Inside Detroit’s LOVE Building, voices impacted by the current care economy filled the air with fire and determination for change.
The sound of claps and cheers erupted in the space and the declaration was explicit:
Care. Can’t. Wait.
“Care can’t wait for the 1.2 million people in Michigan who are caregivers and work super-hard but don’t earn enough to provide for their own families,” Dessa Cosma, executive director of Detroit Disability Power, told the passionate crowd, adding that, “more than 30% of care workers are people with disabilities.”
Cosma, a social justice activist, had the room’s full attention on Aug. 27 during Caring Across Generations’ rally in Detroit’s Core City neighborhood.
Aisha Wells, mother to a 17-year-old son with a disability, was there too. “I don’t know what it’s like to not have a care worker, but right now it’s way too expensive,” she said. “Most parents are paying up to 45% of their earned income for child care and there are caregivers paying more than their mortgage. It costs $400 a week to care for my son. I don’t have that, many don’t,” said Wells, deputy director of organizing for the policy advocacy nonprofit Mothering Justice. “We need to talk to these lawmakers and let them know we need equitable, quality and affordable care and child care.”
Is this system working for us, was the collective ask to which a chorus of “nos” responded followed by “care can’t wait” chants.
Emotions were fueled and peaceful.
With a mission to end the caregiving workforce crisis and demand governmental policies that are equitable and accessible for all care workers, Caring Across Generations led a national Care Can’t Wait bus tour that stopped in Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, Georgia and Michigan from August 26 to 31. The tour moves to Zoom on Tuesday, Sept. 17 at 6 p.m. ET, where speakers will tout the importance of voting in November.
Advocates aimed to lift the presence of care on the 2024 electoral ballot, which they said would be a step toward possible change in the right direction.
“We wanted to take this bus tour all over the country to amplify the experiences of people who are struggling and need care solutions that are possible. This includes child care, paid leave, senior and disability care,” said Ai-jen Poo, executive director of Caring Across Generations and president of National Domestic Workers Alliance. “Many families do not earn enough to cover the costs of care and if people make a plan to vote and show up as a care voter, that can move us even closer to the solutions we need and deserve for our families.”
In addition to Poo, Cosma and Wells, speakers during the Detroit tour stop included state Sen. Sylvia Santana; U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingle; Rodney Tate, caregiver and member of the Service Employees International Union; and Shanta’ Favors, Ms. Wheelchair Michigan 2024 and advocate for care equality.
Tate’s role as a caregiver began in 1982 when his grandmother became sick with heart disease. She was a patient at Henry Ford hospital and during his visits, he would comb her hair, sit and talk, and provide as much comfort as possible amid the reality of circumstances.
For 23 years caregiving has been his top priority among his roles as a singer, DJ and music producer. When his friend had a massive stroke and became a paraplegic, Tate was there taking care of his domestic and essential needs. Caring for his uncle and other relatives adds to his experience as a home caregiver.
Providing care is a characteristic he credits his grandmother for instilling in him, in addition to growing up in an era where community took care of community.
“It’s not easy work. It’s like taking care of a baby and that’s a lot of attention — cleaning, cooking, changing and washing clothes. That’s what I do when people can’t help themselves,” Tate said. “You have to have a heart for things like that. I’m very compassionate about taking care of, not just my family, not just older people, but anyone that’s in need — children, people with mental issues. If we have the world thinking like that, then we’ll have a better place to live.”
His earnings for being a home caregiver: $500 a month.
“It’s not sustainable nor tenable,” Poo expressed. “Domestic workers were excluded from labor protections in the 1930s and they are still devalued and excluded from a lot of the protections that most of us take for granted.”
Shanta’ Favors, Ms. Wheelchair Michigan 2024, a mother and former director of care who facilitated the care of more than 75 physically disabled people, advocates for bridging the gap between caregivers and patients. She uses her voice to raise awareness about the funding disparities within the care economy.
“It’s a broken system, and being on the other side of the equation now and meeting my peers who have the same level of care needs as I but not afforded equal care because I have workers’ comp, and their insurance comes with limitations, I want to use my voice and make an impact to get these conversations started and speak out about issues that matter most,” she said.
