SEIU Healthcare Illinois launches ad campaign to stop devastating cuts to home care

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT

Sadie Kliner, Communications Specialist

312-596-9388 | sadie.kliner@seiuhcil.org

Brynn Seibert, Communications Director

312-596-9385 | brynn.seibert@seiuhcil.org

SEIU Healthcare Illinois launches ad campaign to stop devastating cuts to home care

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Springfield – SEIU Healthcare Illinois—representing more than 35,000 workers who provide home care to seniors and people with disabilities—launched a hard hitting advertising campaign today calling on the General Assembly to stop deep cuts to home care services in the FY11 budget.

The television ad can be viewed online here.

“Working families and seniors in Illinois who depend on home care should not be asked to bear the burden of Illinois’s budget crisis,” said Keith Kelleher, president of SEIU Healthcare Illinois. “These ads are about showing Illinois legislators and voters what is really at stake in this budget and the human cost of cutting critical programs like home care. Our elected officials need to recognize that the state cannot continue to provide for the people of Illinois without a lasting solution to this crisis.”

The state’s proposed FY11 budget includes a $140 million gap in funding for home care provided to over 50,000 Illinois seniors through the Community Care Program. Cuts could mean reduced eligibility and service cuts for seniors who depend on the care they receive in their homes, leaving families without access to critical care for their elderly loved ones and forcing many into more costly facilities.

“Home care is the one thing that has allowed me to hold on to my independence, my sanity and somewhat of a normal life since being diagnosed with breast cancer and a degenerative disk disease,” explained Janet Mulvaney, a 63-year-old from Springfield who has been receiving care through the state’s home care program for 5 years. “But these cuts threaten to strip me and 50,000 others just like me of our independence and our right to stay in our homes. That’s not right.”

“These budget cuts will force many seniors like me out of the homes and communities we love and into expensive facilities we don’t need,” explained Kathy White, an Urbana senior who receives in-home assistance through the state’s home care program. “We are counting on all of our elected officials to stop dangerous cuts to home care and protect Illinois seniors for good.”

In addition to this week’s ad campaign, SEIU Healthcare Illinois will be educating seniors and their families through direct mail, phone calls and door-to-door canvassing in legislative districts across the state about what’s at stake for seniors who rely on home care in the FY11 budget. SEIU Healthcare Illinois home care aides will be hosting state legislators to work alongside of them for a day to give policymakers a firsthand understanding of what home care means for tens of thousands of Illinois families.