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 a 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 more better pay and fair benefits for all
caregivers.
Saving money, saving lives. The IHSS
program enables the save to save 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 homeare.
Because
California relies so much on homeare instead of nursing homes,
California’s per capital Medicaid expenditures on long-term care are
approximately half of the national average.