Historically, caregiving has been dismissed as something that women just do, specifically Black women, as enslaved women were the first care workers in this country. Society has made the labor that goes into providing care invisible, leaving women and families in tough positions as they figure out how to manage working to support their livelihood while also caring for loved ones and/or others in need. This history now extends to immigrant women and caregivers of all genders.
“That’s why this movement building is so important; our failure to invest in care has affected all of us and it has become the greatest unifier and source of power we have to bring us together as a country,” Poo said.
As a person with a disability that causes the need for a wheelchair, Cosma has had to navigate a world not designed with her in mind — spaces and places that she hasn’t been able to access in her wheelchair, and assistance isn’t always available. Though she’s managed to be self-sufficient; gained amplified skills in creative problem solving, patience, and flexibility, she’s also a mother and caregiver to her baby and understands the depths of challenge.
“Being a disabled parent is a real trip, right,” she said. “How do you push a stroller, reach inside of a crib if you’re too short? These are all things that people aren’t necessarily thinking about. So when we’re talking about holistic solutions to the care crisis, we can’t just think about care workers and people with disabilities as two separate categories. In many cases, they overlap. It’s about making a system that is equitable and actually works for the big diversity of people in our disability and caregiving communities.”
Talking solutions
The economy runs on care, and the foundation of this fight toward a just care economy is affordability and equity, accessibility, quality and value.
Cosma points out that Michigan is headed in a positive direction by passing better laws, and notes that at the federal level, $40 billion was allocated toward home and community-based services. “That’s a good chunk of money, but we have tens of thousands of people on (Medicaid) waiting lists, so we need a lot more to better resource these programs. We are moving in the right direction as a country and state, but we need to keep it going.”
In June, Tate, a powerful voice on the frontlines of care equality as a member of SEIU Michigan Labor Union, was instrumental in the passing of Senate bills 790 and 791, a Santana-sponsored package gives home caregivers the right to form a union, restore collective bargaining rights and establish a public authority to provide a workforce infrastructure, funding and support.
“That was huge. I was in Lansing, 1 o’clock in the morning when they hit the gavel on the table and said it was passed,” Tate recalled. “I cried, I screamed, and called home saying, ‘we’re one step closer to getting this bill passed.’”
Legislative sessions will soon proceed to the Michigan House with hopes of crossing the finish line and receiving full funding of the bills.
With the attention of lawmakers gaining momentum, the desired care infrastructure reflects the needs of care communities. This looks like investment in Medicaid home and community-based services that would create union-protected direct care jobs, passing the Child Care for Working Families Act, and passing the Paid Family and Medical Leave legislation.
These legislations would provide expansive paid leave policies, a living wage with good benefits so that caregivers and direct care workers can also take care of their own families. Passing these bills would also be a symbol of respect for the hard work and selflessness extended from care workers to care receivers.
‘It’s about love‘
Collectively, this is a movement rooted in love and being able to care for loved ones and those in need of care without stressing about the lack of resources that assist in making lives as livable and comfortable as possible.
“We have to make sure that people don’t become impoverished to be able to afford long-term care,” Dingle said during the rally. “If the person that you love––your children, significant other, someone with a disability, if the person that you love is OK, then you can do your job. If you’re worried about the person you love and things are not OK, you’re not going to be able to do your job the way you need to do it. Caregiving makes all other work possible, that’s the reality.”
The work to shift the fractured care economy is happening, and as evident at the Care Can’t Wait rally, there are champions in Congress and state legislatures who are hearing the calls and stories of their constituents, leading them to take action and move forward on solutions to make childcare more affordable, establish paid leave, and to making aging and disability care more accessible in the home and community.
There’s also the heart part.
“It’s about love. It’s about the people. We are the people,” Tate said. “So as long as we get these lawmakers to understand that and make them understand what we want, we’ll get it going.”
The road to a just care system is in motion, and the care worker community is hopeful that change is on the way.
Poo assessed, “I sincerely believe that this is going to be the generation of organizers, leaders and families who are going to change the way we support and value care in this country.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.