Profiles of 6 Local Services for Older Americans Hurt by Rising Gas Prices

As the cover story in this month's AARP Bulletin shows, you're not the only one being squeezed by sky-high gas prices. All across the nation, social service agencies and small businesses that serve older Americans are hurting in a big way, too.

In late August and early September, the Bulletin asked a random sampling of these agencies and businesses to describe how they were being affected by soaring gas prices. Here are six of their stories:

BARBOUR COUNTY SENIOR CENTER
Philippi, West Virginia
Brenda Wilmoth, Director

The Barbour County Senior Center has provided services to persons 60 years of age and over since 1972. Our agency provides a variety of services, which include congregate and home-delivered meals, transportation, information and assistance, instruction and training, a monthly newsletter, in-home service programs, preventative exercises, and a variety of recreational activities. Our main center is located in Philippi, West Virginia, and we have eight satellite centers throughout the county. Our annual budget averages $1 million.

The rising gas prices have been difficult to absorb into an already tight budget. We were able to obtain some additional funding through our transit grant, but we have to match that money with 50 percent of local funds. As gas prices rise, so do other costs.

We average 90 home-delivered meals, five days a week. The gas prices are wreaking havoc on the cost of delivering meals, as well as on our transportation services to take residents to doctors' offices, grocery stores, drug stores, banks, etc. One senior center is already exploring the option of using only frozen meals for home delivery and delivering them once a week. My concern about this is that an important feature of the home-delivered meals program is that the driver sees the client five days a week and can see if they are OK.

We do not use volunteers to deliver our meals. Due to the high gas prices, our board is in the process of reviewing our per-mile reimbursement for all staff members who use their vehicles. Barbour County is very rural and mileage reimbursement is expensive now. We are not sure how much of an increase, if any, we can squeeze out of our budget.

Our agency is doing its best to find funds to continue the level of services that we currently provide. I do not know how long we will be able to do so.

HOMECARE SOLUTIONS UNLIMITED, INC.
Lexington, South Carolina
Heather Liafsha, Owner/Administrator

Homecare Solutions Unlimited provides in-home personal care services to the elderly and disabled in Richland, Lexington, Fairfield and Newberry counties. We are based in Lexington, South Carolina. Our nursing assistants provide care such as bathing, dressing, meal preparation and light housekeeping. We also assist with errands and transportation to medical appointments. Our services enable older Americans to remain in their own homes with the assistance needed to remain safe and comfortable. Without our services, many clients would be forced to enter a nursing home or some other type of residential facility.

Rising gas prices have forced us to raise our prices to our clients as well. We have lost some employees who just were not willing to travel any longer to several different clients in one day. In most cases, we are at a client's home for only two to three hours a day, several days a week. Our employees visit several clients a day. We have had to start reimbursing employees for mileage even though we are not reimbursed as a company. This has placed a great financial strain on our company.

To contain costs, I play a dual role in the company as administrator and nursing supervisor. Many weeks, I have not taken a salary so that I can pay my nursing assistants gas money and so forth.

If gas prices continue to rise, the future of our company is uncertain.

SENIOR RESOURCES
Richland County, South Carolina
Debbie Bower, Executive Director

Senior Resources provides services for seniors and places seniors in volunteer positions within the community. We do this with federal, state and local funds (which include donations, client contributions, client payments, city and county funds, United Way funds and various grants).

Our Meals on Wheels Program relies on volunteers to pack and deliver approximately 400 meals per day to the frail and homebound. Many of the volunteers are living on fixed incomes, and even those who are not are finding it more difficult to volunteer and are cutting back on the frequency, if not dropping out all together. We have had volunteers unable to find gas, making it impossible for them to complete their volunteer assignment.

We have been discussing ways to cut back and have come up with some possible solutions that can be implemented. We are negotiating these with our Area Agency on Aging with the hope that it will agree to these changes. It would be difficult to run our operation differently for each funding source, so we are trying to come up with a way to serve our current clients in a more cost-effective way by providing five meals per week but delivering only three days per week; having staff work their weekly hours in four days as opposed to five, and staggering their work days to make sure clients are served; cutting down on field trips, outside educational activities, and the like for congregate meal participants; providing emergency transportation only on given days; letting stipend volunteers complete their assignments in four days as opposed to five; and encouraging and setting up carpooling where possible.

GENERATIONS INCORPORATED
Polk County, Iowa
Maribel Slinde, Executive Director

Generations Incorporated has provided community-based services in the homes of residents in Polk County since 1962. Polk County comprises 18 incorporated communities, both urban and rural, totaling 592 square miles with an estimated population of 390,000. Generations Incorporated manages a $3 million budget that provides four programs, three of which directly serve ill, older adults and persons with disabilities: home care aides, Meals on Wheels and volunteer services.

Many of our staff live outside of the Des Moines metropolitan area because of housing costs within the city, which compounds the gasoline costs to drive into the city to work.

