7/24/96
To Whom It May Concern:
I am a volunteer with the Senior Companion Program and have been a volunteer for over 3-1/2 years. I work with Alzheimer’s patients and disabled seniors. I am a World War II veteran who is also an out-patient at the Wadsworth VA (also known to the old timers as "sawtelle").
The aim of the Senior Companion Program is to keep the "clients" from being institutionalized as long as possible. We try to make their life a little easier by reading mail, running errands, doing some shopping, playing music, talking to them about things that worry them or just make conversation with them to take their minds off of their problems. We remind them to take their medications and make sure they keep their medical appointments. We also take them for walks, ask them how they feel, how they slept and did they eat. If there are any problems we can call their case worker, our supervisor, our program director or if necessary their doctor.
Senior Companions are only allowed to work 20 hours a week and we receive a stipend of $2.45 per hour, bus pass or mileage and $1.75 meal allowance daily. If we work 5 hours a day it’s only for four days. If we work 4 hours, it’s for 5 days. I work most with Russian-Jews or American-Jews. I spend my stipend buying second-hand records in Russian, Yiddish or Hebrew and then I record them on tape and give them to my clients so that they can enjoy the music that is familiar to them in a language they can understand.
The Senior Companion Program is sponsored by AmeriCorps at this time but I can tell you that it was founded in 1974, long before Americorps was even a glimmer in someone’s eye. I hope that congress is not cutting off their noses to spite their faces. It would cost the government far more that it saves if the clients that we service for a pittance had to be institutionalized. Think of what professional caretakers would cost, and does the country have that many more home facilities?
Without the stipend, I could not do the job I am doing. In order to be a Senior Companion your income has to be below the poverty level and my total income was $8,436.80. I live in a Senior Citizen building and pay $218.00 a month for a one room efficiency apartment so you can see that I watch my pennies.
On Monday, I see a 88 year-old woman who has cancer and severe arthritis. I so some shopping, we talk and discuss music and I bring her books to read. I also bring her tapes in Yiddish as that was the language of her youth. She is a new client of less than a month and we are still in the process of becoming aquatinted.
On Tuesday, I volunteer at the Wadsworth VA Hospital. I work in vocational rehab work therapy. It is located in Bldg. #205 on the Brentwood side of Wilshire Blvd. I work in the print shop doing odd jobs such as cutting paper, stapling, folding, sorting, an binding. I also make name tags and desk plates for doctors, nurses, and therapists on the pantagraph.
On Wednesday, I see a 96 year-old blind man who has a pace maker. I take him by taxi to Plummer Park for lunch. We sit in the Park for an hour or so playing music and he converses with his friends in Russian and Yiddish and then we eat lunch in the Senior Center. Then I take him back home. Right now I see him on Wednesday and Friday but as soon as I get another client for Wednesday, I will only be able to see him on Friday. He lives alone but his son stays overnight two or three times a week. He has a woman to come in for about three hours a day to do a little cleaning and cooking for him. I read his mail, contact his doctor, and make sure he takes his medications and keeps his appointments.
On Thursday, I see an 80 year old man who has had a stroke and I make sure that he takes his walks. He has trouble walking and talking. His 75 year-old wife is little bit of a thing and he is a big man of about 240 pounds. She is a vegetarian and weighs about 90 pounds. She has her hands full to try to take care of her husband who eats anything he can get his hands on and has no control over his bladder. I play music for them in Yiddish, Russian and Classical. They had no way of playing tapes so I gave them a cassette player which had cost me about $50.00 but it is better than carrying my cassette player back and forth on the bus.
I have no care as it is too costly to operate and maintain so I travel by bus. It takes longer but I am 72 years old with nothing better to do with my time. It seems I don’t require as much sleep as I did in my youth. When I was working for a living, I was a factory maintenance mechanic and pretty handy with most things so I do many things for clients who aren’t able to do them their selves or don’t have the strength or know-how. So all I can say is that I hope congress will think twice before it cuts funding for this program. Its not that I won’t survive without the stipend as I usually spend most of it on the clients but I would hate to see clients deprived of what little comfort I can bring into their lives.
The action was approved by a voice vote on an amendment to the proposed $84.3 billion spending bill for 1997 for the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and various independent agencies.
AmeriCorps has been a political football since its inception; the Republican-controlled Congress tried and failed several times last year to eliminate the program. In private, even some of the program’s most ardent opponents conceded Wednesday night that it is unlikely that they would succeed this year.
A voice vote does not put lawmakers under the kind of political pressure that a recorded vote does, so Wednesday night’s vote was not a true test of the future of AmeriCorps. Still, it shows that Republicans have not given up on their efforts to kill a program that they criticize as wasteful and duplicative.
But the latest attempt to eliminate the program is expected to be quashed in the Senate. If not, Clinton most assuredly will use his veto powers to stave off any attempt to kill one of his pet projects.
"The President has not lost one iota of enthusiasm for national service, so we are obviously troubled by today’s vote," said Lawrence J. Haas, the spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget. "But we are focusing more on the recorded vote to retain AmeriCorps, and we will work as hard as we need to retain healthy funding for the program through the legislative process."
The vote on AmeriCorps came as the House worked to complete the veterans and housing spending bill and to send it to the Senate, which will take it up next month after the Fourth of July-recess ends.
The shift, proposed by Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., was approved on a voice vote as Democrats decided not to challenge the popular veterans programs in this election year. It adds $40 million for veterans’ medical care and medical and prosthetic research, and the rest would be used to reduce the federal budget deficit.
Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., warned that the White House has sent a clear signal the AmeriCorps must be restored to a reasonable level if the President is to sign the bill into law. The $367 million represented a 9 percent cut from 1996 sought by opponents who have argued that it was wasteful and wrong to pay volunteers to perform service projects.
The AmeriCorps funding is only one part of the pending $84.3 billion fiscal 1997 appropriations for housing, veterans’ affairs and other federal agencies, which the House was expected to pass before it adjourns today for a week.
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Last change 9/24/96