Workers represented by SEIU Local 2015 and other unions wave their hands in support of speakers at a Santa Cruz County supervisors meeting Aug. 13. Caregivers employed through the county’s In-Home Supportive Services program have demanded higher pay. (Jesse Kathan — Santa Cruz Local)

SANTA CRUZ >> In-home caregivers to older or disabled residents are demanding higher pay from Santa Cruz County leaders. Workers wearing union colors flooded an Aug. 13 Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors meeting amid ongoing contract negotiations. 

The county-administered In-Home Supportive Services program provides caregivers that help with administering medication, bathing, cooking and other tasks. It aims to give recipients an alternative to skilled care facilities or other institutional homes.

IHSS workers “take care of your parents, your grandparents, your siblings and your children,” said caregiver Nina Stratton at the Aug. 13 meeting. “We need health care. We need a living wage. We need to be able to pay rent and buy food and be healthy,” Stratton said.

Santa Cruz County IHSS workers earn $18.75 an hour, the fifth-highest pay in the state. But those wages are “the worst in terms of approaching the actual cost of living in its region,” said Maria Espinoza, Service Employees International Union Local 2015 regional director, at a March union event. According to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator, a living wage for a single adult with no children in Santa Cruz County is $36.64 an hour, about twice what IHSS workers make.

SEIU Local 2015 represents long-term care workers in California, including about 3,000 IHSS workers in Santa Cruz County. In a survey of about 300 of those members, more than one-third said they relied on CalFresh and food banks, and more than half had difficulty paying rent, Espinoza said.  

When negotiations started in June, union leaders asked the county for a raise to $21 per hour and an increase to their 85-cent-per-hour contribution to a union-administered health care program. The county offered to grant that raise and eliminate the contribution, or keep the contribution with a $19.15 wage. About 10% of county IHSS workers claim the health care contribution, said county spokesperson Jason Hoppin.

Caregiver Nina Stratton addresses the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors Aug. 13. Stratton and others asked for higher wages for nearly 3,000 caregivers employed through the county’s In-Home Supportive Services program. (Jesse Kathan — Santa Cruz Local)

Both of the county’s offers fall short of the county’s living wage rules for government contractors, which mandate $22.61 an hour without benefits, or $20.73 an hour with a minimum $1.83-per-hour health care contribution. Because IHSS employees are employees of their clients, not the county, those rules don’t apply, Hoppin said.

“Historically, IHSS was intended to help subsidize families providing care to elderly and disabled family members, rather than provide a career path (which explains why wages seem low),” Hoppin wrote in an email. “The policy intent was to keep people in homes with loved ones rather than in institutions, which are significantly more expensive.” 

County, state and federal governments share the cost of the program, and increasing wages to $20 an hour would cost the county at least $1 million, Hoppin said. The raise “would be a significant financial challenge that could impact our ability to provide services elsewhere,” he wrote. 

Ezreal Rose, another IHSS worker at the Aug. 13 meeting, said Santa Cruz County offers lower wages than private home care companies, leading her and other workers to seek alternative employment. 

Clients often “go without care because they can’t hire enough people, or hire unreliable people because they have no alternatives,” Rose said. “They end up with life-threatening pressure wounds from going without care if there isn’t enough care available. They end up in residential programs that cost astronomically more than paying caregivers a reasonable wage and benefits.”

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