We Need Universal Long-Term Care

SF Gray Panther June Meeting

We Need Universal Long-Term Care

Tues, June 19, 1 PM
Unitarian Center, 1187 Franklin, at Geary
Everyoone invited, free, wheelchairs OK

Tens of millions of seniors and people with disabilities need, or will need, long-term care, yet this care is ruinously expensive, or exhausting for family members, and is often inadequate.

Learn more about the problem and how senior/disability activists, personal attendants, and people hiring them, are working together to win quality and affordable long-term care for all who need it in California.

How can we meet growing and unmet long-term care needs of today’s and tomorrow’s seniors and people with disabilities? Our speakers:

Steve Kaye is a Professor at the UCSF Institute for Health & Aging. He is an author of the Health Affairs paper " Long-term care: who gets it, who provides it, who pays, and how much?" His interests also include community-based long-term services and supports needed by people with disabilities of all ages, employment issues among people with disabilities, use of information and assistive technology, and disability measurement and data collection.

Lindsay Imai Hong is a leader of the SF Care Council, a group of senior, disability, and domestic worker activists pressing for affordable, quality long-term care for all need it, and creation of a new workforce of care workers with good pay and working conditions, dignity, training, and legal protections. Lindsay is the Bay Area Organizer for Hand-in-Hand, a network of people employing domestic workers, including personal assistants, working for dignified and respectful working conditions in the home that will benefit worker and employer alike.

Both Steve and Lindsay are part of the group that put together San Francisco's Support at Home program, a pilot program of subsidies to help pay for home care for SF residents who do not qualify for In-Home Support Services because their income is slightly above IHSS limits. San Francisco's Support at Home is a step toward universal long-term care, just as Healthy San Francisco is a step toward universal healthcare in California.