First
The Numbers
Jewish Family Service, which provides
everything from senior care services
to health care payments to emergency
financial assistance, has added seven case
workers, an intake specialist and a care
coordinator since 2008 — and there is still
a waiting list.
The number of new clients last year
was 3,800, or 500 more than in 2009, said
Norman Keane. The services experiencing
the most pressure are mental health coun-
seling.
The numbers: JFS provided emergency
financial help — assistance with prescrip-
tion medication, rent, utility shutoff pay-
ments, car repairs, bus tickets and food
vouchers — in the amount of $815,000 in
2010 compared to $513,000 in 2008. Keane
adds that the amount is probably closer to
$2 million if the stopgap funds Federation
provides are considered.
In 2008, JFS' Family Life Center (FLC),
the division that handles mental health,
housing and loan services — most all
services except those for older adults —
served 607 individuals. Last year, the num-
ber was 795.
FLC Director Shari-Beth Goldman said
people between 40 and 59 years old corn-
prise the biggest segment of the wait list
and the largest group seeking mental health
counseling services.
"Since 2008, we've served a significant
number of professional people — people in
real estate, in the mortgage industry, people
in sales and construction, former donors,
people who come in and say they never
thought they'd be in that position',' she said.
The Older Adult Division, which serves
about 1,000 clients each year, is seeing
cases that are more complex, said Director
Yuliya Gaydayenko. Since 2008, her division
has added three new
case managers who
do everything from
home assessments
to nutritional analy-
ses, to coordinat-
ing meals at home
and applying for
Holocaust survivor
benefits.
"We see a lot
more mental health
Accountability Helps
Nita Cohen of Birmingham is among the luckier casualties of the economic
downturn.
In April of last year, Cohen lost her part-time job at Comerica Bank, where
she'd been in the lending division for 16 years. As the spouse who carried the
health benefits for her husband and children, she was especially anxious.
"I wasn't fearful of losing my home, but there were things my kids wanted
to do and we had to cut back,' she said. "We were used to having a dual
income – sports, class trips, no question. But that wasn't the case any longer;
they had to choose."
Understanding the value of networking, Cohen, 43, joined a JVS Success
Team, an eight-week "accountability" program that brings job seekers togeth-
er to focus on finding work. Participants are responsible for making cold calls
to set up informational meetings
that might lead to a job, and
they need to report to the group
each week.
"It keeps you on task," Cohen
said. "When you're looking for a
job, it can get depressing."
When she walked in the first
time, she thought it would be
easy finding another, similar job
because of her skills and con-
tacts, "but when I heard other
people talking – engineers,
accountants – I thought, 'Oh, my
God, I'm not special.' I realized I
had to differentiate myself," she
said.
Cohen called former col-
leagues and bosses, and even
got a very good lead from a
manicurist.
"Sometimes, it's hard to tell
your story, to say you're unem-
ployed," she said. "But if some-
Nita Cohen joined a JVS Success Team and
body gives you a lead, you've
found work at Talmer Bank and Trust.
got to follow up."
Eight months later, Cohen was
hired as a full-time loan/credit officer at Talmer Bank and Trust, which had
interviewed her earlier but had no job to offer. Cohen had stayed in touch with
her contact there.
"I would've loved to come back part-time, but you can't be picky in this
economy," she said.
Photo by Bre tt Moun ta i
paying off credit cards. While HFL won't
provide a loan, "the antennae go up," he
said.
"Odds are there's a serious problem. In
reality, their income is no longer sufficient
to cover monthly expenses. They can't face
it. HFL might turn them down, so now
there's a JFS social worker there who can
offer different kinds of help."
The applicant may be directed to a
financial counselor at JVS or to JFS for
emergency financial assistance, which
increased four- or fivefold during the past
few years, Eizelman said.
annual allocation. The budget crept up by
patients among clients who've lost homes
a half-million dollars since last year, Keane
— even among those who are 80 and 85
said, adding that the $10 million is likely
years old. We see more people who need
where JFS will stay for a while.
supportive counseling;' said Gaydayenko.
"Are we doing well? Yes. But there's a dif-
JFS serves more than 550 Holocaust survi-
vors, the majority of whom need case man- ference between what we would consider
agement, home care, counseling, restitution adequate/optimal and minimal service.
We're moving from minimal to adequate,'
services and transportation services.
Keane said.
JFS' budget this year is $10 million,
which includes Federation's $2.1 million
Health Care
A few years before the effects of the
economic slowdown rippled through
the community, Rachel Hearshen of
Farmington Hills lost her job as an assis-
tant to the cantor at Temple Israel. It was
the last job she had that came with health
care benefits.
Having been identified as a carrier of
the BRCA gene, which increases her risk
for developing breast cancer, Hearshen
needed to see her doctor regularly. She
Project Chessed (Jewish Family
Service's program for medically
uninsured adults):
•2008: 874 clients
•2011: 1,324 (50 percent increase)
takes Tamoxifen, a drug that reduces the
chance of developing breast cancer, and
she also suffers from depression, for which
she takes medication.
A colleague at Temple Israel told her
about Project Chessed, a JFS program
begun in 2004 that provides free health
care to qualifying adults. Hearshen, now a
full-time graduate student at Wayne State
University, was eligible and, since then,
has relied on the program for doctor visits,
mammograms, ultrasounds and prescrip-
tion medications.
Hearshen, 39, is like millions of
Americans: The jobs she had after leaving
Temple Israel didn't pay enough to cover
health insurance premiums. She had to
move back in with her parents, too.
"I don't run to the doctor very often; I
take it very seriously,' she said. "I'm lucky
that they're willing to help me until I have
a job with insurance or I can afford it. I
don't want to abuse that."
When Hearshen enrolled at Project
Chessed, she was young enough to be an
anomaly. Today, she is the norm.
Along with a 50 percent rise in the
number of new clients since 2008 — from
874 to 1,324 — is a decline in their age:
An astonishing 34 percent are under age
40.
"Until 2008, we hardly had anybody
under 40:' said program director Rachel
Yoskowitz.
And many more people have been
turned away; last year, she said, JFS took
300 calls from people,
many of them Jews,
who had inadequate
health insurance.
That the program
has been able to
grow along with the
need is largely due to
volunteer health care
providers.
Rachel Yoskowitz
Last year,
Yoskowitz said, some 700 physicians
contributed $4 million worth of services
to Project Chessed clients. That doesn't
include the cost of tests and prescription
medications, which represents the largest
chunk of the program's budget. Last year,
it covered $213,000 in medication costs,
compared to $98,000 in 2008.
Most Project Chessed clients are under-
employed or can't afford health insurance
premiums, and almost 40 percent of cli-
ents are employed part time. Fifteen per-
cent are working full time, Yoskowitz said.
Since last year, there has been an
increase in the number of singles and
divorced people enrolled in the program
and a marked increase in the number of
native-Russian speakers served, often a
young, American-educated population.
The smallest percentage served was in the
61- to 64-year-old bracket.
Program funding comes from JFS,
Still In Crisis on page 12
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