Budget cuts aim at Jewish seniors

South Florida’s Holocaust survivors would lose services

TALLAHASSEE – Aging Holocaust survivors in South Florida could be left without daily services under proposed budget cuts in the state Legislature.

A Jewish Family Services caretaking program for survivors in southeast Palm Beach County could lose $92,946 from its annual $2.5 million budget, while the Federation Transportation Services, which provides transportation for low-income seniors in Broward and Palm Beach counties, could lose $143,640 from its $922,000 budget.

State Sen. Kevin Rader, D-Delray Beach, who represents the area covered by the Holocaust Survivor Assistance Program, called the cuts “meshugganah,” meaning crazy.

“Not only the Holocaust survivors got a 100 percent cut, there was another cut to Jewish Family Services transportation, there was a cut to the Cantor Center in Sunrise, and in Miami-Dade there was another cut to a Jewish service,” he said.

The money is part of a $20 million budget cut proposed by state Sen. Anitere Flores, R-Miami, the

chairwoman of the Senate Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee. Rader is also on the committee.

The cuts are among many proposed across the board as the Legislature tries to find ways to boost spending to priority areas while also keeping in line with state economists’ predictions that revenue will see little growth this year.

On Friday, state economists estimated the state would have a little more than $250 million in surplus revenue to work with, with outlying years looking at deficits. Still, in a state budget estimated at around $83 billion, these cuts are minor.

“This is the beginning of the process,” Flores said in explaining there was still time to reinsert cut projects. “There are requests in the health care budget for over $100 million in new projects, and we don’t have near the money.”

No Jewish programs were affected outside South Florida, which is home to more Holocaust survivors than anywhere in the U.S. except New York.

Nearly half of the $20 million in cuts come from two places:

• An across-the-board axing of $222,801 each for 14 clinics researching memory disorders, including those at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, Broward Health North in Pompano Beach, St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach and Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

• Removing $750,000 in funding for each of eight hospital children’s action teams, which provide mental health services to kids.

For Martin Ferst and the 344 others the Holocaust survivors program helps in Boca Raton, Delray Beach and Highland Beach, that money is the difference between life and death.

Ferst, who is nearing his 94th birthday and lives in Boca Raton, was born in Poland and spent much of his youth in an orphanage. Fleeing from the Nazis, he crossed over from Germancontrolled Poland into Soviet territory but, because he crossed the border illegally, he was sent by the Russians to Siberia.

When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, he was released and, because of the war, he was told he had a better chance of making it to peaceful territory if he headed southeast and crossed into China.

“They forgot to tell us that between Russia and China are the Himalayas,” Ferst said.

Unable to cross the mountains, he was pressed into working on rice paddies in Tajikistan, which was then controlled by the Soviet Union.

He starved. He developed scurvy and malaria. Finally, he was forced by the Soviets into the Polish Army. He deserted after he met his wife, who was at Auschwitz during the war. They came to the United States in 1958.

Ferst’s wife died a decade ago, and now he has only the aide who comes to his house through the Holocaust Survivor Assistance Program.

“I hate to be alone. Loneliness is worse than any sickness,” Ferst said. “I sit and look at the walls, and the walls agree with everything I say.”

His aide takes him to his doctor appointments, makes sure he takes his medication, cleans his house, does his laundry and even cooks his meals.

“Thanks to her, I’m surviving. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. I cannot drive, I cannot cook,” he said. “Without [her], I would be lost.”

Although he spent the war in the Soviet gulags, Ferst qualifies for the program because he had to flee to avoid the Nazi death camps.

The Holocaust Survivor Assistance Program pays aides $18.50 an hour to help Holocaust survivors, according to Howard Horowitz, the director of the program.

“The goal is to keep survivors at home where they feel most comfortable,” said Danielle Hartman, the president and CEO of Boca Raton’s Jewish Family Services. “But it also saves Florida money because it costs more money to move people into nursing homes.”

Although most of the Boca Raton program’s money come from an international Jewish claims group, the $92,946 the state has provided for the past 20 years translates to more than 5,000 paid hours of assistance to Holocaust survivors, Horowitz said.

“Every hour is very precious,” Horowitz said.

Without the money for the Holocaust Survivors Assistance Program, Horowitz and Hartman worry that some survivors may have to be placed in nursing homes, despite the cost and what they consider the potential for psychological damage.

“Forget it,” Ferst said. “I would rather commit suicide.” Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee included the following South Florida programs. The proposed cuts would have to be agreed upon by the Florida House and then signed off on by Gov. Rick Scott.

• $200,000 from Here’s Help Substance Abuse Treatment in Miami.

• $750,000 from Informed Families of Florida in Coral Gables.

• $51,000 for Alzheimer’s Caregiver Projects at the Broward Health North Memory Disorder Center in Pompano Beach.

• $162,568 from Alzheimer’s Caregiver Projects at the Alliance for Aging in Miami.

• $220,454 from the Alzheimer’s Family Care Center of Broward.

• $113,355 from the Alliance for Aging in Miami.

• $222,801 from the Memory Disorder Clinic at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

• $222,801 from the Memory Disorder Clinic at Broward Health North in Pompano Beach.

• $222,801 from the Memory Disorder Clinic at St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach.

• $222,801 from the Memory Disorder Clinic at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

• $169,287 from the Daniel Cantor Center Alzheimer’s Project in Sunrise.

• $195,150 from the Deerfield Beach Day Care Center.

• $139,414 from Manolo Piniero Homebound Diabetes Services in Miami.

• $82,080 from the Austin Hepburn Senior Mini-Center in Hallandale Beach.

• $143,640 from Jewish Family Services’ Transportation Services for the Elderly and Disabled in Palm Beach County.

• $92,946 from the Holocaust Survivors Assistance Program in Boca Raton.

• $164,160 from the Elderly House Call Program of Mount Sinai Medical Center in Hollywood.

• $228,000 from the Fred Lippman Senior Center in Hollywood.

• $23,234 from the Southwest Focal Early Bird P. M. Nutrition Center in Pembroke Pines.

• $367,149 from the Deerfield Beach School Health Clinic.

• $1 million from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Center for AIDS Research.

• $213,332 from research on islet cell transplantation to cure diabetes at the Diabetes Research Institute in Hollywood.