services. 

 A 21- year-old woman is in a hospital emergency room waiting for a doctor to examine a laceration on her face, and red swelling on her neck.  She sees a poster on the wall.   It tells her what domestic violence is; that she is not alone; that it is not her fault and that she can access free confidential services to help.  It tells her that her local Domestic Violence project will immediately respond if she asks to talk to an advocate.  Yet, if she decides she wants to escape the batterer, cuts in funding may make it impossible to have a Domestic Violence legal advocate at her side in court  Domestic Violence programs around the State face the loss of up to 17 staffers serving women in violent situations if this cut goes into effect.

 

Cuts that Hurt Victims of Sexual Assault:

Cuts to Sexual Assault Center limit the ability of victims to get help.
 

 While at a party in her residence hall, with people she thought were her friends, an 18 year old college freshman, was drugged then raped. The next morning, on her way to the bathroom, she sees a poster displaying the Sexual Assault Support-line. She recalled the presentation that she sat through a number of weeks prior, during freshman orientation, and realizes that she may have been Sexually Assaulted. Cuts to funding for Sexual Assault Centers would greatly limit the education opportunities that the Centers provide and the ability of people affected to seek services from qualified professionals. The proposed cuts could reduce as many as 25 of these crucial jobs, greatly impacting service to survivors of sexual violence.

 

Cuts that Hurt Women in Need of Family Planning Services: 

This cut will force 13 family planning centers to close and 10 more to reduce their hours. Many of these are in rural parts of the State where health care services are already limited. 

 A young woman lives with her family in rural Maine and has been going to her local family planning health center for reproductive health care since she was a teenager. She has her annual exam there and, four times a year, she goes to the health center for a highly-effective birth-control shot.  Many times, this has been the only health care she gets all year.   Because of the budget cuts, her local center has closed and she will have to travel almost 200 miles round-trip to Bangor for her annual appointment.  She and her husband just cannot afford any more children, and she doesn’t know how she will be able to afford to make the trip to Bangor four times a year to get her shot