SECTIONS 15300-15301 - California Statutes

WELFARE AND INSTITUTIONS CODE

SECTION 15300-15301

15300. The Legislature finds that:
(a) Elderly persons, like any other persons, prefer to remain in
their own homes rather than in dependent living situations, including
long-term care facilities.
(b) Many elderly persons, with a minimal to moderate amount of
supportive services, mainly nonmedical in character, could maintain
themselves at home; others, with slightly more support and perhaps
day care supervision, could remain in independent living situations
or homes of relatives or friends. Yet it is just this nonmedical,
nontechnical level of supportive services that is largely unavailable
to the vast majority of old persons.
(c) Most elderly persons living on fixed incomes cannot afford
private help or the cost of home health or homemaker agencies;
elderly low-income public assistance recipients can receive such care
only in limited circumstances under welfare cash grant attendant
care or homemaker programs.
(d) Supportive personal and social care in many cases enables the
elderly to maintain a state of health that decreases or postpones the
need for health care.
(e) Reducing or postponing the need for health care is not only
beneficial to the elderly individual's general welfare but also
results in economic savings both to the individual, his or her
family, and the people of California in cases where the elderly
person is also a recipient of public assistance or potentially in
need of public funds through cash grants, Medi-Cal, or use of state
or county facilities.
(f) Titles XVIII and XIX of the Social Security Act are largely
concerned with crisis or short-term care; there are no adequate
programs, public or private, which financially assist the elderly
person to maintain his independence, health and mobility at home.

15301. The purpose of this chapter is to use on an experimental
pilot project basis, two model supportive care projects supervised by
the State Department of Aging.