Cultivating connections to help seniors and people with disabilities age and thrive at home.
University of California School of Law speaker, Elizabeth Peters, JD, MPH will discuss the legal legibility, choices, and specifics for Medicare-Medi-Cal Dual Eigible Special Needs Plans
HOW TO JOIN THE EVENT:
To join by phone: 669-900-6833
Meeting ID: 298110801# OR Online: https://ucsf.zoom.us/j/
Password for both: 671492
Join Todd James, M.D., UCSF Dept. of Internal Medicine, Div of Geriatrics as he explains a quality improvement campaign from the American Board of Internal Medicine that seeks emphasis & input from patients as to preferences & priorities in the clinical decision making process.
HOW TO JOIN THIS CLASS:
To join by phone: 669-900-6833
Enter Meeting ID: 298 110 801## OR
Online: https://ucsf.zoom.us/j/298110801
Password for both: 671492
Wait in the “waiting room” until the activity is ready to start.
To create a friendly environment and minimize interruptions, we will close the activity to new participants 15 minutes after the start time.
The above link will work on your tablet or your computer. You’ll be prompted to download a Zoom app the first time you use Zoom. If you’re using a PC or Mac, you can join from your web browser without using the Zoom software.
Joy Loverde has a reputation for being a path-carver and visionary. She is a keynote speaker, consultant, and author of the best-seller The Complete Eldercare Planner, Revised & Updated 4th Edition and Who Will Take Care of Me When I’m Old? She has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, TIM, Money, and the New York Times among others. Interviews include The TODAY Show, Good Morning America, and NPR. Critics hail her work as “illuminating, eye-opening, and required reading for every one 40.”
Visit her website at https://elderindustry.com.
HOW TO JOIN THE EVENT:
To join by phone, dial 888-475-4499 (toll-free) or 669-900-6833 (local). Enter Meeting ID: 870 7204 8045, then press # twice.
To join with video, click this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87072048045 to register and join. Wait in the “waiting room” until the activity is ready to start.
To create a friendly environment and minimize interruptions, we will close the activity to new participants 15 minutes after the start time. The above link will work on your tablet or your computer. You’ll be prompted to download a Zoom app the first time you use Zoom. If you’re using a PC or Mac, you can join from your web browser without using the Zoom software.
Staff writers Mary Hunt and Judy Goddess wanted to write about in-home caregiving in part because they and their friends are of the age when the need is a present or near-future reality. And they figured it’s better to learn to navigate the system when you’re in better health than not.
Once they started to explore, Goddess said, it suddenly seemed as though every middle-aged and older person is giving or receiving care or has a caregiver story. Often, they involve children or spouses trying to convince a frail senior that they need care. Or they’re about seniors or their families struggling to find a reliable, competent caregiver whose personality and skills suit the recipient. Just as importantly, they’re about figuring how to pay for that care.
As of 2020, there were 2.3 million home care workers in the United States, according to April Verrett, president of SEIU Local 2015 in California, the nation’s largest long-term-care union. And if we are to meet the needs of our aging population, she wrote in TIME magazine, we’ll need another 1.2 million by 2028. Yet, even now, there are not enough caregivers to meet the needs.
Their efforts to look into the world of in-home care produced a series of stories we’ll be releasing over the next several days, along with resources for readers. You can subscribe to San Francisco Senior Beat (see the top of our website) to get email notices when new stories are published, or follow us on Facebook, or follow this guide to know when to check our site for our caregiving stories.
THE SCHEDULE:
Wednesday, May 4: High costs and dearth of financial assistance programs for middle-income seniors leave them in the lurch when help at home is needed. The Rev. Eileen Kinney is one of the many Americans, those of middle-income, for whom costly in-home care is unaffordable. She began having trouble with basic tasks like cleaning and cooking when her neuropathy worsened. But not being wealthy enough to hire care, nor poor, which would have qualified for in-home care through Medi-Cal, she had nowhere to turn – until she was able to get into one of the rare programs that offer financial help for seniors in the middle-income gap.
