Scrolling through social media at 16 years old, Noah Daube-Valois ’28 [Disclaimer: Daube-Valois is Assistant Humor Editor for The Miscellany News] saw an advertisement that would change his life. Northampton, Massachusetts’ Rockridge Retirement Community was looking for local musicians to come perform for its residents. “They were looking for volunteer musicians and I’m always looking for performance experience, so I signed up,” said Daube-Valois. “And I just fell in love with the place and started going there every month to give recitals.” Daube-Valois immediately felt connected to the Rockridge community, noting that its residents were encouraging and accepting of him and his performances, which helped him build confidence as a pianist.
“I really view many of these residents as kind of like my grandparents, and I honestly feel like they view me as like one of their grandsons,” said Daube-Valois.
The junior was offered a summer job as an activities assistant at the retirement community after several months of performing. For the past two summers, Daube-Valois has spent five days a week at Rockridge. “Two summers ago when I left a summer of working, I told my friends, ‘I feel like I have 100 new best friends,’” explained Daube-Valois. “And I feel like that’s like growing even more with the second summer of working there.”
As an activities assistant, Daube-Valois hosts a variety of events for Rockridge residents to participate in, including Jeopardy sessions, wine nights and trips to local ice cream parlors. “Little things will make some people during the golden years really happy,” said Daube-Valois. On one such trip to get the residents’ ice cream, Daube-Valois watched a resident place her ice cream on her walker and start to walk toward the group. When her walker hit a bump, the ice cream fell to the ground. “I could literally tell from the look on her face that she would not be able to afford another ice cream cone because she was living [on] around $72.80,” said Daube-Valois.
This summer, Daube-Valois started the $72.80 Project, a podcast advocating for the needs of elders living in subsidized care homes, after observing Rockridge residents’ response to a presentation on the personal needs allowance by Massachusetts State Representative Lindsay Sabadosa. The personal needs allowance is the amount of money that the Massachusetts state government gives each month to residents living in government-subsidized care homes to purchase necessities. Massachusetts’ $72.80 allowance was set in 2008, and has not been adjusted for inflation since.
The Rockridge Retirement Community is split into three units: the retirement home, the rest home and the memory care unit. While residents of the retirement home pay thousands per month to live in Rockridge, the rest home is subsidized by the government and is only available to individuals who have $2,000 or fewer in assets. Rest home residents pay their rent by turning their Supplemental Security Income or Medicaid checks—which is often their only source of income—over to the state government. If residents would like to purchase toiletries, clothing, gifts, haircuts, entertainment, transportation or any other amenity or service not provided by the rest home, they only have $72.80 per month to spend.
“Residents really are just scraping by and cutting corners every day in some of the last years of their lives,” said Daube-Valois.
The difference in residents’ income between those living in the retirement and rest homes manifests in a variety of ways. “If you go inside of a resident’s living space in the retirement home, it’s pretty beautiful, it’s pretty large, like where they sleep and where they live,” noted Daube-Valois. “And then if you go inside of a residence living space in the rest home, it’s like a coffin single at Vassar.” Daube-Valois also explained that, while those living in a retirement home are often able to purchase basic amenities of the modern age, such as a phone plan and WiFi, those living in the rest home cannot afford such expenses on a budget of $72.80 per month.
Rockridge’s rest home residents have been forced to cut costs where they can to pay for the necessities while staying within their budget. “One of the residents I spoke to can only afford to buy clothes at Goodwill,” explained Daube-Valois. “And that may not sound devastating to some people, but the way he phrased it to me was like, in the last years of his life, he’s wearing somebody else’s shoes and all of his clothes are thrifted, since he only has a few extra dollars each month to spend on clothing.” Daube-Valois recounted another conversation with a Rockridge resident: “One of the residents I spoke to wears glasses and his glasses broke, and he could not afford to go to the [optometrist]. And so he has a Band-Aid that holds the glasses together. He didn’t even have tape.”
Following Sabadosa’s presentation, Daube-Valois reached out to a Rockridge rest home resident who had asked the representative questions about how the elderly can best advocate for themselves. “I knew I wanted to give a microphone to residents of the rest home,” said Daube-Valois. “I didn’t know what it would look like. And luckily, I found a few elder advocacy groups, which I was able to ask questions to. In my podcast, I speak to a former state senator who was quite high up in the ranks of the state Senate when he used to serve Massachusetts.”
Daube-Valois’ podcast has been shared by a variety of outlets and organizations, including Boston 25 News and MassLive. His goal is to raise the personal needs allowance in accordance with the rate of inflation. According to Daube-Valois, by adjusting the allowance for inflation, in his proposed plan, each rest home resident would receive around $115 a month.
“That would cost the state $15 million annually to do that raise for all of the residents,” explained Daube-Valois. “That is nothing. Like the state budget is $60 billion. It’s not even like a fraction of a percent to spend 15 million extra dollars on thousands and thousands of residents. There are so few solutions that I feel like are this simple. Yet nobody does anything about it.”
Those interested in listening to the first episode of the $72.80 Project can find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and a variety of other listening platforms.