Claira Monier: Please Restore Funding to Meals on Wheels and ServiceLink

I am Claira Monier and a volunteer with AARP New Hampshire. I am here to today to testify in support of social service programs like Meals on Wheels and Transportation that are important community-based programs that keep seniors at home and independent. 

I have a special connection to these programs because I was the head of the State Council on Aging and was involved in the development of these programs. I was proud to help start these programs, and they are more needed now than ever as our population is aging and we need to find cost effective ways to support our seniors. 

Meals on Wheels is more than just a meals program that provides a check on frail isolated seniors through the people who deliver the meals. The Transportation services provided represent the only way some seniors can get to doctor’s appointments and other needed services. These are efficiently run programs that rely heavily on local support for funding and also have many local volunteers that help provide these services. These programs are based in the community and have become essential to the communities served by them.   

Federal and state funding represents only 70% of the revenue for most nutrition providers in New Hampshire. Local funds are raised to offset the full cost of each meal.  A Brown University study conducted nationally in 2012 reports that states that spend more on Meals on Wheels have proportionally fewer low-care nursing home residents. 

The cuts that are proposed would create a waiting list for services and endanger the services to many current recipients of Meals on Wheels, which may represent their only nutritious meal of the day and one of their only contacts during the day.  Please restore funding to these programs. 

I would also like to express my support for the continuation of the New Hampshire Health Protection Program which you passed last year. The New Hampshire Health Protection Program has given New Hampshire a cost-effective way to improve the health status of uninsured low-income people from 45 to 64, at a time in their lives when, according to the AARP Public Policy Institute, they are most likely to be developing chronic health conditions. These conditions -- such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke – if left untreated can result in costly deteriorations in health status and premature death for these individuals, and millions of dollars in uncompensated care costs for states. 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today.