Friday, May 6: ‘I’m too young to need a walker!’ A fall and fracture jolt an independent life in a comfy Stonestown apartment. Mary Hunt didn’t think of herself as old at the age of 76. Even when she broke her wrist in a fall, she didn’t see the need to hire a caregiver. She lived alone but had friends around and a sister in Daly City. Her daughter lives in Georgia. Having some stranger come in felt like an intrusion.
Sunday, May 8: Tending to aging seniors in their homes a necessary and noble occupation, but undervalued – and physically and emotionally challenging: Debbie Gilli had always loved being around her grandmother and her in-laws. She simply liked older people. It wasn’t much of a stretch to become a caregiver. Anna Kivalu likes the look into other lived worlds she gets when helping clients. Lourdes Dobarganes gets clients to salsa dance with her to strengthen their balance and keep them moving. She’s also been known to have them hug trees for a positive energy experience. They have few complaints about their work, but would like to make more money and have benefits like overtime, sick time or workers compensation. Those obstacles are barriers to the supply of caregivers keeping up with the demand for their services.
Tuesday, May 10: Family members make up majority of in-home caregivers due to help’s high cost, taking on all-consuming, sometimes overwhelming role. The high cost of in-home caregiving has led many families to take on the burden themselves. In fact, the vast majority of caregivers serving Medi-Cal clients in San Francisco – hired through the city’s In-Home Supportive Services program – are family members. While most become members of the caregivers union and make slightly more than minimum wage, it is still an all-consuming, physically exhausting and sometimes maddening job.
Thursday, May 12: Neighborhood and ‘village’ networks help seniors who live near one another as aging makes daily tasks more difficult. Within eight years, a third of San Franciscans will be 60 or older, and according to various studies about a third will live alone. In 2020, that would have been about 54,000 seniors. The ones who have no family, or none that live nearby, are turning to neighbors to form support networks for help with everyday tasks they’re having trouble with – getting to a doctor’s appointment, shopping for groceries, changing a lightbulb –temporarily or long term. Some of these neighborhood networks are informal; others involve low-cost memberships that offer support as well as activities.
On December 7, the SFMTA Board of Directors will vote on a Muni Service Plan for 2022. Their current proposal brings back a lot of service, but it does not restore Muni to pre-pandemic service levels, as the community has been asking for. The current proposal for 2022 Service includes the following:
Please ACT BEFORE DECEMBER 7 if this is not the Muni service you need!
From our partners at Senior & Disability Action: For years, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) has been denying requests from neighborhood public transit riders to install a bus shelter with seating at bus stops that are without seats. Prior to the pandemic, the SFMTA has been removing numerous bus shelters as a solution to deal with the homeless and street drug trafficking issues. We at Senior & Disability Action find that those actions are in conflict with the Americans with Disabilities Act. People with disabilities and seniors need seating and shelter while waiting for the next bus. At this time, only 34% of current bus stops have seating, and these are distributed inequitably, with the northern half of the city twice as likely to have shelters as the southern half, particularly Bayview/Hunters Point.SFMTA really needs our (transit riders who are seniors and people with impairments) help in creating a Muni Service Network that really addresses our needs.
SDA has developed a survey and petition for the new Gimme Shelter campaign. The task of both is communicate to the SFMTA the need for all bus stops to have a shelter with seating. Please take and share with others:
The Survey
English: https://tinyurl.com/Gimme-Shelter-Survey
Chinese: https://forms.gle/1UCFGrheqXfdbEqc7
Spanish: https://forms.gle/deT4ZWP1v8AngZGY8
The Petition
English: https://forms.gle/bJqUsRpTYyCAPFEJ8
Chinese: https://forms.gle/QgExKtE5xXSWEoAMA
Spanish: https://forms.gle/YRNffsyUPGiK6G7s9
If you’d like a hard copy of the survey and petition, please contact Pi Ra at srira@sdaction.org.
