Lack of Funding Spurs Closure of Care Center

When Sharon Huff enrolled her mother at the Burbank Adult Day Care Center in May, the 76-year-old became frustrated with the new routine and was physically abusive, Huff said.

Her mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease, now goes to the center happily.

“She gets up every morning and she says she’s going to work,” said Huff, whose Van Nuys home is 20 minutes from the center. “She really likes it there. She’s able to make friends; she gets to interact with other people instead of spending the day asleep in her bed.”

Huff said she cried for two weeks when the Assistance League of Southern California announced that it would close the center on Dec. 14. Later, when the league notified relatives that the center’s 40 or so clients could move to its Hollywood center, Huff said, the idea of watching her mother go through another adjustment troubled her even more.

“I feel like my back is against the wall,” Huff said.

Organizers at the Assistance League said they have not been able to find funding for the center’s $250,000 annual budget. This year alone, the program has lost $70,000, executive director Sandy Doerschlag said.

Moving clients to the day care facility at the Hollywood Senior Multipurpose Center is the only alternative, Doerschlag said. To make things easier, the league will provide transportation for patients who don’t have a way of getting to Hollywood. Still, the news has not sat well with the center’s clients or their caregivers, Doerschlag said.

The Burbank Adult Day Care Center is the only one of its kind in the city and one of only a few run by a nonprofit agency in the region, said Cathy Ladd, a director of the Alzheimer’s Assn. of Los Angeles. More important, it is the only center in Burbank open to patients with dementia, a symptom of Alzheimer’s and other diseases, Ladd said.

The other dozen or so adult day care centers throughout the Valley are run by for-profit organizations. Most don’t admit dementia patients, and those that do are more expensive.

Since news of the Burbank center’s planned closing, advocates from the Alzheimer’s Assn., along with city and state officials, have been scrambling to find money for it.

First Christian Church, which rents space to the center, would like to keep it open if it can find the necessary funding. Pastor Galan Goben said he has sought help from the National Benevolent Assn. of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and he and other supporters have approached the city of Burbank and other nonprofit organizations.

“The center fits an incredibly important niche,” Goben said. “Spend a few days around here and find out how important the program is. The respite care that is provided to family members is tremendous.”

It’s a niche that the Assistance League says it can no longer afford to fill.

The league used a $200,000 grant from a private foundation to open the day care center in Burbank in 1998, Doerschlag said. After the first year, the foundation had trouble affording the rent, wages to the 14 employees and supplies to run the center’s activities, she said.

Clients pay a fee on a sliding scale, based on their family’s income, Doerschlag said. Because the center doesn’t offer medical services, most insurance policies will not cover the expense.

“We had funding for 2 1/2 years. We had grant funding at the onset and hoped that we could get enough government funding on a regular basis, but it didn’t carry on,” Doerschlag said.

Katie Osterloh, president of the Assistance League’s board of directors, said that she understands the difficulty some clients will have in adjusting to the Hollywood center but that the organization can no longer carry the financial liability for the Burbank center.

“We’ve been in the red since we opened,” she said.

The league’s Hollywood center is licensed to serve 25 clients, said spokeswoman Barbara Linksy. There are 35 clients on the rolls, but they are never all there at the same time, she said.

Because clients come and go at different times and stay varying lengths of times, Osterloh said, there would be no problem accommodating the Burbank people there.

Moving a dementia patient from one program to another can be traumatic, Ladd said. The type of patient seen at the Burbank center requires constant attention, a reliable routine and a familiar atmosphere to cope, Ladd said.

A routine provides the relatives with needed stability as well. In the last year, Terry Nylander of Burbank, 46, has grown to depend on the caregiver support at the Burbank Adult Day Care Center. “When Dad’s at the center, he gets exercise; he can socialize,” Nylander said. “They not only take care of Dad, but they have a support group for me, for the caregiver.”