State cuts squeeze job program Agency aids workers with disabilities

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BANGOR – Shortly after 9 o’clock every weekday morning, Esther West is dropped off at work. She uses her red-and-white walking stick to guide herself across the parking lot and into the entrance lobby of Army National Guard Building 255 near Bangor International Airport.

For the next four hours, West, who is 51 and has mild mental retardation in addition to being blind, will work as part of a three-person cleaning crew. When the trio leaves after lunch, the building’s tile floors will be gleaming, the bathrooms will sparkle, and the long white tables in the conference room will have been wiped down thoroughly in preparation for the next meeting.

All three individuals on the cleaning crew have developmental disabilities that severely limit their independence. But with help from a state and federally funded program in Bangor, West and her co-workers earn not only a modest wage to help them meet their living expenses, but also the self-respect that comes with putting in an honest day’s labor and the camaraderie that builds in a friendly workplace setting.

“I like to earn money for working, and I like to be with people,” West said last week, taking a short break from her cleaning tasks. “I’m happy cleaning almost anything. I’m happy here and I like this job.”

The cleaning crew members are paid by the Maine Army National Guard, but they are employed through Phoenix Employment and Rehabilitation Services, a division of the nonprofit Amicus program, which provides a range of services to Mainers with mental and physical disabilities. Based in Bangor, Amicus is just one of many private nonprofit agencies reeling from structural changes within the Maine Department of Health and Human Services and recent funding cuts necessitated by lower-than-anticipated state revenues.

Heidi Godsoe, executive director of Amicus, said in a recent interview that administrative changes within DHHS, along with a spate of budget reductions for the types of services Amicus provides, have thrown her operations into a tailspin.

The Phoenix program alone, Godsoe said, is struggling to make do with about $400,000 less this year than it received last year from MaineCare, representing about 40 percent of the program’s overall budget. MaineCare is the state’s Medicaid program, funded with state and federal tax dollars, and it is the payment source for the great majority of the clients served by Amicus.

Formerly known as Phoenix Industries, the supported-employment program no longer includes the “sheltered workshop” setting that once paid mentally disabled workers to decorate Christmas wreaths or assemble informational materials for consumer electronics. Now, Phoenix works with about two dozen area businesses to provide meaningful jobs to more than 80 Mainers who otherwise would probably have no employment, no earned income and no answer to the question, “What do you do for work?”

“What you do for work is who you are,” Godsoe said. “It is everybody’s goal to be able to work and earn money and take care of yourself.”

The cleaning crew at the Guard headquarters is supported by two Phoenix-employed “job coaches.” The agency employs 24 full- and part-time coaches. Their job, which pays between $8 and $11 an hour, is to keep the workers focused on their tasks, make sure the work is completed and troubleshoot any unexpected difficulties.

Last Thursday morning, for example, about an hour into the morning routine, crew member Ben Madore became visibly anxious and upset. It turned out he recently purchased a new electric shaver and he feared he had left it plugged in and recharging at his home, where he lives with his parents. He was worried – very worried – that the device would be damaged if it charged for too long.

Job coach Joe Sites listened to Madore’s concern, explained that it was unlikely the shaver would be damaged, and tried to refocus his upset client’s attention on sweeping the floor of the men’s bathroom.

But Madore’s anxiety escalated, and he was increasingly unable to concentrate on his work. So Sites made a quick call to Madore’s father at home and the problem was resolved. Relieved, the young man got back to work.

Sites also coaches West, whose blindness is a more apparent problem on this job than her mental disability. He helps her strap on the cushioned pads that protect her knees when she cleans around the toilets. He sprays the aerosol cleaning solution in a uniform mist on the bathroom surfaces and checks to make sure she hasn’t missed a spot. She rarely does.

“She can do a better job of cleaning these sinks than you or I can,” Sites said. “She can picture it in her mind’s eye and she gets every inch clean.”

And, he added, West is a pleasure to work with. “She’s always right on her game, always cheerful,” he said.

Sites said the work crew has regular contact with the soldiers who come and go all day long in Building 255. Break time in the lunchroom offers additional opportunities to interact.

“One day last week, a soldier brought in spaghetti and meatballs for everyone,” Sites said. “They think of the Phoenix crew as part of the group.”

Phoenix director Toni Moleon said a few of the approximately 80 clients employed through her program meet with their job coach only once a week. Others need continuous, one-on-one supervision while they’re working. But most, like the custodial crew at the Guard headquarters, need a job coach nearby just in case there’s a problem.

“Our goal would be for everyone to work without a job coach,” Moleon said, and in some cases, the agency has been able to “phase out” the coach’s participation. “I like it when one of the businesses calls and says, ‘We don’t really need the job coach anymore,'” she said.

Command Sgt. Maj. Terrence Harris of the Maine Army National Guard said the Phoenix cleaning crew does an excellent job of keeping the battalion headquarters clean on a tight budget.

“I walk into a lot of different armories across the state, and most are not as clean as this,” he said.

About half the Phoenix clients are engaged in custodial work, but others bag groceries, stock shelves and work in warehouses. About half earn minimum wage or higher. Federal law allows employers to pay less if a worker is incapable of performing 100 percent of the tasks included in the job description.

There is no restriction on how these individuals spend the money they earn. “It’s theirs,” Moleon said.

Mark Harris, West’s co-worker on the custodial crew, saved enough to buy himself a four-wheeler. One lively group of workers socked away enough money to take a trip to Hawaii.

West, who earns about $100 a week for working 20 hours, said she always puts some of her earnings toward the rent at the supervised group home where she lives. She also purchased herself a new spring outfit recently, which she intended to wear to a dance at Amicus. She loves to dance, she said with a grin, and she has a boyfriend who works at the Maine Distributors beverage warehouse.

On her birthday, she ordered out for Chinese food, which she adores.

“I was too tired to cook,” she said.

Godsoe said it costs her agency an average of $28 per client per hour to offer supported employment opportunities to mentally disabled Mainers such as West. If she can’t figure out how to keep the program running in the face of big changes at the state level, she’ll have to give it up, she said.

“But the alternatives are more expensive,” she said. “Every one of these people needs to be in a supervised environment.” That would mean a day care program for some or staying home in the care of family members for others.

Godsoe says she realizes human services programs all over the state are struggling, and she doesn’t dispute the need for budget cutbacks.

“We’re not sitting around crying about this,” she said. “But we are working with the state, trying to come up with every creative idea we can find, trying to figure out how we can live within these cuts.”

BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY KATE COLLINS

Job coach Joe Sites (left) points out a part of the sink that needs to be retouched to Esther West as she continues her cleaning duties at an Army National Guard building in Bangor.

BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTOS BY KATE COLLINS

Esther West (left) of Bangor and Mark Harris (right) of Hermon clean the bathroom in an Army National Guard building in Bangor recently. West and Harris, who both have mental disabilities, have been trained through Phoenix Industries and are employed part time doing custodial work. Harris saved the money he earned and bought an ATV.

Esther West is legally blind and also mentally disabled. She is able to help support herself and earn spending money to shop and go out to eat through custodial work.