CLC is urging residents to mark the following programs as “Very Important,” so we make sure that older adults and adults with disabilities are prioritized:
More details at https://www.sfcta.org/
Dec 6 @ 1:30 pm; Land Use & Transportation Committee
Supervisor Peskin is calling a hearing on electric-powered scooters, after Nicole Bohn, the Director of the Mayor’s Office on Disability, was seriously injured after being hit by someone riding a scooter on a sidewalk.
Dec 13 @ 1:30 pm: Land Use & Transportation Committee
Supervisor Melgar is calling a hearing on the City’s responsibilities in maintaining safe and accessible sidewalks, as well as being accountable to public requests for sidewalk improvements. We’ll keep you updated, or stay tuned here: https://sfbos.org/meetings/land-use-and-transportation-committee.
Thanks to a new state law, San Francisco now has more authority to set speed limits on our streets! That’s great news, since speed is a major factor in whether someone hit by a car lives or dies. Considering that older adults make up half of all pedestrians killed in San Francisco each year, lower speed limits could help us reduce this number.As early as January 2022, the SFMTA will lower speed limits by 5 mph (from 25 mph to 20 mph, or 30 mph to 25 mph) in key business activity districts (streets where at least half of the property uses are dining or retail). These speed limit changes require SFMTA Board approval, and the first seven corridors being brought to the Board for speed limit reductions from 25 to 20 mph include:
The SFMTA also plans to reduce speed limits on San Francisco’s high-injury corridors, where most traffic crashes are concentrated. You can learn more here about all the important speed limit changes that SFMTA is planning. In the meantime, let’s all slow down!
For more information about any of these transportation updates, please contact CLC’s Transportation Program Manager: Cathy DeLuca, cathy@sfcommunityliving.org, 415-638-9183.
Come see, enjoy and learn the hobbies, talents and interests of your senior neighbors, families and friends!
Our partner, Senior Power, is proud to host a free community event soon! We’ll be presenting some of the talents of our active and engaged seniors, including watercolors by James, succulents by Les, and poetry and stories by Mary Gayle. 
So many of us are excited about being able to see each other in person again. This is one way we feel neighbors can gather in a way that’s still safe for everyone.
Date: Thursday, April 8, 2021
Time: 9:00 – 1:00
Location: Sunset Wellness Mercantile, on 37th Ave. between Ortega & Pacheco.
Safety protocols: This event will be held outdoors, in a tent, and abide by all local safety measures (masks, physical distancing, etc.)
Drop-in any time and say hello!
While there, we invite you to:
For future events, we’re looking for seniors with talents, hobbies and interests to share!
For more info, to participate, to show off your COVID past-time, your passion, your flair and aptitude — be it musical, artistic or craft — contact M. Graf for more info: opoygan1@yahoo.com.
For more fun activities and ways to get to know your neighbors, take a look at our calendar of events here.
Color is the artistic element used to create a mood and to express or arouse emotion in the viewer. Colors can have a profound effect on your work and are often one of the most exciting components of a painting. Therefore, choosing the right color palette is really important! In this class, join local artist d’Arci Bruno to look at how complementary contrast colors help to add drama and depth, some basic color theory, and how to create a pleasing color palette. So go grab your arty gear together…and let’s take a look at the world through a kaleidoscope of color!!
(Image: Vincent Van Gogh, Cafe Terrace at Night, 1888)
For this class you will need:
Paints, mixing tray, brushes, paper and water, or colored pencils, markers or pastels.
Full Class Outline Here. Share your class project or get the complete outline after the class at: drivebypie@gmail.com.
HOW TO JOIN THE EVENT:
To join by phone, dial 888-475-4499 (toll-free) or 669-900-6833 (local). Enter Meeting ID: 865 6747 4200, then press # twice.
To join with video, click this link: https://zoom.us/j/86567474200 to register and join. Wait in the “waiting room” until the activity is ready to start.
To create a friendly environment and minimize interruptions, we will close the activity to new participants 15 minutes after the start time. The above link will work on your tablet or your computer. You’ll be prompted to download a Zoom app the first time you use Zoom. If you’re using a PC or Mac, you can join from your web browser without using the Zoom software.
