Health care support worker Kormasah Deward smiles for a photo in Woodbury on Aug. 3, 2023. “You get an extended family, you know that you’re changing the world, and you’re putting a smile on another person’s face,” Deward said of being a personal care assistant. She was part of an SEIU bargaining team that won a large pay raise for PCAs. Photo by Madison McVan/Minnesota Reformer.
Damon Leivestad, a 50-year-old mechanical engineer with spinal muscular atrophy, has struggled to find personal care assistants for years.
Leivestad uses a wheelchair and needs help moving between his bed and wheelchair, getting dressed, and doing everyday tasks like shopping and food preparation.
His condition is deteriorating while his parents age, and hiring people to help him with everyday tasks has proved difficult even as it’s become more important.
“(My parents) take care of me, but my dad is 79 and my mom is 75, so it’s really difficult for them to do that now. And now I have fewer PCAs than I ever have in my entire life,” Leivestad said.
The problem is likely to worsen, economists and demographers say.
The demand for home health and personal care aids is expected to be higher than any other occupation over the next 10 years, according to data from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. Home health care employment is expected to increase by about 25% over that time.
Meanwhile, these workers — whose clients rely on them to live independently — are among some of...
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