Our fellow Gilroyans need our help. With our slow economy and
looming budget cuts, some of the programs threatened happen to be
some of the most necessary services to the people of our area. One
program facing drastic cuts is the Outreach program.
Our fellow Gilroyans need our help. With our slow economy and looming budget cuts, some of the programs threatened happen to be some of the most necessary services to the people of our area. One program facing drastic cuts is the Outreach program. If you’ve ever needed this service or known someone who did, then you know what a help it is. For $2.80 each way, Outreach provides transportation for a blind widow who can no longer drive to doctors’ appointments, and makes it possible for a disabled man on oxygen to buy groceries.
In our area, the most caring and affordable provider of this paratransit service is Yellow Cab which is contracted through the Valley Transit Authority. Currently this Outreach program provides door-to-door service. But it is about to be cut down to a curb-to-curb service available only to those located at least three-quarters of a mile from a fixed bus line. This would mean leaving an Alzheimer’s patient or a severely disabled person at the curb, rather than making sure she gets safely to her door. Or worse yet, forcing her to attempt to walk to and from the nearest bus stop.
“Yes, there will be budget cuts, but cutting from the Alzheimer’s patient and stealing money from the blind widow is not the place to start,” driver Margaret Spencer asks good questions: “Where do we draw the line – where do we separate money from compassion? Who will care for these people?”
The bottom line is that this kind of transportation cut will hurt a lot of people. And it hurts people who don’t possess the strength or the means to defend or fight for themselves. Driver Lynda Cordell tells me, “I just wish that those in charge would realize that this is a service the seniors and disabled really need – for some it will mean they’re not going to be able to go anywhere. Period. This is it: Outreach is their only means of getting out in the world. If we allow this measure to pass, it is the poor, sick and disabled that we are taking from, the very people who need our help the most. We are cutting from the bottom up, rather than trimming from the top down. Aren’t there other areas that can be cut first? How about one less administrator or a delay in bringing the light rail to Gilroy?
Why are we first considering cutting the person on a small fixed income who has to choose each month which medication she can afford? If this service is cut, there will literally be people dying in their homes.”
Although Transit Board member Don Gage sounds a little iffy on this subject, we are fortunate that another member of the Transit Board is supportive of this service not being cut – and that is our own Mayor Tom Springer; contact him at ts*******@**********ca.us or call 842-0693. He supports keeping the current level of Outreach transportation in South County. His support was helpful at the last Board meeting, and now we need your support at the upcoming June 5th VTA Board Meeting at 6 p.m. in the Board Chambers of the County building (70 W. Hedding St. in San Jose).
The little 80-something old man out on Bloomfield Road who is as thin as a stick can’t survive without door-to-door service for dialysis. “Take away his transportation and he’ll be dead in a week,” his driver warns, “Somebody has to look out for these people. Where do we get off with the right to say who will live and who will die because of transportation?”
