For elderly on fixed incomes, financial crisis hits hard

Cyrus E. Smith had to take out a loan to help pay his electric bill.

Dorothy Archer has borrowed against her insurance policy to help make ends meet.

Local departments of social services are now accepting applications for fuel assistance through the Virginia Department of Social Services energy assistance program.
Families and individuals must apply through the local social services departments, and should do so now, the state office said in a news release.
Fuel assistance is a way to help households meet energy needs. To qualify, the maximum gross monthly income cannot exceed $1,127 for one person. For a household of four, the maximum gross monthly income level is $2,297.
For more information on the program, go to www.dss.virginia.gov/benefit/ea/index.html

Evelyn Sage cut back on her use of a prescribed blood thinner that is too costly for her budget.

As the economy roughens, it can grind down on older disabled people living on fixed incomes and at the edge of independence.

Heating bills can be a killer. Driving a car means gas and insurance. Home ownership brings a mortgage, taxes and maintenance, especially on older homes with leaky window seals and walls without insulation.

Basic bills move to the head of the line, and then they’ll think about medications, then food.

Martha Stewart-Ratliff is a care manager for the Central Virginia Area Agency on Aging and she sees it happen. When you open the cupboard in some of the homes of these folks, she said, “You will be humbled.”

Ted Campbell, a Lynchburg Social Services supervisor of Adult Protective Services, said his office is seeing more applications for services like food stamps and community-based long-term care and Medicaid-based services.

They’re seeing an increase in screenings for access into assisted living and in food basket requests. “We’re also starting to get people whose utilities are cut off,” he said. “We expect to see this increase pretty significantly over the next few months.

“When it gets cold, there’s no heat to heat homes, no gas to cook with — that’s when we start to see the effects.”

Smith, 66, knows the stress of high utility bills. He lost the use of his legs in an accident almost 50 years ago, but could get around a bit with canes. A recent stroke has changed things.

He uses an electric scooter to get around his home, plugging it in to charge the battery.

Smith is an engaging kind of guy, with collar-touching silver hair and sideburns. He enjoys playing country and bluegrass in a band with his grandson and friends. He has six children, all grown now — some in Texas, some in Virginia. His wife died of cancer.

The stroke “pushed me down even further,” said Smith. He’s at the edge of what’s possible on a disability income of $689 a month, even though he owns his own place in Evington.

“My light bill’s going up, groceries gone up, everything has gone up,” he said. “I had to borrow the money to make up for the light bill.”

His bills include $155 a month to pay off the loan, $41 for telephone, $25 for life insurance, and $38 for the car.

From a stack of papers, Smith drew out a bill from an electric cooperative, $341. Last month it was even higher. He’s had his meter checked.

“The light bill is killing me,” he said. He looked around his home and mused, “There’s no way this trailer can burn that much.”

Smith has a harder road than many people, but he’s not the only one going along it.

Over in Lynchburg, Dorothy Archer is aghast at her rising natural gas bill. “Everything has gone up,” she said, “but this is ridiculous.”

Her home is heated with gas, and she has a gas hot-water heater and a gas stove. Her gas company budgets her bills over a year’s time.

Archer said that back in April she was paying about $161 a month, then $181, then $257.

“It takes away all of my over-the-counter medications,” she said. “It takes my other utilities, with nothing hardly left for yourself.”

Archer has tried to remain independent with a small income. Her economic stimulus check went for ongoing support. She’s borrowed against her insurance policy and is now paying on a second mortgage on her house. She’s considering moving to a smaller, less expensive place.

Evelyn and Bobby Sage, of Lynchburg, live on a fixed income that’s too high to get much help, and too low for much of anything else, said Bobby Sage.

“Everything has gone up, and when you’re on a fixed income it’s pretty hard to make things work out right,” he said as the couple sat at the CVAAA Lynchburg Dining Center temporarily at Fort Hill United Methodist Church. Other center participants were giving voice to hymns as part of a pre-lunch sing-a-long.

Sage’s plans for a long work life ended with a spinal injury in 1984 that worsened, and after several falls, led to the electric wheelchair he now uses.

Since they live in Lynchburg, the couple can use special transportation through the Greater Lynchburg Transit Co. He gets some medications through Veterans Affairs, but they’re not free. Evelyn Sage also needs high-cost medications “three or four, sometimes $500 a month,” said her husband. “That takes a big chunk out of your paycheck.”

She can’t afford the prescribed dose of a blood thinner specific to her need. “It’s $149 a bottle,” she said, and it doesn’t come in a generic form. “I can’t take it twice a day,” she said. “I can’t afford it.”

In Campbell County, Timothy Coleman Sr. has seen a 33 percent jump in his electric bill.

“I use less than 1,000 kilowatt hours a month,” said Coleman, who lives in Evington.

This month’s bill is $131.

The U.S. Navy Vietnam War veteran was injured in a non-combat incident 29 years ago, leaving him a quadriplegic. His once upper middle-class lifestyle has slipped “to the lowest level in 29 years.”

“It’s the worst struggle I’ve had,” said Coleman, seated in his electric wheelchair in his neat-as-a-pin living room. A metallic brace holds his right hand and wrist in a useable position. The brace has an adaptation so he’s able to navigate a computer keyboard.

He knows his budget.

“We try to buy everything at the beginning of the month. Our food bill is $260 a month for two people — that’s the basics.” Beyond that, “we spend another $60 or $70.”

He falls between the cracks — no financial aid, no food stamps. He does get a property tax break, he said, and his medical needs for spinal cord injury are met through Veterans Affairs.

He and Pam, his companion of 20 years, rely on his $1,100 a month income. “We seldom have more than two meals a day,” he said. Routine expenses like food, insurance payments, gasoline, mean that at the end of the month he’s lucky to have $25 left in the bank.

Cutting back on food can only go so far, “and you can’t live without electricity. You can’t live without a home. You need an automobile.”

Home repair expenses come unexpectedly. Coleman is grateful for help from The Order of the Moose and of American Legion Post 16.

Of Coleman’s four children, two sons and a daughter have served in Iraq. In a triangular case on the mantel in his home, among other patriotic memorabilia and family photographs, he has a gift from his daughter — an American flag that once flew over Baghdad.

He stays tuned into the world.

Coleman says he believes that the answer to the current

economic crisis is in stopping aid to other countries and putting it back in the U.S. to help those in other kinds of desperate situations in this country.

“The poverty in this country is appalling,” he said.

Dan Farris, executive director of the Central Virginia Area Agency on Aging, sees “some tough times coming up.

“The folks we serve are predominantly on fixed incomes,” said Farris. “We’re seeing an increase in the number of people asking for services we

provide.”

Rising costs almost always lead back to the cost of gasoline. “Everything we do is in some way connected to transportation,” said Farris, listing the CVAAA meal programs, the in-home services, and of course programs like Bedford Ride, which provides essential transportation to those who need it.

He works on a tight budget, and says it’s discouraging to face cutbacks while financial institutions are being bailed out — “institutions whose management earned in the millions of dollars.”

“The clients we serve are not benefiting from the bailout,” he said.

“And we haven’t gotten into the winter yet.”