Federal Judge Blocks California In-Home Service Cuts

This cross-post from AFSCME reports the good news that a judge has blocked California’s plans to reduce or drop in-home care services for 130,000 people. 

United Domestic Workers Homecare Providers Union (UDW/AFSCME) and its partners in a class-action lawsuit have won a key victory in their battle to prevent as many as 130,000 low-income seniors and people with disabilities from losing critical in-home care services.

U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken in Oakland this week issued a preliminary injunction stopping the state from changing rules in November that would have caused 40,000 people to lose in-home services, such as meal preparation and housekeeping. Services for another 90,000 would have been significantly reduced.

In her order, the judge said the plaintiffs—UDW/AFSCME, three SEIU locals and four public interest law firms—are likely to prove at trial that the state used inadequate standards to determine whose services would be cut. Also, she said there are constitutional problems with a written notice the state intended to send to people now receiving in-home services.

The judge ordered the parties to confer on drafting a new letter explaining that no services would be cut Nov. 1, although some cuts could happen in the future.

“The war to prevent these outrageous cuts has just begun,” says AFSCME Vice President Doug Moore, UDW/AFSCME’s executive director.

The governor and his enablers in the state Legislature will continue to throw the state’s most vulnerable citizens under the bus unless and until the people of California, through the courts and at the ballot box, say “Enough.” Judge Wilken’s ruling is an important first step in that direction.

Read more about the judge’s ruling in The Los Angeles Times and The Oakland Tribune.

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