“Ms. Jones, I know you’re tired, frustrated, and wanting to retire. I wish I had an answer for you, but only our legislators and city/county council men and women will be able to make a difference in this crisis.”

SOAR Partners recently sat down with Elijah Blankenship, Chief Operating Officer of the Gatesway Foundation, which serves adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD). The above is a statement he had to make to an 80-year-old caregiver of her two adult children with developmental disabilities and their roommate.

“She called me, like many other caregivers, pleading for additional staff to come and provide some care relief,” says Blankenship. She and the other staff in the home are working exorbitant hours to ensure the health and safety of these individuals with I/DD. As Gatesway Foundation’s COO, Blankenship gets such calls regularly from care staff that are working 80-hour weeks or more. Unfortunately, provider agencies nationwide are experiencing crisis-level staffing to care for an extremely vulnerable population.

The national disability organization, ANCOR, found that the turnover rate for direct support professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic is 43.8%. Vacant positions are over 12%. In some states, such as Minnesota, a top-ten state in caring for vulnerable people, leaders have called on the National Guard to deliver care, although relatively untrained for this combat.

For two decades, caregivers, their agencies, and the care recipients themselves have advocated for proper funding to offer competitive and livable wages for care staff. They all have seen firsthand the struggle of living on average pay rates of $10 per hour or less while still providing everything from bathing, feeding, and giving medication, to finding employment opportunities and money management. Simply put, the State of Oklahoma is consistently behind the curve, and time has caught up.

Oklahoma’s Waitlist for I/DD services has received the attention of the greater community, as reflected in the proposed budget from Governor Stitt. The Governor publicly proposed allocating $20 million dollars to clear the list, though it is unclear where exactly this figure came from. Oklahomans are left wondering if legislators truly grasp the crisis at hand. Mrs. Newrider-Sanusi, a caregiving staff for over 10 years, said “seeing the focus on 5,500 individuals finally getting services they could have waited 13 years to get is great, but I am left with the question of who is going to be the one delivering the care with no one able to find staffing. I work over 16 hours a day and cannot work another hour, as much as I wish I could.”

Oklahoma Community Provider’s rate study showed that legislators would have to increase Medicaid reimbursement an average of 54.72% to provide direct care staff competitive wages. Many states are meeting this crisis by utilizing American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding.

SOAR Partners believes that Oklahoma and its counties/cities should follow suit. According to ARPA legislation, this funding was intended to give preference to “vulnerable populations,” and other guidance from the White House insists that the nation’s COVID-19 response be focused on equity – including equity for those with disabilities.

The fate of this vulnerable population is in the hands of leaders at the state, county, and city levels. We respectfully ask these public servants to choose to hear the I/DD community now, when funds are available to address the needs of this very vulnerable population. To rectify the fate of this population will take the voices of many. As Blankenship stated to Ms. Jones, only our legislators will be able to make the difference in this crisis.