Workers at senior centers across the state take calls from senior West Virginians requesting enrollment in the Meals on Wheels program, but many end up on waitlists and even more go without the help.
State officials ensure about 25,000 seniors around the state receive home-delivered meals.
But more than 1,000, including those who can’t prepare meals due to mobility problems and those who live in isolated areas without transportation, were on waitlists as of October, even though they met stringent eligibility requirements.
Even more seniors have asked for assistance but didn’t meet requirements to be on the waitlist. Some live too far away from providers’ service areas, but service areas are dependent on funding.
The Bureau of Senior Services has said it would take $2 million in additional funding to eliminate the waitlists, and previous Bureau officials requested that money.
But new Bureau officials aren’t asking lawmakers to pass a budget with more funding reserved for the program.
In fact, about a month into the job, the new Commissioner of the Bureau of Senior Services Dianna Graves said she plans to audit the agency to make sure the funds it is expending are truly needed. But she said she’d like to serve more people.
Graves noted that in Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s State of the State address, he said his budget would include a 2% cut. He directed other state officials to figure out how to cut costs, as he says he wants to do more with less.
Graves gave a budget proposal to state revenue officials without that cut but also without the $2 million increase needed to eliminate waitlists. That proposal was incorporated into Morrisey’s budget proposal presented to lawmakers.
“I’m grateful. I’m very grateful that seniors did not see a budget decrease,” she said.
She also said some counties don’t have waitlists due to county funding and fundraising, and she hopes to see more of that.
When asked about the waitlists, since they wouldn’t be eliminated in Morrisey’s proposal, Morrisey sent a statement through a spokesperson, saying that the “hallmark of Governor Morrisey’s administration is fiscal responsibility.”
West Virginia lawmakers are under no obligation to pass the governor’s budget proposal as written.
But senior centers have said they need more funding for Meals on Wheels in previous years as well and lawmakers didn’t allocate it.
And during Graves’ budget presentation to lawmakers, several asked questions indicating they’d like to see the Bureau’s funding be reduced.
The need for the Meals on Wheels program has increased for years, according to Jennifer Brown, president of the West Virginia Directors of Senior and Community Services.
But she said some seniors who could use the assistance likely don’t even know the program exists.
Brown, who is also the director of the Council on Aging, which provides services in a multi-county region in the southern part of the state, said centers do their best to help seniors who call, but she can’t promote the program in good faith.
“We don’t normally advertise our nutrition programs, as far as Meals on Wheels goes, because we know there’s always a waitlist,” she said.
Brown said she’s hopeful the Legislature will increase funding for senior services, at least next fiscal year, if the state’s more financially stable. In the meantime, she said sometimes neighbors report concerns for seniors.
Following those calls, senior center workers have responded to find people with empty refrigerators.
More than 100,000 West Virginians 60 and over, about 20 percent, have limited or uncertain access to enough food, according to a 2024 Meals on Wheels fact sheet based on 2021 data.
In McDowell County, 70 people are on the waitlist.
Donald Reed, executive director of the McDowell County Commission on Aging, said isolation is a main contributor to people ending up on the program or waitlist.
“They don’t have a large family or support network, because those family members have moved away,” he said.
Lucreatia Ford, a regular visitor to the senior center in McDowell County, noted that in the county, poverty is widespread and grocery stories are few and far between. She knows other seniors who struggle to get to them.
“The majority of the people here are seniors,” she said.
Brown said one reason the meal delivery program is so important is it means someone is also checking on the welfare of seniors living alone.
“We’ve found people lying on the floor where they’ve fallen, and we’ve had to go in and help them or call 911.”
Senior services programs, like those at senior centers with opportunities for socialization and community connection and home-delivered meals, increase the chances seniors can live at home independently, instead of in nursing homes where they’re more likely to develop additional physical and mental health problems.
Ford socializes with other seniors during meals offered at the McDowell County center and while playing card games.
Now 79, she used to work at a nursing home.
“They were beautiful people,” she said.
But there was little she could do about how much they despised living there, becoming hopeless and trying to escape.
“They can’t get used to their new environment and they want to go home,” she said. “I hope I don’t ever have to go to a nursing home.”