STONY POINT − More than 1,200 showed up to “Rally in the Valley” Friday, calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul to include a fair wage in her 2025 budget for the workers who aid 140,000 vulnerable New Yorkers with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The rally took place at Kirkbride Hall, one of the few revamped buildings that once made up the expansive Letchworth Village Developmental Center. At several points, participants chanted, “We are not going back to that!”
The state-run institution, like the infamous Willowbrook State School in Staten Island, was shuttered after a 1970s exposé showed maltreatment and launched a movement to close institutions and serve people in their communities.
Direct Support Professionals, or DSPs, work in group homes and day programs and provide other supports for people with developmental disabilities like autism, Down syndrome and various genetic and neurological conditions.
DSPs earn about 7% over minimum wage, on average.
Now, agencies that operate group homes and day habilitation programs are facing a severe staffing shortage statewide. They report it’s near impossible to find and retain staff when they pay so low.
And, they warn, without staff, they cannot provide individualized services for people who need it.
What’s asked of Hochul vs. her offer
Nonprofits operate most group home and day program supports that serve New Yorkers with disabilities.
The nonprofits employ the DSPs, but the state sets DSP wages through Medicaid reimbursements.
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Hochul’s 2025 budget plan includes a 1.5% cost-of-living increase, or COLA, for agencies.
Agencies and activists want Hochul to include a 3.2% COLA for agencies. That money is used to cover increased operational expenses, they say, with just a portion going to higher pay for workers.
Advocates also want the governor to budget for a $4,000 wage enhancement per worker — a pay boost that goes directly into DSPs’ pockets.
An issue of equity
The lack of investment in DSP wages has gone on for years and has degraded the field, agency leaders and activists say. Agencies are dealing with a 25% vacancy rate in jobs statewide, and that comes after many programs and group homes shuttered during the COVID pandemic and never reopened or were scaled back when they relaunched.
“It angers me that half of our workforce struggles to buy food for their families,” said Bill DeVoe, vice president of communications and advocacy at Cerebral Palsy Associations of New York State, citing a recent study that found half of DSPs face food and housing insecurity, while 85% expressed job satisfaction. “You can’t bring job satisfaction to the grocery store to buy bread.”
DeVoe framed the low pay as a matter of equity. “Most workers are women of color,” he said.
Helping people to live their best life
Mary Jean Marsico, retired COO of Rockland BOCES, joined Friday’s rally.
As a teen, she performed community service at Letchworth. It launched her on a career path.
She also met a little boy who lived in one of the cottages there.
After years of red tape, she and her then-husband adopted Wayne Brola when he was 12.
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Wayne died at the end of January, at age 56. He had been residing in an ARC Rockland community.
She said she witnessed what staff did for Wayne on a daily basis, and knows what a DSP job can encompass.
DSP jobs can include cooking meals that are balanced and figuring out myriad prescription medications for residents. They may need to lift, dress and toilet the people they care for. They reinforce skills and help teach new ones.
Marsico said it was difficult for her to be there; she pointed out that Wayne’s cottage is now incorporated into North Rockland’s Fieldstone Middle School across Willow Grove Road. But, she said, it was important to stand for the DSPs who had helped Wayne live his best life.
“What they get paid for and what they do,” Marsico said, as she shook her head.
Nancy Cutler writes about People & Policy for lohud.com and the USA Today Network New York. Reach her at ncutler@lohud.com; follow her at @nancyrockland on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and Threads.