Albany Times Union, Thursday September 28, 2023

We want to thank the Times Union editorial board for sounding the alarm in the editorial “New York’s care crisis,” Sept. 10. The conclusion that the need is now and increasingly urgent is spot-on, but the editorial did not include the crisis in the developmental disabilities sector.

Save Our Services is a statewide group of family members and providers who advocate for increased funding to pay a living wage to direct-service professionals who support people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Unfortunately, our pleas have, with a few limited exceptions, fallen on deaf ears.

Clarence Sundram, a nationally renowned expert on services for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, described direct service professionals’ work: “One might summarize the job description as requiring the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of Job and the caring of Florence Nightingale.”

Yet direct-service professionals earn only a dollar or two above minimum wage. This was not always the case. In 2010, direct-service professionals’ starting pay was 50% above minimum wage.

Dramatic increases are needed to make up for a decade of neglect and stagnant wages. Additionally, while direct-service professionals employed by nonprofits provide 85% of services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, they earn substantially less than those employed by the state.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature must include a substantial investment in direct-service professional wages in the upcoming state budget and, equally important, a plan to bring their wages to a level commensurate with what is required of them.

Karen Nagy- Rexford

Margaret Raustiala–Nissequogue

Members, Save Our Services

Albany Times Union, Saturday August 26,2023

By Andy Tsubasa Field

The July 19 letter sent by Catholic Charities Disabilities Services

Executive Director Paula Jubic, and obtained by the Times Union,

tells potential clients to withdraw help requests.

ALBANY — A leading nonprofit’s disability services department is turning away potential clients due to a lack of staff.

A July 19 letter sent by Catholic Charities Disabilities Services Executive Director Paula Jubic, obtained by the Times Union, tells potential clients to withdraw help requests. The letter said an ongoing staffing crisis has prevented the department from responding to all requests for services.

“Should you wish to reconsider services through CCDS in the future, your care manager can assist you in doing so, or you may choose to seek services through another agency providing these services which can address your needs in a timely manner,” the letter said.

Jubic said Catholic Charities Disabilities Services has 83 residential staff members, 70 fewer than needed to properly assist residents of its properties. She said the department temporarily closed two houses due to limited staffing and has considered shutting down another where five women who use wheelchairs live. For its largest 14- and 12-bed properties, she said her department is barely scraping by to meet a three-person fire safety standard.

“We’re not getting to people. If they need to go to the bathroom and there are only a few people on and there’s something going on with someone else, that person is waiting,” Jubic said. “And then you’re trying to do medication for 14 people at the same time and each person could have 10 different meds.”

Jubic said CCDS worked with the New York Alliance for Inclusion and Innovation to push for an 11.5 percent cost of living adjustment for those working in nonprofit programs. The actual increase was far lower, meaning the nonprofit could only raise service providers’ wages to $16.80 after undergoing training.

Additionally, Jubic said longtime staff retired during the pandemic, and others more recently have left for higher-paying jobs due to inflation. The staffing shortages have led to administrators covering provider shifts more frequently, she said.

“Weekly, like every week,” said Jubic, who has worked for Catholic Charities for 15 years. “I’ve never seen it to the likes of this.”

Catholic Charities is far from alone in facing staffing shortages.

Agencies that provide human services have for years complained that they don’t get enough state funding to attract enough employees to their workforces.

That problem may have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted numerous retirements, and the inflation in recent years, which have forced people to seek as high a wage as possible.

In June 2022, Catholic Charities closed its Mercy House women and children’s shelter citing a falling headcount and difficulty staffing the 19-bed emergency shelter.