Eight stand up to speak for those unable to speak for themselves

The old saw "you can't fight city hall" landed in the trash heap Tuesday when the moving comments of eight people made a difference.

By speaking for the elderly, the disabled and the ones too frail to make it to the Clark County Commission meeting Tuesday, the eight convinced the seven commissioners to reject proposed cuts of $9.3 million from the Social Services budget. Instead, the commission told county managers to find other places to cut.

First up was Nancy McLane, director of Clark County Social Services. She laid out the facts and figures and explained clearly who would suffer from the cuts: the weakest, the poorest and the most vulnerable. "There are no good choices to make. We cut all the discretionary money last year. Everything we cut now hurts the very vulnerable."

Specifically, more people will be forced into nursing homes because there's no home health care to keep them living at home. Another 2,300 people are likely to become homeless. The Fertitta Community Assistance Center will be closed. More mentally ill will be in the emergency rooms.

Meanwhile, the nonprofits don't have the resources to pick up from Social Services.

But it was the workers on the front line who made it real. They described their elderly clients who would be hurt. Some shook, some had tears in their eyes, some were clearly uncomfortable speaking.

Their descriptions weren't pretty, describing clients with dementia, lying in their own feces, who can't walk.

Their clients were the invisible ones, unable to be at Tuesday's meeting. But the ones who care for them, who clean them up and try to provide some semblance of dignity, spoke for them.

Social worker Scott Rader works with the chronically ill, the blind, and the deaf. "They can't get here today. These are the people you're not going to see," he said. His grim prediction was that by reducing Social Services programs, "They will die sooner, end up in nursing homes sooner and will kill themselves sooner."

When the police find someone in their home "lying in their own crap with cockroaches, who will they call?" Rader asked.

Programs that are working were on the chopping block:

• Homemaker Services keeps people out of nursing homes at a cost of several hundreds of dollars a month, versus the cost of institutionalizing someone at about $6,000 a month.

• Protective Services investigates elder abuse, neglect and exploitation and has 402 open cases.

"No private charities are doing this kind of service anymore and they can't handle the overload we are dumping on them," said Rader, noting the irony of the sign on the wall touting Clark County and its "century of service."

Home health aide Joy Gamas described cleaning up people who have dementia. "My job is to make them feel decent again, respectful about themselves."

These are the elderly without families, the poorest of the poor, Richard Long said.

Home health aide Tasha Holley said "I can sleep at night. I've done something for someone's parents."

Home health aide Karen Beams was shaking when she told of preventing a suicide. "What's going to happen to them?"

Marcus Hatcher of SEIU said he's lived 34 years in Clark County, and "this is becoming a place that's becoming unlivable."

Dave Peter, representing SEIU Local 1107, has attended a lot of county commission meetings and said the union made the most impact they've ever made at a commission meeting.

McLane provided the big picture and the workers -- Scott Rader, Joy Gamas, Tasha Holley, Richard Long, Karen Beams, plus the two union representatives, Dave Scott and Marcus Hatcher -- they made it disturbingly, depressingly real. They were compelling.

After the workers spoke, the commissioners told county managers to find ways to provide the $9.3 million.

County managers will cut to find money to make Social Services whole again, perhaps going back to the unions seeking more concessions.

Instead of the 5 percent in cuts that all departments were told to find to balance an already reduced budget, some departments will see deeper cuts to rescue Social Services. County workers will lose their jobs; programs will be eliminated. That's inevitable.

The commissioners all made speeches about what should be done, so let's review their ideas in Saturday's column.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison/.