Our paid staff members use their personal vehicles to deliver meals to clients on their individual routes. Several have expressed concerns about their ability to continue to drive their routes. Although they are reimbursed mileage at 34 cents per mile, this reimbursement is becoming inadequate to meet their actual costs. At this point most drivers are waiting to see what the agency will do to address the skyrocketing gas prices before making a decision to remain in or leave the program. Our drivers cover approximately 13,800 miles per month in their vehicles.

We are anticipating a price increase from our food service vendor. Our food distributing companies are currently charging $3.50 per every $1,000 of product to cover increased gas prices. This additional cost will, of course, be turned over to the service provider. We have no idea whom we will bill to cover this charge.

In the past, if a client was not home for the initial delivery attempt because of an unexpected delay (such as a lengthy doctor's appointment or the Paratransit bus running late), we would return with the meal when it was determined the client was home. We can no longer make such return trips due to the extra mileage involved and the client must forfeit their meal for that day.

Generations Incorporated increased our mileage reimbursement two cents at the beginning of this fiscal year [July 1, 2005] but had no idea at the time how high gas prices would skyrocket during the first two months of the fiscal year. Given that government funding allocations for our basic services have not increased, having to pay $3 a gallon for gas jeopardizes our ability to continue to meet the tremendous needs in our community.

JASPER COUNTY ELDERLY NUTRITION
Jasper County, Iowa
Jean Morgan, Director

We serve eight towns in Jasper County, one hot meal at lunchtime a day and weekend meals for the city of Newton. Our program serves about 300 meals countywide.

Our delivery is done by volunteers in our small towns. If a volunteer has to drive to a larger town to pick up meals, we pay 40 cents a mile. Plus, for Newton, we pay those drivers $6.87 an hour and mileage; they work two hours a day, delivering 20 or more meals each. We provide holiday meals for Christmas and Thanksgiving, and emergency shelf-stable meals for the days during the winter that we cannot get to our home-delivery clients. We also have on-site meals where the clients can come to a senior center or a town hall or a local restaurant and receive a hot noon meal and socialize.

We just tried to hire a new driver, and we are running into the question of how much we can pay for mileage. When we say 40 cents, they say, "No, I guess I will not do this." Volunteers are telling us that it is getting more and more difficult for them to offer to do this job when the gas prices go over the budget they have set aside for doing volunteer work. We do not get volunteers who have lots of money; the people who help us out are living on limited incomes. The wealthy do not volunteer for these jobs.

Today we had an interview with a driver I thought we were going to hire, had a background check done, and agreed that she would be a good match for our program. When I called to welcome her to our team, she said that after much thought and discussion with her husband, they decided that they could not afford to have her take a volunteer job that would require her to use a lot of gas. Our meals are delivered out in the county; sometimes it's eight miles one way and eight miles back, and that's only one person on a list of 20 or more people the delivery person will be delivering to.

Combined with the cost of food, the higher gas prices will make it harder to help all the people who need our services. Our meals are the one thing that keep people in their homes. Without the meals, they will end up in care facilities. We are using every cost-control measure possible and have not yet had to cut services, but my concern is that in the very near future I will not be able to keep the meal-delivery service an option for every senior who needs us.

RANDOLPH SENIOR CENTER
Randolph, Vermont
Louise Sjobeck, President

The Randolph Senior Center has been serving seniors in Braintree, Brookfield and Randolph for 35 years. The total service area is approximately 126.4 square miles. The greatest driving distance from the center for home-delivery meals is 13 miles for Brookfield and 11 miles for Braintree. Meals are served at the center Monday through Thursday. Home-delivery clients receive meals Monday through Thursday, along with frozen meals for the days that the center is closed. The suggested donation for congregate and home-delivered meals is $3 to $4. It costs the Center approximately $8.18 per meal. The Central Vermont Council on Aging stipend is $3 per meal, and donations average about $2. The number of home-delivery clients continues to increase, while congregate meal numbers are down. According to the council, this is a new trend.

Meal expense consumes a fourth of the budget. Even before the increase in gasoline prices, raw foods increased 11.5 percent this year. It is expected that the budget overall will be adversely affected by the rising gasoline prices. Heating oil for this next fiscal year, which begins in October, has increased by nearly $2,000. It will likely cost more for suppliers to deliver goods and services. It may be necessary to raise the cost of the popular excursions for seniors or limit the distance traveled.

The center has not yet lost volunteer drivers or other volunteers, [but] it is likely that volunteer drivers will soon need to receive stipends.

Additional Related Links

12 Ways to Beat Rising Gas Prices

State-by-State Guide to Energy Assistance Programs

AARP Research: The Effects of Rising Gas Prices for Americans 50+ (AARP.org)

Tips on Controlling Your Energy Bill (AARP.org)

Primer on Community Caregiving Resources to Seek Out (AARP.org)

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