Long Time Roosevelt Island Resident Nancy Brown And Her Home Health Care Aide Featured In City Limits Article - What’s Driving the Shortage of Home Healthcare Workers in NY? Low Wages, Advocates Say

Long time Roosevelt Island resident Nancy Brown and her home health care aide Marilyn Thomas features in this article. https://t.co/NidygVx8Ds

— Roosevelt Islander (@Rooseveltisland) December 27, 2021

According to City Limits: 

Nancy Brown and Marilyn Thomas have been together for 24 years. Brown, who just turned 80, has been severely disabled since she was 7. Thomas, Brown says, “has to take care of me because I can’t take care of myself.”...

... But not many people are willing to do the kind of work Thomas does—not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t afford to. Almost three quarters—74 percent—of New Yorkers needing home health aides were unable to retain a worker in 2021, according to a report by the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Association of New York State (CDPAANYS). The shortage forces many older and disabled people to go without the care they need, or remain in hospitals and nursing homes.... 

... Almost everyone agrees that low wages are a key reason for that. Home care workers in New York City made an average of $15.93 an hour in 2020, a report by City University of New York found. This falls far below what experts consider a living wage of $21.77 for a single adult in New York City, let alone for a person with children... 

Click here for the full City Limits article 

Nancy Brown is Vice President of the Roosevelt Island Disabled Association (RIDA)

Learn more about Roosevelt Island's Nancy Brown from this 2019 video directed by Andres "Jay" Molina of the Coler Hospital Open Doors project.

More on the critical shortage of home health aides due to low wages from CBS New York.