The state Senate is expected to vote next week on a budget amendment.
HOLYOKE -- When Dalia Colon of Holyoke sees one of her home health care clients, she has an hour to get to the person, get them up out of bed, to the bathroom, bathed, dressed and fed breakfast.
"When I leave they are in another room, active and doing something," said Colon, who works for Victory Home Healthcare in Holyoke.
She'll get paid about $13 for that hour's worth of work. That's not much for this single mom of two growing daughters. And that $13 is less than what she would end up making in retail or fast food after a couple of pay bumps -- raises she knows she'll never see as a home health aide.
"But I know that the work I do is important," she said Friday at an advocacy meeting pushing for an increase in state reimbursement rates that would lead to home health aides and homemakers/personal care homemakers like her getting higher pay.
The state Senate is expected to take up a budget amendment next week that would put $14 million in unspent federal money toward raising state reimbursement rates and thus salaries for the home health workers, said Lisa Gurgone, executive director of the Home Care Aide Council, a statewide advocacy group.
About 100 people in the industry gathered with state Reps. Aaron Vega and John Velis and others Friday morning at WestMass ElderCare in Holyoke. WestMass ElderCare gets money from the state and then contracts with agencies to provide care in the home whole monitoring quality.
Approval of the unspent federal money would mean an 80-cent-per-hour bump for homemakers and personal care homemakers and a 40-cent-per-hour bump for home health aides. The average homemaker makes $13.05 now. The average home health aide, who has more medical training, earns $13.78.
Homemaker rates have not been adjusted since 2014, and aides have not seen their pay adjusted since fiscal 2007, Gurgone said.
Statewide there are about 30,000 workers who would be covered, she said. Massachusetts has more than 64,000 older people and people with disabilities who make use of home care services.
The closeness of those two numbers, basically a 1:2 ratio, points to the the need for more workers, Gurgone said.
"Right now we need workers everywhere," she said, adding that the demand is strongest in rural areas where transportation is an issue.
"They provide care that elders and disabled individuals need to stay in their homes," Gurgone said. "They are primarily women, mostly immigrants and single moms. They often have to leave the business because they can do better elsewhere."
It's a national issue, she said.
The problem, Vega said, is that the federal money, obtained during the Obama administration, will only last two years. After that, paying for the raises will be a state budget responsibility.
"And everyone is so uncertain about where federal health care funding is going and what will happen in the future," he said.
Vega said pay raises would help the state budget because when the workers earn more they won't depend on public assistance like child care vouchers and WIC or food stamps. Many women in the home care industry turn down working more hours because they'd loose eligibility for benefits and could never earn enough to make up the difference and come out ahead.
Al Norman, executive director of Mass Home Care, said home health care saves the state in other ways by keeping people at home and out of nursing homes, where Medicare costs are higher. From 2000 to 2016, Massachusetts cut the nursing home population by 37 percent. That worked out to a $1 billion savings in nursing home costs in 2016 alone, he said.
Priscilla L. Chalmers, executive director of WestMass ElderCare, said her agency services 4,000 people in Holyke, Hadley, Chicopee, South Hadley, Granby, Belchertown and Ware.
"And we are seeing more people who are sicker and less able to care for themselves," she said.
Chalmers said other personal care workers, such as those who work in nursing homes or work directly for patients who pay them with Medicare, have already gotten raises. Those who work through agencies have been left behind, she said.
The number of home care patients is sure to go up as the state's population ages, said Jacob Waah, president and CEO of Victory Home Healthcare.
"The only way you are not going to need these services yourself is if you die before your time," Waah said. "If you live out your natural lifespan, you will need this type of care eventually.
Waah said he'd like to give his workers raises, but the reimbursements are so tight he cannot do so and meet his other overhead expenses like training, insurance and bookkeeping.
Fran O'Connell, owner of O'Connell Care at Home and a former candidate for mayor of Holyoke, was also there with a group of workers.
"We do need to decide as a society what value we want to place on the work that these people do," he said.
