Build the Consumer Workforce Council in Pennsylvania

On Wednesday April 1st, hundreds of people with disabilities, seniors, and home care attendants are gathered in Harrisburg to ask for justice. For people with disabilities and seniors, that means the right to choose long term care support at home, rather than in nursing homes. For the home care attendants that help make the independence of thousands of Philadelphians possible, that means the right to get health care benefits and wages that can support a family.

I'm Hannah Sassaman, an organizer who lives with a joyful extended family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I spent most of my childhood outside of Springfield, Massachusetts, though, where my family had to work every day with my mom' serious illnesses.

My mom, Wendy, struggled with osteoporosis, Chron' disease, and depression. She'd spend most days in bed and alone. It' only now that I understand how much she loved being a mom, and how a little bit of help and support every day might have made her happier, more independent and extended her life. Now, I'm working with people with disabilities, seniors, and home care attendants to make sure that the millions of people in this country who need a little bit of support have the ability to get that support at home, rather than in nursing homes.

Every day, the couple that joins my mom in my head as I push to make that happen is home care consumer Kathi Cain and home care attendant Jeanine Hanson, both of Royersford, PA. Hear from them directly in this video, produced in partnership with the Philadelphia-based Media Mobilizing Project.

Jeanine is a freewheeling mom who captures you with her huge bright eyes the moment you meet her. She lives with her two kids in Royersford, PA, where she' been working as a home care attendant for Kathi Cain, another amazing young woman with Multiple Sclerosis.

Before Kathi had Jeanine in her employ, Kathi couldn't put pants on every day or get hot lunches because of limitations caused by her disability. But Jeanine' hard work and help means that Kathi can go to the doctor and live with her family, and in her community, independently.

Now, Jeanine is about to become the sole breadwinner for her two kids. Because her home care work for Kathi provides no health benefits to her or her family, and because she earns just poverty level wages, Jeanine will have to look for a new job to be able to support her teenagers. She is loath to leave Kathi and her husband out in the cold, without the home care she needs.

Kathi and Jeanine are working to change the system that keeps Jeanine in poverty and that might force Kathi into a nursing home. They are both leaders in trying to build a Consumer Workforce Council in Pennsylvania, a council of seniors and people with disabilities who will protect and expand people' right to at-home care. In other states, Consumer Workforce Council and similar councils not only empower seniors and people with disabilities to speak for themselves, but bargain with thousands of home care attendants to raise wages, ensure attendants get paid time off, and help them get health care benefits for the very first time. Home care has expanded dramatically in those states, saving lots of money that would otherwise be spent in nursing homes (it costs almost $60,000 to support someone in a nursing home, and about a third of that to support someone at home, in Pennsylvania).

You can join Kathi and Jeanine, as well as Pennsylvania' AARP, Council of Churches, and disability rights', seniors', and workers' groups representing thousands of people, in support of the Consumer Workforce Council by clicking here

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