In a bright fourth floor alcove in Albany’s Capitol building, a crowd of home care workers and their allies had gathered. Among them was Renee Christian, a 34-year-old Buffalo-based single mother, health and wellness coach and home care user. Christian held up a sign that read, “Because of home care, I can go to the bathroom.” Addressing workers at the February 6 rally, she said, “I wouldn’t be able to live like I live without you guys.”
But every week, Christian — who takes part in the state’s consumer-directed home care program — has to worry about securing full coverage. Right now, she has staff who come to her home from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m., but not on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. “I love my [care] workers,” she tells In These Times. “They’re like family to me.” But it’s hard to find full coverage, “especially for $15.20 an hour,” which is the minimum wage for upstate home care workers. Christian has considered supplementing aides’ wages with her own resources — in 2021, friends even started a GoFundMe to help her with that goal.
She is by no means alone. A 2019 survey by the Home Care Association of New York State found that roughly a quarter of patients were unable to find home care workers. The state’s care shortage is considered the most severe in the country.
Christian says low wages have already pushed one of her regular aides, Denise White, to consider leaving the sector because White “can make more money somewhere else.” Research confirms...
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