Southside Pride

The Minneapolis senior community will feel the full weight of Governor Pawlenty’s budget cuts June 30, when Volunteers of America Senior Nutrition Services is set to lose all of its state funding. The Senior Nutrition Program, which provides both congregate dining and home-delivered meals to low-income, frail and minority older adults at risk of malnutrition, served over half a million seniors in 2002. The cuts made to the senior dining program are just a small part of $819 million reduction in health and human services that could put many older Minneapolitans at risk of malnutrition.

According to the Volunteers of America, the average participant served by the senior nutrition program is single or widowed, aged upper 70s to mid 80s, with an annual income of $935 or less. (That amounts to 125 percent of the federal poverty level of income.) The majority are women. Most alarmingly, the average participant has been using the program’s services for over ten years, and says that it is his or her primary meal of the day.

“The Senior Nutrition Programs across the state of Minnesota receive funding through the Older American Act, so we do receive federal funding,” says Nadine Reiser, VOA’s Director of Health and Nutrition, Senior Services. “But for over thirty years we have had state support for nutrition in the State of Minnesota, and that included congregate dining and home-delivered meals.” The participants themselves, who are asked to make a donation for their meals, currently provide about 25 to 30 percent of the program’s funding. However, Reiser emphasizes that the program will not be able to continue serving as many at-risk individuals without state funding to fill the gap.

Many seniors have responded to the Nutrition Program’s funding crisis by participating in a letter writing campaign to convince legislators to restore funding. Interested individuals are asked to write a one-page letter to Governor Pawlenty or their state legislators and explain the importance of the nutrition program to them. VOA recommends explaining what specific action the writer would like the addressee to take—for example, “Vote to reinstate funding for senior nutrition in the state budget.”

One 94-year-old woman wrote, “I’d rather eat vegetables at congregate dining than vegetate in a nursing home.” Reiser says that it highlights one of the most important aspects of the dining program. “We are one service that can help keep people in their homes. One of our goals is to help people stay as independent as possible, and nutrition is a very important part of that.”

Currently, the House Health and Human Services omnibus bill does restore some of the state funding. Those working with the Senior Nutrition Program hope that the Senate will do the same. But the program will be faced with some very difficult decisions if that funding doesn’t come through. “In every city and town there are people who need this service,” says Reiser. “Our guideline is that we do serve the frail elderly, those at risk, those who have less financial ability to provide meals for themselves. So we would be looking at a targeted population.” Reiser sighs: “We would start there first and then work our way out”