WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES MAY 7, 2020 27
Group homes seek donations for frontline staff
BY BEN VERDE
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
A Staten Island group home is soliciting
donations for its staff ers,
who have had to transform into
frontline medical workers almost overnight,
management said.
“Our staff has been unbelievably
amazing,” said Joanne Gerenser, executive
director of Eden II programs, which
runs a network of support services for
people with autism on Staten Island.
According to Gerenser, the pandemic
has overturned the daily tasks of the
direct service providers that care for
the residents of the group homes. Eight
of Eden II’s residents have tested positive
for the coronavirus, Gerenser said,
but all have managed to stay out of the
hospital — which has turned the residential
facilities into around-the-clock
care centers.
“Our nurses need to receive some kind
of medals of honor,” Gerenser said.
Staff are tasked with looking aft er
restless participants and providing
them with structure for hours on end
while they are unable to go outside — a
nearly herculean task, according to
Gerenser, a speech pathologist.
“I used to do these 30-minute sessions,
and making sure that your session
provided structure so that your session
went well, sometimes was really challenging,”
she said. “I sit there sometimes
at my desk and I think about these direct
care workers, who have to now provide
structure 16 hours in a row, in a house,
oft en not able to go anywhere — it just
boggles my mind.”
Direct service providers in group
homes make little more than minimum
wage due to a decade of budget
cuts from the state that have left most
homes treading water even before the
pandemic hit.
“They’re not paid for the pandemic,”
said Sarah Collins, a Brooklyn native
whose brother Joey lives in an Eden
II home. “They’re basically working
as health care providers but have not
been given any formal training prior
to this.”
The staff at Eden II have had to dip
into their own bank accounts to replace
clothing destroyed by bleach after
disinfecting themselves, according to
Collins.
The fundraiser, which has netted
roughly $16,000 toward its goal of
$20,000 as of April 29, aims to soft en that
blow, and provide the workers with the
hazard pay their employers are unable
to give them. They have also received
support from Fare it Forward, a fundraising
eff ort that aims to provide frontline
workers with free transit fares.
“Most of our direct care workers are
making just above minimum wage, and
the idea that we’ve now asked them to
become healthcare workers and put
them in really complicated situations,
it just doesn’t feel right that we’re not
able to provide them with some type of
increased money,” said Gerenser.
With the state budget full of austerity
measures, group homes can only
expect more funding cuts, Gerenser
said, so fundraising may be the only
route workers have to an increase in
pay.
“The only way we’re going to be
able to get money in the hands of our
workers and thank them for what they
are doing is through fundraisers like
this, so it’s been very rewarding seeing
how many people are stepping up,”
she said.
Staff at an Eden II facility. Courtesy of Eden II
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