– Shirley Montalvo, who has quadriplegia, is proud of her independence, but she relies on a caregiver that helps her live her life and get ready to go out and work.“If I don’t have caregivers, then I can’t be active. I can’t be employed because I need stability to get up out of bed and to get there,” Montalvo said. “And if nobody’s showing up or nobody’s here, then how do I do those things?”
She said caregivers can’t afford to live on what the state pays them -- a wage of $8.11 an hour. Home care workers are nontechnical and don’t need a certification. “It’s all the things that a person who doesn’t have a disability takes for granted, so being able to walk to the bathroom, go to the bathroom by yourself, being able to bathe yourself, being able to make your own meals, being able to feed yourself,” Costello said.
Costello said the low pay wage was a problem before the pandemic, but now it’s a crisis. Before 2020, she says they were staffing about 80% to 90% of their hours. Currently, they’re staffing about 40%.