What is Homecare?
More than 360,000 Californians -- the frail, elderly, chronically ill or disabled -- depend on homecare to meet their most basic daily needs.
Arcelia Lopez
Santa Cruz County Homecare Worker
As homecare workers, we provide vital services to California's most vulnerable citizens. Helping them get dressed, get to the doctor or just listening if they need a friend, homecare is an irreplaceable service that keeps those in need safe.
Through California's In-Home Supportive Services program, people receiving homecare get help with a variety of daily tasks, including bathing, cooking, cleaning, transportation to doctors' appointments, taking medication, and assistance with their rehabilitation. Homecare workers provide comfort to individuals who may be isolated, depressed, or disoriented -- offering a lifeline to the outside world. Long-term care work requires thoughtful observation, skillful response, medical knowledge, and keen interpersonal relation skills.
Despite their critical role, homecare workers have been relegated to second-class citizens in the healthcare field, often lacking the basic benefits and livable pay scale available to most healthcare professionals.
SEIU Healthcare- United Long-Term Care Workers' Union works to lift workers out of this second-class status, fighting for better pay and fair benefits for all caregivers.
Saving money, saving lives. The IHSS program saves more than a billion dollars annually by reducing the need for more restrictive and costly institutional care. Homecare keeps seniors and the disabled out of nursing homes which cost the state seven times more than homecare.
Because California relies so much on homecare instead of nursing homes, California’s per-capita Medicaid expenditure on long-term care is approximately half of the national average.