March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Lack of funds curbs Coastal Trans rides

ROCKLAND — A change in the way Senior Spectrum allocates money for transportation programs has left scores of elderly waiting at the curb.

At the start of this month, the Augusta-based service agency for the elderly removed Coastal Trans from the groups it supported with federal funds. Under that contract with Senior Spectrum, Coastal Trans provided transportation services to 97 elderly residents of Brunswick and Harpswell as well as Knox, Lincoln and Sagadahoc counties. A large percentage of the riders were transported to medical facilities.

“This is having a pretty detrimental impact on older people,” Coastal Trans spokesman Peggy Haynes said this week. “The people at the receiving end of those cuts have nowhere to go.”

Haynes said Senior Spectrum decided to fund only those transportation services that ferried adult day-care clients to its own adult day-care centers. The only Senior Spectrum center in the midcoast area is in Belfast.

In the 11 months before losing Senior Spectrum’s financial support, Coastal Trans provided 28,000 miles of transportation services to its elderly clients. The drivers volunteer their time but are reimbursed for mileage.

The loss of the $13,000 contract has put an end to the use of volunteer drivers and left the elderly clients with the choice of “either paying for the service or they don’t get it,” Haynes said. She added that many of the clients, though elderly, were not poor enough for Medicaid reimbursement.

Wanda Snyder, Senior Spectrum’s director of community education and development, said earlier this month that the agency was unable to extend its contract with Coastal Trans because of reduced federal support. “We were forced to cut in a number of areas and this was one,” she said.

Snyder said demands for transportation were great throughout the agency’s service area and that a review of the programs indicated that “we didn’t feel enough seniors were being served” by Coastal Trans. “There was only a handful of people per month in Lincoln and Sagadahoc counties that were able to take advantage (of the service).”

Haynes criticized Senior Spectrum for failing to hold public hearings before deciding to enact the cuts in funding that left many clients fending for themselves.

“We’re real frustrated with Senior Spectrum,” Haynes said. “These are federal monies and under federal guidelines transportation for the elderly is a priority.”

Synder said Senior Spectrum would work with individual communities and groups to find ways to improve volunteer services to the elderly. She said the agency would prefer to do more but that the bottom line was money.


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