The nation’s largest health-care foundation intends to spend up to $100 million over the next six years to develop 2,000 new interfaith programs to deliver services to the elderly and disabled, said sources familiar with the foundation’s plans.
The expansion of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Faith in Action program, which has existed for several years on a smaller scale, would send tens of thousands of volunteers each year into the homes of people who need help getting to the doctor, arranging home repairs, paying bills or shopping for groceries.
Millions of people with conditions ranging from birth defects to diabetes could benefit from assistance with these everyday tasks, according to Penny Feldman, research director of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. In some cases, getting help can make the difference between staying at home and having to move to a nursing home.
“We want to mobilize a whole army of people around the country who will help their neighbors stay independent,” said Feldman, who is working on the program, one of the most ambitious efforts to directly influence community concerns undertaken by a foundation in the United States.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation hopes that a generation from now, when the Baby Boomers have joined the ranks of the elderly, “we’ll see this kind of thing going on in every community in this country,” said Paul Jellinek, vice president.
Since the early 1980s, when the first programs were established, about 800 volunteer interfaith caregiver groups have sprung up across the country.
These groups are the kind of grass-roots, religiously affiliated programs President Bush praised last week in announcing his “faith-based institutions” initiative. But the caregiving programs have strict rules against proselytizing or making religion a criterion for receiving service. Few receive substantial government funds, and all draw volunteers from multiple congregations, not a single religious tradition.
The need for these services seems to be tremendous. According to new data by researchers at Johns Hopkins University, 125 million Americans suffer from allergies, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis or other chronic illnesses. That number is 20 million more people than were projected only five years ago. Of these, about 60 million suffer from more than one chronic condition, increasing the likelihood that they need help with household chores.
By 2020, as the population of people 65 years or older soars to an estimated 54 million, up from 35 million currently, the annual cost of treating chronic illness in the U.S. is expected to almost double to $1.07 trillion, the Johns Hopkins researchers project in a study awaiting publication.
While that is a huge sum, it represents only expenses directly associated with medical care, such as visits to the hospital or to doctors, rehabilitation and other therapies, and the cost of medication.
Equally significant are other needs that are non-medical but essential to quality of life, such as the ability to change a light bulb, change bed sheets or restock the refrigerator. But insurance doesn’t pay for these kinds of services, and family members who in the past might have made arrangements are frequently living in cities far away.
That is where Faith in Action comes in. Its programs depend on volunteers to deliver services and are free to needy people.
“I think of these programs as doing what a son or a daughter would do for an aging parent if they lived in the same town, and could just drop by,” said Stan Jones, a retired health policy expert turned Episcopal minister who has worked closely with the Johnson Foundation on the effort.
Jones tells the story of his 80-year-old mother, Lillian, as an example. After her husband died, she found herself living alone. Often, she forgot which of seven medications she was supposed to take for her high blood pressure, sluggish thyroid and bad stomach.
“If you asked the doctor what was wrong with her, he’d give her diagnoses and prescribe medications,” Jones said. “If you asked her neighbors, they’d tell you she’s bored, she’s forgetful, she doesn’t eat, she backs out of the driveway in the middle of traffic and scares us to death.”
Eventually, Jones moved his mother to near his home in Shepherdstown, W.Va., and got to thinking about an idea he calls a “retirement community without walls.” What if all the churches in town got together and figured out a way to keep older people in the community connected and useful as long as possible? he wondered. Eight churches got behind the effort, and Good Shepherd Interfaith Volunteer Caregivers was born.
Within three years, more than 300 volunteers were helping out. Sixty percent of the people volunteering came through the churches; the rest came from the community. “It’s like the way Catholic or Protestant hospitals developed in the U.S. Originally, they were associated with the church, but they served everyone and became community institutions with a religious affiliation,” Jones said.
Based on his calculations, the program is providing services for $2 to $3 an hour, compared to the going rate of $15 to $17 an hour for home care in the community.
“These programs get more bang for the buck than any other I’ve seen,” said Ed Naylor, a retired social service executive who has traveled across the country examining their operations.
