Update at 2/24/25 4:00PM: This article has been edited to differentiate between In Home Supportive Services and the Redwood Coast Regional Center, which are two separate entities.
For Kenna Gavin, area director of the Special Olympics for Del Norte County, answers to IHSS-related questions are hard to come by. She said she’s had to fight for the bare minimum.
“They want you to give up, sadly a lot of [the clients] do.” Gavin told Redwood Voice. In order to access IHSS there is “a book of paperwork that you have to get just right, or you’ll be denied care.”
Gavin has been seeking In Home Supportive Services, or IHSS care, for her daughter Skyler, since she was very young. Skyler, 24, has Down syndrome.
The first time Gavin tried, the paperwork was too much and she gave up. Now that her daughter is an adult, in order for Gavin to retain conservatorship, they have had to seek the services of both the Redwood Coast Regional Center and IHSS.
This will be the third time that Gavin has attempted to access IHSS care for Skyler. There were two separate attempts made during Skyler’s childhood, but the process was too daunting for Gavin to complete. The most recent attempt missed the deadline due to a severe shoulder injury Gavin sustained. There was no accommodation for the emergency. She will have to redo the paperwork again.
In Home Supportive Services was established in 1972 by California Assembly Bill 134 and is a program administered by the California Department of Social Services. It provides support for disabled, elderly, and blind residents by helping them with socialization, feeding, and other needs.
The Redwood Coast Regional Center is a separate but similar organization focused on helping developmentally disabled residents as a part of the regional center system. The regional center system is administered by the California Department of Developmental Services and was established following the Lanterman Act of 1969.
Del Norte County is at the far end of availability for these kinds of services, with the bare minimum of support provided to its disabled residents, said Gavin.
For the client to qualify to receive IHSS services they are required to fill out an application. Following this application they are provided a packet of documents to fill out with a deadline attached. This determines the qualifications for receiving service. If a client wants a specific person to be their IHSS worker they will need to fill out another packet of paperwork. After all of this paperwork is in place, a home interview is conducted where more paperwork is provided. Following that paperwork more documents are provided that discuss the hours of service permitted. Finally, once those hours are agreed upon by the client and IHSS, they are provided service timesheets.
These bureaucratic obstacles shut out much of the population who don’t have the bandwidth or time to do the paperwork while caring for their loved ones and holding down a job.
Completing the state’s paperwork is only half of the struggle. RCRC clients are then often paired with a direct support company, which has its own byzantine issues that aren’t apparent from the outside. Each company is different, with one company’s reception office being an empty room with a single chair, according to a client who asked to be anonymous. This is not an enriching environment for them to wait in, they said, adding that they had gone through 25 professionals in a year. .
The clients are not the only people who are being treated poorly in this system.
“Direct support professionals are some of the only people in America that we don’t treat like professionals.” said Robbie Wyckoff, Lead Plan Development Facilitator of New Dawn Support Services, “They’re not publicly credentialed or revered. It’s a hard job.”
In 2023 Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 525, increasing wages for workers in certain healthcare settings. However, this bill did not increase the wages of direct support professionals, whose wages are tied to a 2019 rate study that has yet to be implemented and doesn’t include annual increases, according to The Arc California. These people are not getting paid enough for the work they do, and if they can’t make a living wage doing this work then they will find other work, said Wyckoff.
Although I approached the professionals and clients about these issues, they said they fear the companies providing their services will retaliate against them for speaking out about the conditions they are facing, especially in Del Norte County. This retaliation would come through the termination of their service contract with the company.
One worker said, “The turnover rate in the supported living industry is the highest of any industry I’ve worked in. It is especially higher in Del Norte County as opposed to national and state-based agencies. There is very little if any support given unless it’s an emergency situation where police would be involved. Usual crisis situations are met with ‘do your best and debrief after.’”
One company in particular, the worker said, has reassigned or terminated workers any time there is a problem, rather than working with the employee to rectify the issue.
Redwood Coast Regional Center representatives will be meeting with legislators in Sacramento on March 4 to advocate for the importance of well-funded and supported regional centers. The Center is asking the community for stories of success, or hopes for the future of the regional center system in Del Norte County. Community members can submit any letters or statements to the RCRC coalition of self-advocates to share directly with representatives in Sacramento by 4 p.m. on Feb. 27 via email to Alex Ostell (aostell@redwoodcoastrc.org) and Elizabeth Hassler (ehassler@redwoodcoastrc.org)
For Gavin, it seems the systems put in place to help the disabled members of our community simply aren’t working.
“They are put last for just about everything,” Gavin said. “They deserve life too.”
