This is how much it costs 'Meals on Wheels' to feed one elderly person for a year

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Among the services that could be impacted under President Trump’s budget proposals: Meals on Wheels. 

The administration’s proposed cuts target the Department of Housing and Urban Development and call for the elimination of the $3 billion Community Development Block Grant, which helps fund programs including Meals on Wheels, which deliver food (and human interaction) to elderly, disabled and poor recipients. “The federal government has spent over $150 billion on this block grant since its inception in 1974, but the program is not well-targeted to the poorest populations and has not demonstrated results,” the budget proposal states. “The budget devolves community and economic development activities to the state and local level, and redirects federal resources to other activities.”

Meals on Wheels America,” one such national meal delivery program, says the organization can provide meals for senior citizens for one year for roughly the same cost as just one day in a hospital. The annual meal cost is $2,765 for 250 days (while the cost of one day in the hospital is around $2,271, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, private operating foundation based in Menlo Park, Calif.). “Meals on Wheels People,” a Portland, Ore.-based service and one of the largest in the country, says it costs $2,500 annually to provide daily meals to a homebound senior, while cost of institutional care for a year in Oregon is around $60,000.

But not all “Meals on Wheels” organizations will be impacted in the same way under Trump’s budget proposals. “Meals on Wheels is not a national organization,” says Julie Piper Finley, a spokeswoman for “Meals on Wheels People” in Portland and one of the largest meal delivery organizations in the country. “Meals on Wheels” is a catch-all phrase to describe these services. What’s more, that organization doesn’t receive HUD funding, she says. “Meals on Wheels Programs & Services of Rockland” in New York, however, received a Community Development Block Grant of $25,000 for its home-bound meal delivery program for the 2016-2017 fiscal year.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/this-is-how-much-it-costs-meals-on-wheels-to-feed-one-elderly-person-for-a-year/ar-BBycLaz?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=edgsp

[TheBlackAdder]

1. Yeah, but private institutions want to seize the person's home and assets, MOW hurts small business.

[lostnfound]

2. I suspect "reverse mortgages" and equity loans will be the new substitute for social security

If banks can buy up homes and equity at distresssed prices,another way to bleed money from the turnip of the middle class

[TheBlackAdder]

3. Great! More Pat Boone and Fred Thompson commercials to suffer through.

[dchill]

6. Don't forget Tom Selleck!

[yeoman6987]

10. Yeah I don't know why he's doing them

He doesn't need the money as he was in at least two successful tv series.

[dchill]

12. Because he's a conservative puke...

that can't turn down an easy dishonest buck.

[dalton99a]

13. +1

[MFM008]

4. its the fact

that they have the priorities that they do.

[Orrex]

5. The current story being told by Trump's chumps...

is that the cuts are fake news being circulated by "Libtard snowflakes" to discredit Herr Trump.

[rickford66]

7. I did MOW for three years and most people paid for their meals.

The people on welfare probably didn't. We were never privy to all their situations. I was hoping to return when my present job ends and I return to retirement.

[xxqqqzme]

8. I lived in a Senior Apartment building for a year.

Directly across from me was a MoW recipient who was hearing impaired. Too many times I opened my door to see his meals stacked up in front of his door, defrosting. I would call the front desk, they would call him and he would retrieve his meals I finally caught the driver one day and explained the situation to her. She started calling him when she arrived so he could open his door.

[rickford66]

9. Something wrong there

We could never leave a meal like that. It would at least have to be accepted by a neighbor or relative. If someone didn't respond we knew there had to be a problem, because they had to call in if they weren't going to be home. But, every MOW operation probably has it's own rules.

[Igel]

11. Following the money is a bear.

The first rash of news stories focused on a small amount that went to a national coordinating organization. It did nothing but coordinate, defend, publicize.

The second rash of news stories focuses on block grants and a few other funding streams. Except that those get routed through local and state governments, and getting from the block grants (etc.) to a generic MoW is a non-starter. Some MoW get some money, some get more, some get less, some get none.

Some of the block grant monies go elsewhere. It depends on local and state government funding mechanisms. (BTW, when the block grants were proposed back in the '70s, there was hell to pay from the left-of-center crowd.)

As far as I tell from their site, the Houston MoW gets no federal money. Corporations and endowments fund it. (When I type "corporations," that's everything from Shell to non-profit philanthropic foundations. Both are corporations.)

It's hard to hold a coherent narrative together when some of the money goes to MoW in some places but none goes to MoW in others. The stories have to be local, not national, but those are harder to post and discuss rationally. So if the money in Houston doesn't go to MoW, where, exactly does the Houston/Harris-County (Texas) allotment go?

[Maru Kitteh]

14. K&R