Senior ride programs are stretched thin

As growth in The Woodlands surges, demands for service are increasing

Every Tuesday and Thursday, retiree Mike Brady picks up an 82-yearold Woodlands resident from his home and drives him to the YMCA for his morning yoga classes. His wife, Denise, who is also retired, regularly takes an elderly woman grocery shopping.

Mike and the yoga enthusiast talk politics during the half-hour drive and he sometimes goes with his wife on the grocery runs to help the older woman gather hard-to-reach items.

The Bradys are volunteers for Interfaith of The Woodlands’ senior transportation services program, funded by The Woodlands Township. But even with the Township’s $60,000 annual contribution and 113 volunteer drivers, the program is being stretched thin.

Last year, Interfaith provided 2,878 rides at $19 per ride and $38 roundtrip, and has given 2,744 rides this year through the end of September, but as the demand continues to grow, it is struggling to keep up. Interfaith spent $635 over the $60,000 The Woodlands allocated to the program for 2014 and it anticipates running out of funds in mid-December this year.

“More seniors are moving here … that makes the demand higher,” said Ann Snyder, chief executive officer of Interfaith, a nonprofit founded, along with The Woodlands, just over 40 years ago.

Part of the problem is that the program’s volun-

teer drivers can only respond to about 80 percent of the seniors’ requests for rides, leaving Interfaith — and ultimately the Township — to pay nearly double the price in cab fare for the other 20 percent of requested rides.

Interfaith has also had trouble finding reliable taxi drivers, placing some of the less expensive services on the do-not-call list after they arrived late or failed to show up at all.

“That’s not cost-effective,” said Woodlands board member and transportation committee member Jeff Long. “When you go to a taxi, there’s all kinds of complications with that. The demand out there is quite significant, we are a community of 500,000 (in the county) that does not have a transportation system. The Woodlands, a community of 110,000 has virtually nothing … it’s sort of overwhelming.”

Interfaith’s program is not the only one serving The Woodlands’ transportation-dependent residents, however. Senior Rides, a demand-response program of Montgomery County Meals on Wheels for seniors and people with disabilities, gave nearly 5,000 rides within The Woodlands Township in the last year. Senior Rides, previously known as the Friendship Center, provides rides using buses at a cost of $27 per oneway ride. The Woodlands Township provides up to $35,000 a year to help fund the rides as a match to state and federal funds for the program.

Because of the Meals on Wheels program’s eligibility for state and federal funding, board member Peggy Hausman questioned the legitimacy of the township paying for Interfaith’s program.

“Is this a concierge service for a few? … I struggle with it,” she said. “Is it the taxpayers’ responsibility to provide private transportation? Why shouldn’t the Township subsidize electricity? That’s a bigger issue with senior citizens than transportation.”

Hausman was the sole nay vote when the board approved Interfaith’s request for $60,000 to fund the program in 2016.

But Snyder believes the need speaks for itself.

“We don’t have any kind of mass transit. ‘I need to get my prescription filled … I need to go to my doctor’s appointment.’ How will they get there if someone’s not there to provide transportation?” Snyder said.

“Most of them are probably on a fixed income,” Brady said. “Most of the people that we deal with … have mobility problems — a good number have walkers. They’re unable to get out and about … It’s nice for them to get out and enjoy the sunshine.”