Mainstreet Radio’s Brent Wolfe visits a senior foster care family in southeast Minnesota. Nursing homes across Minnesota face a serious labor shortage that's forcing some to leave beds empty because they can't find nursing assistants to care for patients. Advocates for senior citizens are looking for ways to attract more workers and they're also looking for alternatives to nursing homes…one such alternative is senior foster care.
BRENT WOLFE: After retiring from IBM, Barb and Dick Buttruff built their dream home on a rolling hillside surrounded by 230 acres of farmland in the eastern part of Olmsted County. They wanted a little extra income and they wanted to work with people rather than machines, so they built the house to accommodate five seniors in an assisted living setting.
That means no steps and several bathrooms big enough to turn a wheelchair around in. The elderly they take in can still get around, but they can no longer do things like the housework and cooking necessary for living on their own. They often gather around the kitchen table to talk about old times and current events. Barb Buttruff says she makes the seniors part of her family and doesn't run a rigid schedule.
BARB BUTTRUFF: It's not like you have to get 50 people down to the dining room table to go and eat, so they have to get up at 6 o'clock or whatever. Yeah, you allow them to be home and you do home things. And I don't have names on doors, even with their memory problems. I just assist them so that it helps them. But this is their home. It's not an institution.
BRENT WOLFE: This new version of a nursing home is catching on. About 50 families in Olmsted County provide senior foster care. There is training required, and homes must meet specific safety guidelines. Margie Hanken's 92-year-old father has lived with the Buttruffs for nearly two years. She says when it became clear he couldn't take care of himself anymore, she began looking for a place to take care of him. The Stewartville nursing home was full, so someone referred her to the county's senior foster care program called Homes Plus. Hanken brought her dad out to the Buttruffs' home to check it out.
MARGIE HANKEN: So we took him out there on a Saturday. They talked back and forth, and then they said that they would be happy to have him. And so then I told Dad, I said, well, let's go home, and we'll get your clothes and so on and forth. And he said, no. He says, I want to stay. So he stayed right then. They made him feel so comfortable, and so at ease at home, and it's always been like a family.
BRENT WOLFE: And like most families, they have their routines and special events. Every Friday morning, they head into town to go bowling. Hanken's father, Christian Perkowski, loves it, even though he's nearly blind and deaf.
CHRISTIAN PERKOWSKI: I can't see the alleys, but I know where all the pins are. I make it so they got to beat me. I don't let them beat me. They got to beat me. I know where the alleys are. I know where the pins are. And just because I can't see the pins, that's no sign I don't know where they are.
BRENT WOLFE: There is still some guilt involved for some people when they send their mother, father, or grandparent to live with another family. But Margie Hanken says the Buttruffs are providing a service they get paid for, and she comes to visit her father often.
MARGIE HANKEN: I don't worry anymore when we're gone because I know he'll be taken care of and whatever. I mean, it's just wonderful. And like I said, it's a family.
BRENT WOLFE: Another reason Hanken likes the program is that it's less expensive than a nursing home would be. On average, senior foster care in Olmsted County costs $300 to $500 a month less than nursing home care. Barb Buttruff says it's important to keep seniors active, and she doesn't face the same constraints as a nursing home. She can adapt to the unexpected, such as a former resident named Marie who had her eye on her husband's Gold Wing motorcycle.
BARB BUTTRUFF: My husband was just teasing her one day and he had to go put gas in it. And he said, Marie, how would you like to go for a ride on this? And she said, sure. And I went and got her a helmet, and she crawled on that thing like she had rode it forever.
And so when she came up the driveway, Marie was waving and laughing. And she just had such a good time. And Marie said the only thing that she regretted is while she was taking the ride, that she didn't see anybody that she knew that would see her. She wanted somebody to know that she had been on that motorcycle.
BRENT WOLFE: Buttruff says some people clearly need a level of care that can only be provided in a nursing home. But she hopes as the older generation in America gets bigger and bigger, more people will offer foster care and make seniors part of families instead of institutions. I'm Brent Wolfe, Minnesota Public Radio.
In 2008, Minnesota's voters passed the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment to the Minnesota Constitution: to protect drinking water sources; to protect, enhance, and restore wetlands, prairies, forests, and fish, game, and wildlife habitat; to preserve arts and cultural heritage; to support parks and trails; and to protect, enhance, and restore lakes, rivers, streams, and groundwater.
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