Our Perspective | By Dawn Simonson, President and CEO of Trellis
Trellis celebrates the life-affirming resilience of older adults. Older adults have been some of the most severely impacted among us during the pandemic.
We stand witness now to their drive to be vaccinated and reconnect to the people and activities they care about most. Older adults led the way for all of us to return to a more normal life.
For over a year, we have provided extraordinary financial support to the organizations that have helped older adults and their family caregivers weather the pandemic. Federal stimulus funding made it possible to increase awards to existing partners and fund new partners.
In 2020, Trellis received emergency funding to support nutrition services at $7.7M, supportive services including telephone reassurance and transportation at $1.5M and caregiver support at $.5M. These funds were awarded to community partners.
Stimulus funding gave community partners the resources they need to help older adults have nutritious food, combat isolation and get rides to essential medical care. Funds also assisted caregivers to connect with each other, take a break via virtual respite and get answers to questions about services.
We anticipate another $.9M in funding specifically for expansion of home-delivered meals to be available soon, and we anticipate an additional $3 to 5M through the American Rescue Plan Act. These stimulus funds move through the federal Administration for Community Living to the MN Board on Aging (MBA) to area agencies on aging and are awarded in keeping with the established intra-state funding formula of the MBA.
What is apparent to us is that community partners can respond magnificently in a short period of time, during a national emergency, to an influx of funding and expand services. These partners are passionately committed to a shared mission to support older adults. They are nimble and creative and exemplary stewards of public funds.
While we didn’t expect anything less, we also don’t expect demand for services to diminish. The pandemic has had harsh consequences for older adults who are frail and their need for services into the future will be high. The older population itself continues to grow and this demographic shift drives demand for services. We are also becoming increasingly aware of long-standing disparities in access to services by Native and minority elders.
At Trellis, we are beginning to consider the advocacy messages and actions to be undertaken so that community partners will not face a funding cliff when stimulus funding is exhausted. I hope you will join us.
Warm regards,
Dawn Simonson
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