Community Connectors show their appreciation for Postal Workers, who this year had to battle heat and smoke, bad air, a blizzard of political mail and ballots, and of course COVID 19 to bring the mail to our doorsteps. Please take a minute to thank the mail carrier who keeps those cards, letters and packages coming.
We particularly enjoyed this Monday morning post from Margaret Graf, reflecting on 2020 as it draws to a close…
Dear Powers That Be (PTB):
I have been a loyal & normally enthusiastic user of your yearly products for a very long time, usually with only minor grumps & complaints. This past year was the final straw. Frankly, 2020 did not measure up to my expectations & in fact, was one of the worst ever. I admit that I may have been a bit overly enthusiastic in the beginning, it being the start of a new decade & all, but really…it began to fall apart almost from the beginning & only got worse as time went on, pell-melling me & all your other users through a whole year with political farces, a world wide pandemic, weather calamities, fire disasters, extreme social injustice & fatal protests fueling a depressive mood that has brought us to our knees, fairly weeping in despair & crying for mercy. When I say “we” I mean the people, here in U,S, around the world, humans everywhere subjected to an onslaught of your whims & the defective product you foisted upon us. In short, 2020 was too complicated to use, impossible to assemble, came with no warnings or directions on use & was just plain defective nearly from the beginning. The pandemic was the really ‘big one’ wiping out a serious number of us, causing businesses to close, jobs lost, long food lines & despair. Not satisfied with that, you sent along wildfires, floods (never in the same place of course) & economic penalties to boot. Really?? What did we do to deserve this shabby & unconscionable treatment at your hands?? THERE WAS NO LETUP ALL YEAR LONG! Only in the last month, have we begun to be able to counteract your product & slow the disintegration of the whole mess. Thanks to the cleverness of our scientists, we now have 2 (with more on the way shortly) counter-measures (we call them vaccines) to this horror you have visited upon us.
SO…in the spirit of negotiation & recognizing our long standing loyalty to the years you have been kind enough to bless us with in the past, I propose a negotiation, without which I sincerely believe we will have lost all faith in your product & will have to look elsewhere for our future. You are not the only planet in the universe, you know.
I sincerely ask…no demand, on the part of all my fellow humans, that in order to show your good faith you grant us a refund. Minimally, it should reflect the period of use from March-December, when we were hardest hit & before we began to suspect the inadequacy & continued dangerous consumption of your product. I propose that you grant a refund, to each & everyone of us, beginning January 1, 2021, in the form of adding 10 months to the end of each of our lifetimes on Planet Earth to compensate for the period noted above. It is a fair & equitable solution, with little cost or effort to you, not nearly adequate to compensate us for the misery you have cost, but as an expression of your good will toward the future. Please take this demand seriously and reply forthwith.
On Nov 3, 2020, CA voters passed Prop 19, “The Home Protection for Seniors, Severely Disabled, Families and Victims of Wildfire or Natural Disasters Act,” which makes changes to property tax benefits available to these groups. While this new law mostly expands property tax benefits for these groups, it also includes provisions which significantly limit tax benefits for families who plan to pass property from parents to children. San Francisco Assessor Carmen Chu invites senior homeowners to join her for a presentation to learn more about the impacts of this new law on your family home and your property taxes.
To join by phone, dial 888-475-4499 (toll free) or 669-900-6833 (local).
Enter Meeting ID: 822 3789 7073 and Passcode: 655908.
To join with video, click this link to register and join: https://us02web.zoom.us/w/82237897073. Wait in the “waiting room” until the activity is ready to start.
Closed captioning provided.
To create a friendly environment and minimize interruptions, we will close the activity to new participants 15 minutes after the start time.
The above link will work on your tablet or your computer. You’ll be prompted to download a Zoom app the first time you use Zoom. If you’re using a PC or Mac, you can join from your web browser without using the Zoom software.
