Disabled New Yorkers and disability advocates spoke out against a City Council bill that would ban 24-hour home care shifts, saying their own care will suffer.
The bill, which was stalled in the Council, would replace the 24-hour shifts with 12-hour shifts performed by two separate workers.
But those who rely on the support of home health aides say the proposed change — which has strong support from advocates for home health aides — would uproot their lives.
The “No More 24” bill has turned allies into opponents, pitting workers’ rights activists against disability advocates and those who need round-the-clock care. Both Gov. Kathy Hochul and Council Speaker Julie Menin reportedly still have questions about funding.
Under the current home care system, health aides are required to spend 24 hours with a client even when they are paid for only 13 hours. Current rules allow for rest and meal breaks, but members of the largely immigrant workforce say they are often exploited and forced to work around the clock.
The home care system is funded through the state, which has not budgeted for the increase in spending that would come from two 12-hour shifts by two fully paid workers.
Jose Hernandez, a wheelchair user who has had home care aides for 31 years, interrupted Tuesday’s Council oversight hearing to speak out against the bill, saying he and others were being ignored.
“It scares me, as someone that was threatened to be placed in a nursing home when I was 16,” he said after he left the hearing. He receives around-the-clock care with home health aides like Bakary Sawo, who came with him to Tuesday’s hearing.
“I don’t want the people that look like me, that need home care like me, to be placed in institutions because [the city doesn’t] want to find a solution and do the hard work and work together with the disability community and the home care workers to ensure that a bill that supports both worker and patient is found.”
Hernandez and others urged Councilmember Shahana Hanif, the chair of the disability committee, to take her name off the bill, where she’s currently a co-sponsor.
“There are some really bad conditions for home care workers, but the rules around living shouldn’t come at the cost of the safety and the well-being of people with disabilities,” he said.
Of the approximately 300,000 home care workers in New York City, about 8 to 10% work 24-hour shifts, according to the city Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.
At a Feb. 18 City Council hearing, DCWP external affairs director Carlos Ortiz said that the city supports the bill’s intent but that it has concerns that “prohibiting 24-hour shifts” without more Medicaid funding.
Supporters of the bill have rallied outside City Hall; several home care workers went on a week-long hunger strike last month to protest it being stalled.
They ended their hunger strike after an apparent deal to bring the bill to a vote — although its future is still uncertain.
Evan Yankey, advocacy director at the Brooklyn Center for the Independence of the Disabled, testified that many people who receive 24-hour care are given it “through no choice of their own” in their managed care plan, and had no say in how their aides are compensated.
“Only an individual can appeal it, but it is a long process with hundreds of steps,” he said.
Under the proposed bill, agencies that still provide 24-hour care would be fined.
“Rather than face a fine, people will go without care, the home care industry will collapse, workers will lose jobs,” Yankey said.
Looming Medicaid Work Requirements
Tuesday’s hearing focused on economic opportunities for the more than 1 million New Yorkers living with a disability.
Nisha Agarwal, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, testified about her agency’s work in helping people find – and keep – jobs.
“The core focus of our work is about jobs for people with disabilities – the dignity of their work, the independence that it could provide, and the ability to build a life in the city that we all love,” she said.
Recent data shows that just 40% of New Yorkers with disabilities of working age are employed, compared to 73% of the overall working age population, she said.
Upcoming federal Medicaid cuts also loomed over the agency, with uncertainty over who would ultimately be exempt from work requirements.
“It’s not clear because there’s no finite rule until June,” Agarwal said, saying she was unclear on how many people could be affected.
“The people are nervous,” she said. “I’m nervous, everybody’s nervous.”
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