People care. That’s what our social worker said after sharing her case notes on Ms. Rose, a new client referred to us by a local bank teller.
Ms. Rose (a pseudonym) had returned to the bank multiple times over a week’s time, disoriented and struggling to remember basic information. “We’re all so worried about her,” the teller confided.
Our staff at Iona Senior Services soon met with Ms. Rose, who carried an overstuffed handbag. Inside were past-due rent notices, an eviction notice, black-and-white photographs from her childhood, and an unopened can of beans.
For most of her career, she worked as an interpreter in the District, helping people with language barriers find their place in a new culture and their own version of the American Dream.
We forget that language is more than words. Language is identity. Ms. Rose spent her life helping others find theirs. Now, in her 70s, she needs the same.
She is just one of many who do. In DC, nearly 4 in 10 older adults live alone. About 1 in 5 can’t reliably afford food, the highest rate of senior hunger in the nation. About 1 in 6 lives with dementia. Ms. Rose is not the exception. A demographic shift is underway, here and across the country. Some call it a “silver tsunami,” as if aging were a disaster bearing down on us. It isn’t. It’s us, all of us, if we’re fortunate enough to grow old.
But just as this need grows, the supports beneath us are being pulled away. Congress controls DC’s budget, and as federal layoffs drain its revenue, the District has begun pulling back, too. This year, the city cut Medicaid eligibility to the federal minimum, ending coverage for roughly 25,000 residents and shifting most to thinner plans. New federal work rules threaten food aid for another 17,000 people, including older adults now required to prove they work in order to eat. And in June, a Justice Department memo walked back a Supreme Court promise and decades of legal interpretation: that people with disabilities can live in their own communities, not be shut away. Each cut points in the same direction — away from home, toward crisis.
