NORTHAMPTON — For the past two summers, Noah Daube-Valois, a 20-year-old from Northampton, has worked at the Rockridge Retirement Community, where he has watched residents struggle to live on $72.80 a month. He’s decided it’s time for a change.
That’s why the Northampton High School graduate, now a junior at Vassar College, has launched the “$72.80 Project,” a new podcast series that aims to bring awareness to the amount of money Massachusetts seniors in assisted living facilities have to grapple with every day.
“Almost all of the residents in nursing homes are forced to live on $72.80 a month and I wanted to share the stories of the residents that have had such a large impact on me through the podcast,” Daube-Valois said in a phone interview with the Gazette.
The glaring detail under the surface of the $72.80 figure, Daube-Valois says, is that it hasn’t changed since 2008.
“The $72.80 figure was established in 2008. That is the equivalent of $115 now,” Daube-Valois said.
The figure, known as the personal needs allowance, is the amount Massachusetts residents on Medicaid, known as MassHealth, who live in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are allowed to keep from their monthly income. The rest goes toward the cost of their care.
The money can be used for anything not provided by the facility they live in, such as clothing, outside food and recreational opportunities. But as Daube-Valois has seen during his time working at Rockridge, first volunteering to play piano there when he was in high school, $72.80 is not enough.
Daube-Valois recalled a time this past summer when he took a group of residents to get ice cream. After getting her cone, one of the residents went to take a seat when the cone fell on the pavement.
“I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was living on $72.80,” Daube-Valois recalled.
Daube-Valois said for seniors living on such a small amount of money each month, every purchase is a cost analysis. Massachusetts also trails some states, where the allowance is $200 in Alaska, $163 in Nevada and $160 in Florida.
In the first episode of his podcast, released in August, Daube-Valois interviews a resident of Rockridge named Patrick.
Patrick talks about going to Goodwill to purchase clothes, particularly shoes, using a bandage to hold his broken glasses together and trying to get by however he can. “In the last years of our lives some of us are walking around in somebody else’s shoes,” Patrick said in the first episode.
Daube-Valois also speaks with former state Sen. Richard Moore, who talks about solutions to the insufficient funding.
Moore says that people should contact their local legislators to bring awareness to the issue. Particularly, Moore urged people to advocate for a Senate bill currently in the Committee on Ways and Means, with local petitioners including Sens. Jo Comerford, D-Northampton; Paul Mark, D-Becket; and Jacob Oliveira, D-Ludlow.
If passed, the bill would raise the amount to about $113 a month.
Another solution is to raise the amount to match inflation increases, which Daube-Valois argues would take $15 million a year from the state budget.
Daube-Valois said state Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, D-Northampton, has visited Rockridge to hear from residents.
Daube-Valois said this is an important topic to advocate for, mainly because people living in assisted living facilities have historically had little political power.
“I feel as though the people I am advocating for have very little power, but this is such a huge issue,” Daube-Valois said. “I want more people to see an issue in their community and fight to make a change.”
Daube-Valois is partnering with Dignity Alliance Massachusetts, a nonprofit that advocates for older and disabled residents, to spread the word.
Paul Lanzikos, the alliance’s coordinator, served as secretary of the state Executive Office of Elder Affairs during Gov. Michael Dukakis’ last term and has 50 years of experience in aging and disability services, including work in hospitals and nursing homes. He said that while the allowance hasn’t changed in nearly two decades, nursing home care itself has changed little in half a century.
“Unfortunately, older people in nursing homes are not considered priorities so unless there’s advocacy it’s easy to ignore them,” Lanzikos said.
Lanzikos said the alliance formed in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, when issues in elder care, particularly in nursing and assisted living homes, were amplified. Since then, the group has grown tremendously, but Lanzikos said the fight continues.
Daube-Valois plans to release new episodes of the “$72.80 Project,” interviewing different residents and legislators involved in the issue. The first episode can be found on multiple streaming sites and online, including on Apple Podcasts.
