The debt ceiling agreement, signed into law by President Obama, calls for federal deficit cuts of more than $2 trillion during the next 10 years. However, it doesn't say exactly where these savings are going to come from, so non-profit charities might have to monitor congress for months, or even years to ascertain if the needy people they serve will be victims of the budget scalpel. And now we have bitterly divided lawmakers in Washington, D.C., who must decide how much of the savings will come from social service programs, how much from tax increases and how much from Medicaid and other entitlement programs. Everything is on the table.
To make matters worse, our rural counties not only suffered from cuts in Washington, D.C., but also received less from state grants again that favor urban areas. And looking to private foundations is difficult as barely 1 percent of the $46 billion given in 2009 were directed to rural charities. And grants to programs that aid the elderly to remain in their homes are almost non-existent. In the last edition of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, for example, I counted 71 new grants by foundations to various charities. Of those, 27 percent were for education, 18 percent for children/youth and 23 percent for health issues. The rest were scattered over arts/culture, housing, etc. Only 1 grant was to assist the elderly and it was for research at a large institute in an urban area. For months prior it was the same story.
What it comes down to is that most rural charitable organizations will find their greatest support from community funds created primarily by gifts from local residents and businesses. In short, there isn't very much support for rural charitable non-profits at the federal, state and local levels, foundations or corporations. And yet, the rural counties are where our most vulnerable population resides: yes, the seniors.
Just to satisfy my own curiosity about where the greatest numbers of seniors reside, I obtained the 2010 census figures from the state demographer. What I found is that in 2010 Nevada had a total population of 2,700,551. Of that, the total population for the 15 rural counties was 327,830 or 12.1 percent of the total population. Of that total rural population, 99,879 were seniors 55 years of age and older or 30.5 percent of the rural population.
However, when you look at Clark County, it had a population of 1,951,269 or 72.3 percent of the total population of Nevada. Its senior population of 55-plus years equals 435,707 or 22.3 percent of the total. Washoe County had 421,407 residents or 15.6 percent of Nevada's population, with the 55-plus population of 104,198 or 24.7 percent of the Nevada's total.
What this clearly indicates is that the rural counties with a population of 12.1 percent of Nevada's total has a higher senior population that is spread out over 100,000 square miles while Clark and Washoe Counties, with about 88 percent of the total population, who reside in about 10,000 square miles. The argument that many non-profits have been trying to make to elected officials in Washington, D.C., and the state is that we can't provide the same services to our seniors in the rural counties as we do in the urban counties for the same amount of money because of the vast area. Do the math; you've got 327,830 rural people living in a 100,000-square-mile area as opposed to 2,372,676 living in a 10,000-square-mile area. Our pleas have fallen on deaf ears as usual.
The rural county seniors are the least funded and yet poverty there is at its highest. I mentioned this to one legislator who responded "well, let them move to Vegas or Reno." Yeah, right. Anyone wishing a copy of this census report can call 687-4680, ext. 2. It is broken down by county, with Esmeralda having a senior population of 48.8 percent of its total, followed by Mineral and Pershing counties with nearly 40 percent of their population being seniors. But guess who controls the votes? It sure isn't rural Nevada. Stay tuned.
• Janice R. Ayres is the president of Nevada Senior Corps Association and executive director & CEO of the Nevada Rural Counties RSVP Program.
