Today I write under my professional day time hat as Executive Director
of Open Circle Senior Day Center, a community based long term care
alternative...
Fran Guminga wrote:
" The motivation for this policy is that the state does not pick up
the costs for in-home care (county does, and Hennepin County has been
less than generous lately)."
Actually, the counties in this state only act as a pass through for
funding of the Alternative Care Grant Program (100% state money), the
Elderly Waiver program and Community Alternatives for Disabled
Individuals program (Medicaid money which is 1/2 sate and 1/2
federal). These great programs were developed in the 80's to help
transition our dependence on nursing home use because our state had
twice the national average at 10% and pay for a variety of community
based services. The state wisely looked ahead at the population
numbers and realized that if we continued at the same rate we would
break the public bank because once most people enter nursing home the
bill typically gets paid by Medicaid. Over the course of 15 years we
have gotten the usage rate down to 7.5% but still have a way to go
till we reach the national avarage of 5%. The moratorium was put in
place to help reach the 5% goal. We do have an excessive amount of
nursing home beds in the metro area and not enough beds in other parts
of the state.
What we need in Minneapolis are more assisted living buildings,
particulaly for low to moderate income individuals, because most
assisted living buildings are currently in the suburbs at market rates
of about $3-4,000/month. We also need more senior housing (without
services) so that those of us who enjoy living in the city will not
have to move to exurbia, where there will not be transit. For the
boomers, that time is soon appearing--10 years is not very long. I am
hoping that the redevelopment space along the LRT corridor will
produce opportunities for both of these housing options.
Pam Blixt
Nokomis East
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