Brad Linnenkamp can't figure it out. If lawmakers go along with cuts in welfare spending, he'd have to quit his job and more than likely end up in a nursing home.
Why, he wondered, would the state want to pay the nursing home $3,000 a month instead of putting up the $650 a month it takes to keep him in his no-frills apartment a few blocks west of 25th and Iowa.
Brad Linnenkamp, second from right, figures that the $650 a month it takes to keep him in his no-frills apartment is a better deal that having the state pay a nursing home $3,000 a month instead. Last week Linnenkamp and other advocates for the state's disabled and elderly gathered at Independence Inc. for a letter-writing campaign to the governor and state legislators protesting proposed reductions in the SRS budget.
"It's crazy," Linnenkamp said.
Linnenkamp, 35, was born with cerebral palsy.
"I have a motorized scooter that lets me get around, but it's in the shop," he said, seated in a manual wheelchair.
A large, friendly man, he works 40 hours every two weeks at ARC of Douglas County, where he advocates for adults with physical and developmental disabilities.
He gets a paycheck, but he's not allowed to keep more than $696 a month, and he can't accumulate more than $2,000 in assets. If he does, he'll not be eligible for the help he gets.
P.O. Box 1243, Lawrence 66044
Leave a message at the LOS cell phone, 393-7984, and Elizabeth Smith, LOS secretary, or a board member will return your call.
And without the help, he'd be in a group home or a nursing home. That, too, he said, is crazy.
"I don't see why I shouldn't be able to live my life like anybody else," he said. "The fact that I have a disability shouldn't matter. Just because I can't drive a car or play a sport doesn't make me different. I shouldn't be in a nursing home if I don't need to be in one."
Through a Medicaid physical disability waiver administered by the state Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services and Lawrence's Independence Inc., Linnenkamp gets to hire a attendant to help with chores.
"Her name is Brenda Allen," he said. "If I ever lost her, my life would be turned upside down."
Through the waiver, Allen is paid $9.50 an hour for 11 hours a week.
One of the proposed cuts could reduce attendant-care payments by about $1 an hour.
Allen, who's been helping Linnenkamp for about three years, said she wouldn't quit if she's paid less.
"I'm part-time, and I'm married," she said. "We live off my husband's income, but there are a lot of single mothers out there doing this work who can't do it for any less. They'll leave."
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