Aging alone can be lonely and isolating, but it also makes it harder to navigate complex systems. Making multiple phone calls, filling out forms, tracking what each agency told you, following up again and again…these tasks can be overwhelming to a person of any age, but are particularly burdensome to older adults without support from close friends or family.
LBFE Social Worker Justin helps LBFE older adults get connected with resources, including caregivers, Medicaid benefits, and SNAP. “These things get compounded and more difficult when it’s just one person who has no experience interacting with any of these systems, having to do it for themselves. They don’t have anyone around them to really tell them how to approach the process or what’s available to them. It’s hard for a person that’s isolated and doesn’t know to access any of these things. They need somebody essentially to tell them what is available to them and then assist them in getting that process rolling,” he says.
While LBFE volunteers and staff offer friendship and support to our older friends, sometimes their needs are more than friendship. “LBFE is a good organization that genuinely cares about its membership, they have me for when people fall through the cracks of any of these other systems that they’re interacting with,” Justin says. “I oftentimes can either help fill that gap directly for them or I get them in touch with an alternative to it. I realize the scale of what we do is small. Chicago is a city of 2.7 million people, and we serve under a thousand people, but we do make a big impact.”
There’s no average “day in the life” for Justin. Each day brings new situations and tasks. He helps older adults with everything from getting set up for PACE paratransit to fighting eviction. Some interventions are short-term, like making sure an older adult makes it to an appointment, while others can be months-long engagements, like transitioning into assisted living. LBFE older adults trust LBFE because the organization shows up for them in positive ways. “They just become a part of our family,” says Justin. “We commit to them.”
Tackling Challenges Together
This commitment is demonstrated by how Justin and LBFE recently helped “Kathleen” an LBFE older adult. Kathleen had recently let the LBFE program team know that she was without health insurance. She’d had issues with her Medicaid before, and when Justin looked into the problem he found that, sure enough, her Medicaid benefits had been “termed” (ended), because she hadn’t met her spend down, which was connected to her income limit.
Kathleen didn’t know how to proceed. Justin did.
He told her about the Community Care Program, which is a home and community-based services program intended to keep people living independently in the community instead of going into skilled care. “So that counts towards the spend down, but most people don’t know this.” He explained how having a homemaker would not only ensure she kept her health insurance, but would take some off some of the burden of the activities of daily life.
Kathleen agreed to the plan, and then the real work started: navigating the systems to put the plan into action. Together, Justin and Kathleen started making calls. “We had to call DHS (Department of Human Services) numerous times to sort this out, explain it over and over again,” Justin remembers. “I was brought in after a new application for benefits was submitted for her, but then she was just left to wonder what was going on. It’s a very convoluted process. You have to spend a lot of time waiting on hold. You actually do physically need to speak to somebody. It’s just too complicated.”
For Justin, this was just another day, but it meant a lot to Kathleen. She had been so frustrated by the process that she wasn’t even sure if she should pursue the case. Justin assisted with a lot of the legwork, enabling her to get the vital services she needed and was entitled to.
Justin uses his professional knowledge to make life better and processes less frustrating for LBFE older adults like Kathleen. “For folks that don’t hear well or that really just are easily frustrated or anxious, just the thought of calling DHS on their own is overwhelming because they know what the process is like,” he explains.
Making a Difference
Justin’s bulletin board is full of resources for older adults.
Without Justin’s help, the situation may not have resolved as well as it did. “I think Kathleen may not have fully addressed any of it on her own, because it was overwhelming for her, and she didn’t know what to do. If LBFE hadn’t been here, I don’t know that Kathleen would have health insurance. I don’t know that she would have healthcare, much less someone coming into her home to assist her with her activities of daily life. It’s hard to say what could have happened, but I think there would be a deficiency. There would be a deficiency in healthcare and maybe in the quality of the environment that she lives in,” Justin says.
These days, Kathleen is getting along well with her healthcare and her homemaker. Justin just met her in person for the first time at a recent LBFE event, and the two chatted like old friends.