Local senior citizens and shut-ins received a surprise with their home-delivered meal Friday morning, a letter from HomeCare Services Inc. of Dallas County, the non-profit agency that provides the Meals on Wheels:
To clients of HomeCare Services of Dallas County:
After 52 years, it is with sadness that we announce that HomeCare Services will cease providing congregate meals, home-delivered meals and in-home aid services effective Aug. 30, 2019.
It has been our sincere pleasure to offer our services to you, our clients, throughout the years. Through Aug. 30, our staff will continue to provide the services you have come to rely on. We know that this transition may be difficult, so we will be offering information for alternative services available to you in the area. We hope by offering some alternative services, this transition will not cause interruption to your needs.
We thank you for believing in HomeCare Services and our staff. It has been our pleasure to serve you and the other residents of Dallas County.
The letter was signed by Pat Heifner, president of the HomeCare Services Inc. of Dallas County Board of Directors.
The non-profit provider of low-income nutrition programs, transportation services and in-home assistance has struggled financially as it lost funding support on every service front over the past year.
On the in-home care side, the Dallas County Board of Health withheld about $50,000 in Local Public Health Services Contract (LPHSC) funds from HomeCare Services’ in-home aid program for the 2019 fiscal year and again for 2020.
HomeCare Services relied on the county public health department funding to provide homemaking services for people not otherwise eligible for those services under another agency. The Dallas County Board of Supervisors backfilled about $35,000 worth of the lost funding for 2019 in addition to its usual annual support of $185,000.
On the transportation side, the Heart of Iowa Regional Transit Agency (HIRTA) terminated its contract in January with HomeCare Services after the non-profit agency worked more than 45 years providing transit services in Dallas County.
A further funding blow came with a 21 percent cut in dollars from Aging Resources of Central Iowa, the pass-though agency for federal nutrition funds for HomeCare Services, which ran the Meals on Wheels and Congregate Meals programs across Dallas County. The agency’s contract for cooking some 2,700 meals each month for prisoners in the Dallas County Jail was also slated to end with the opening of the new Dallas County Law Enforcement Center.
The financial situation was already urgent in January, when HomeCare Services Board Secretary Marilyn Warling made the agency’s annual funding request of the Dallas County Board of Supervisors shortly after losing the HIRTA contract.
“We continue to experience significant challenges related to competing priorities,” Warling told the supervisors. “HomeCare Services Inc. is poised to reposition the agency while continuing to meet the needs of our county’s elderly, disabled and economically disadvantaged citizens. The health and safety of a vast population of our county’s frail citizens is contingent upon our existence and ability to provide pertinent services. We are the only ‘safety net’ provider in Dallas County.”
HomeCare Services Inc. of Dallas County began when articles of incorporation were signed Sept. 18, 1967, and the organization’s original name was Dallas County Homemaker Health Aide. The name was changed July 8, 1968, to Dallas County Homemaker Health Aide Services Inc., and the purpose of the agency, as its name implies, was to provide homemaker services and health care aides to assist people in their homes.
The non-profit agency eventually expanded into nutrition and transportation services, and the name was changed Feb. 24, 1986, to HomeCare Services Inc. of Dallas County. A staff of about 20 is employed by HomeCare Services.
My heart goes out to the people affected by this. Some of these people who receive Meals On Wheels never see anyone but the person who delivers the meals. This is their only contact, and there could be a emergency. I serve as Site Manager in Waukee, and my clients are very upset. They need and want the social life it provides as well as one nutritious meal a day. I have people coming in with presentations, such as on nutrition and the police department with safety tips for seniors. I am sad to see this happening.
Very sad that the county elderly are losing this much needed program. Here’s hoping something else can come in and provide some of these services.