THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 30, 1995 TAG: 9509300277
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LEWIS KRAUSKOPF, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
Goldie Foss can't live in her Norfolk home of 40 years.
At 88, the wheelchair-bound Foss is forced to live with her daughter because she has trouble preparing meals on her own. She can't reach the oven, and her failing sense of smell prevents her from noticing her food burning.
``I want to be home. You can understand that can't you?'' Foss said. ``I lived there 40 years and it's hard to live anywhere else.''
Foss will soon have that opportunity, thanks to a new meal-delivery program offered to homebound elderly by the Hampton Roads agency for senior citizens - SEVAMP.
Beginning in October, SEVAMP, the Southeastern Virginia Areawide Model Program, which delivers free meals five times a week to about 600 homebound seniors, will start a pilot program to distribute several dozen more meals for a small charge. The new program will allow the agency to serve at least 36 more eligible seniors.
SEVAMP, which also provides a variety of health and other essential services to the elderly, has been accustomed to providing services for free. Like similar agencies state and nationwide, it is now experimenting with fees to serve more people.
The agency serves Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Suffolk and Franklin along with Isle of Wight and Southampton counties. With its meal program, it has been unable to reach remote areas under its jurisdiction mostly because of lack of manpower and because meals would spoil during long delivery trips.
Now, with about $40,000 start-up funding from the General Assembly, SEVAMP will begin a fee-for-service meal program in order to reach more elderly who have difficulty preparing meals for themselves.
``It's an opportunity to feed these people as well as an opportunity to test fee-for-service,'' said Kathleen S. Blanchard, assistant director for programs at SEVAMP.
Eligibility for the current, free SEVAMP meal delivery program is based on whether the person, who must be over 60, can prepare his or her own food.
However, distance also has become a de facto eligibility requirement. A lack of resources has prevented SEVAMP from providing a hot meal regularly to many otherwise eligible people, according to Blanchard. The result has been a waiting list of over 200 in the area.
Enter fee-for-service. For the next year, SEVAMP will solve the distance problem by making monthly deliveries, mostly frozen or canned foods, to people formerly on the waiting list. SEVAMP case managers will train these paying clients how to prepare the meals themselves.
The maximum cost to the clients will be $3 per meal, but the fee will be less for some, based on their ability to pay. SEVAMP officials say the pilot program can provide meals to 36 people, but it could be expanded to 60 if the first clients need only occasional deliveries.
``Is there a market for meals that people would pay a stated fee for?'' Blanchard asked. ``We're going to provide some meals and see how it works.''
The 1996 fiscal year will be the third that Virginia's agencies on aging are experimenting with fee-for-service in various programs, according to Thelma E. Bland, commissioner for the state Department for the Aging. It will be the first year that the idea will be tried in each local agency statewide.
``Given the limited resources of the senior population, we're always leveraging services from other sources,'' Bland said.
A shortage in federal dollars for aging agencies has been a major reason for using fee-for-service programs, according to Teresa Lambert, spokeswoman for the National Association of State Units on Aging in Washington. Since the early 1980s, funding for the Older Americans Act of 1965 hasn't kept pace with the needs of an increasing elderly population, Lambert said. Fee-for-service arose as another revenue source for senior-citizen services.
Fee-for-service also solves another problem with providing services for the elderly, Lambert says. It makes some of them more agreeable to receiving government aid.
``Older persons often are more receptive to services if they can pay part of it,'' Lambert said. ``They want to pay their own way; it's part of feeling independent.''
Foss agrees.
``My brother got a meal brought to him five days a week and he said, `I can't eat something I don't pay for,' '' Foss said. ``And he wasn't supposed to pay for it, but he'd give at least a dollar every time.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by BILL TIERNAN/
Jackie Riddick, of the SEVAMP program, delivers lunch to Allen
Benton, 82, at his apartment in Norfolk. The program, which brings
meals to about 600 homebound seniors, is expanding to bring more
lunches - for a small fee - to more people.
Allen Benton, 82, eats a lunch from SEVAMP. The program brings meals
to older people who want to stay in their homes, but have trouble
providing all the necessities. SEVAMP also offers health and other
services. It serves Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Chesapeake,
Suffolk and Franklin, along with Isle of Wight and Southampton
counties.
Staff Map
Area Shown
KEYWORDS: SENIOR CITIZEN MEALS ON WHEELS FOOD DELIVERY by CNB