Mat-Su legislators talk Pioneer Home funding at St. Michaels’

PALMER — Three Mat-Su legislators sat down in the St. Michael’s Catholic Church to discuss funding for the Pioneer Home and the state budget in front of about 80 people on Sunday, two of them in person and one over the phone. Senator David Wilson, Representative and Cathy Tilton sat together while Representative DeLena Johnson phoned in her presence. With the state cutting 6.5 million dollars back on April 6, 2017 and having lost five staff positions since 2015, the Pioneer Home’s future became a major point of concern and the public made it known how concerned they really were. The term, “political football” was coined by one man at the beginning of public testimony. The term was tossed by around for the duration of the discussion- both by the politicians and the public.

“I have resources of all kinds of statistics that are very disturbing when it comes to taking care of our elderly,” said Linda Combs, member of the Alaska Commission on Aging.

St. Michael’s Organizing Ministry hosted the event with a slideshow with supporting information. About a dozen members of the community came to the mic for a one minute testimony. There were 5,000 senior applications filed in Alaska as of 2018. In the slideshow, a reported 143 seniors are ready to move in immediately but have a wait time of two and a half years. Combs said cited an estimate from November 2017 that stated at least 170,000 people were in need of “different levels of assisted living who are not being serviced by anyone but the 85,000 Alaskans who are giving care unpaid and maybe even undereducated.” In her opinion, Pioneer Homes across the state have been a “shining example of the promises that were made for those folks who built this state.”

“We have too many homeless veterans and we just cannot close this [Pioneer Home],” Combs said.

Retired Air Force veteran, Paul Houser, mentioned that Alaska may have the highest ratio of military to civilians in the Union. He said that not only should the Pioneer Home stay open but other homes should open up because it would be a “crime not to.”

Deacon Harry Moore’s parents homesteaded on Iliamna Lake. He said they helped their neighbors and helped “open that area.” One of Moore’s pressing concerns was seeing the Pioneer Home among other “critical, infrastructural” aspects of society turned into what he called “political football.” He urged for that to stop because it has already incited a lot of fear within the retirement homes. To Moore, the uncertainty was “unfair, unjust and just not correct.”

“I’ve heard from a couple here of folks talking about how the seniors helped open this state. So the question becomes: are we willing to keep that promise that they made to us? Are we going to support them in their hour of need?” Moore said.

Army Veteran, Debra Till worked for eight years as a nurse practitioner in the Pioneer Home and stated that the state has been “cutting into the bone.” During her time at the Pioneer Home, she met several veterans who’ve been on the beaches of Normandy and received bronze stars in Vietnam. She said that they “deserve better than these cuts every year or the threat of not having homes.” When seniors move into a retirement home, they do so expecting that is the last place they will reside, she said.

“We should offer that stability to them in a loving, caring environment,” Till said.

Linda Peters has been a nurse for over 50 years. She said that in her experience, when programs and the number of staff is cut and the facility operates with the “bare minimum,” the quality of care declines.

“So those dollars make a difference,” Peters said.

Palmer Mayor, Edna DeVries also came to the microphone to comment. She said that she was resident of Palmer when the Pioneer Home was first built and she stand fully behind it.

“It has been an asset and jewel to our Palmer area and we do not want it to disappear,” DeVries said.

After hearing the comments from the public, the legislatures had 3 minutes a piece to make a statement. Senator David Wilson said that the commissioner has 25 million dollars the state can “move around in any allocation.” He said the cut wasn’t meant to fall onto the Pioneer Home, rather to be “spread across the entire department.”

“I will do everything I can to fight for those commissioners know what allocated cuts can do to a senior center. I think the senate has learned that and I don’t think that we- hopefully- won’t make that mistake again,” Wilson said.

Representative Cathy Tilton said that like Wilson and Johnson, she was shocked at the news. She affirmed Wilson’s statement, saying that the 25 million can be moved around, “anywhere in the health and social serviced budget.”

Senator, Shelley Hughes and Representative, DeLena Johnson were unable to attend the meeting because they both were out of state. Hughes was back in Washington for her breast cancer treatment and Johnson was in Hawaii. Johnson called in to address the public. She had a place at the table with her name and a phone mounted on a stand, having the microphone placed in front of the speaker for her answers. She said that the Pioneer Home was an “absolute lifesaver” for her mother when her father needed care and she plans to keep working to protect it. She claimed to have “worked very hard to get the funding restored.”

“I think we made an impact. We let people know that isn’t okay. We got the flat funding, which doesn’t seem like great step forward but we did keep the money in there,” Johnson said.

Pioneer Home Administrator, Joshua Shaver was at the meeting. He’d rather talk about his favorite part of the job: all the stories gathered from the veterans, saying, “Alaska was their dream.”

“We’re just focusing on providing the best care with what we have,” Shaver said.