Hands to Help Seniors

View From A Non-Profit Serving Seniors In Carmel, Carmel Valley, Gonzalez, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, Seaside and Soledad California

I've written many times on my blog that despite the fact that the stock market is booming (with the exception of today when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 208 points), many seniors are still struggling to get by.  And it's not just seniors.  A report in today's Wall Street Journal said that, according to the Federal Reserve Bank, Americans have only recovered 45% of the wealth they lost during the recession.  The St. Louis branch of the Fed launched a new division called the Center for Household Financial Stability which will track this statistic on a regular basis.  They noted something that I have been writing about for some time, the fact that most of the recovery in net worth has been tied to the stock market and is concentrated in holdings of wealthy families.  "Considering the uneven recovery of wealth across households, a conclusion that the financial damage of the crisis and recession largely has been repaired is not justified," said a report from the Federal Reserve Bank.  Another report, also in today's Wall Street Journal, said that disposable personal income was down 3.3% last year, the worst numbers which have been reported since the government tracked this metric (in 1959) with the one exception of 2009.  The problem for seniors, in my view, is many got burned so badly during the crash that they pulled their money out at the worst possible time and missed the subsequent boom.  With interest rates near historic lows, payments from CD's, T-bills, etc., are amounting to almost nothing.  There's no clear solution in sight, and I can only hope that some of Governor Jerry Brown's budget surplus goes to restore service programs which were cut that helped senior citizens.

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View From A Non-Profit Serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Gonzalez, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, Seaside And Soledad California I wrote yesterday on my blog about the great debate over whether to turn 540 acres of land on the old Fort Ord military base into a Veterans cemetery or a horse racing track.  I was disturbed to go to the Monterey post office and find (presumably paid) representatives from the non-profit Secure The Promise, backed by those promoting building the Monterey Downs race-track, gathering signatures for their petition under what I believe was a false premise.  Their petition said "sign here to save 50,000 oak trees."  Nothing about a horse track and nothing about the alternative of a veterans cemetery, which is being promoted by the Fort Ord Access Alliance as well as local veterans.  I mentioned yesterday that both sides have hired paid staff to get signatures for their ballot to have it voted on so that we can have a special election which will cost voters about $1 million.  Please read any petition carefully before you sign it.  To get more information from the source, the Web sites of the two groups are

Please note that this blog reflects my personal opinion and may or may not reflect the opinion of Hands to Help Seniors and the individual members comprising the Board of Governors.

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View From A Non-Profit Serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Gonzalez, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, Seaside And Soledad California

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend.  I've personally served in the military and have a number of family members who are serving their country or have served their country so the holiday means a lot to me.  It's been sad to see many of these men and women who have been deployed  overseas to come back to find their own country in a shambles, not from war, but from the recession.  It's been hard for them to find jobs, many of their spouses are out of work and times are tough.  If that isn't enough, the Veteran's Administration has an unprecedented disability claims backlog, so many of these heroes are waiting months, sometimes more than a year, to get the benefits that they deserve.  I own a company called Family inHome Caregiving which takes Veteran's Insurance for caregiving service and I can tell you the red tape is unbelievable, both for the Veteran to get approved for benefits and for the vendor (me!) to get paid.  It's unfortunate that against this backdrop, Monterey County Residents are in the midst of a big battle over a parcel of land on the old Fort Ord site.  They have been trying to build a cemetery for Veterans there for years, and it's a perfect place for it.  About 20,000 people have signed a petition sponsored by the Fort Ord Access Alliance to turn a portion of 540 acres of the old military base into a final resting place for Veterans and leaving the remainder undeveloped.  The state has already approved an adjacent endowment parcel next to the 540 acres ensuring there will be funding for upkeep of the cemetery.   However, another group (Secure The Promise) has emerged and obtained more than 3,000 signatures arguing that the cemetery land should be open for development.  Secure The Promise is being run by backers of Monterey Downs, a proposed equestrian-themed part that includes a horse racing track.  Both groups are trying to get enough signatures to have it voted on during a special election which will cost voters about $1 million.  The special election takes the control of the land out of the Fort Ord Resuse Authority, which was supposed to decide its future.  Please read any petition carefully before you sign it.  Both sides have hired temporary employees to get more signatures and these workers may not be well informed about what they are trying to get you to sign.   To get more information from the source, the Web sites of the two groups are www.fortordacess.org and securethepromise.org.

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View From A Non-Profit Serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Gonzalez, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, Seaside And Soledad California

The long drama about the Internal Revenue Service's (IRS) practice of targeting a number of political groups to challenge their non-profit status continues to be front page news.  The latest nugget to surface is the revelation that senior IRS officials didn't disclose the fact that they were aware of the improper practice to the Obama administration until April, although top Treasury Department officials knew about it  in June of 2012.  The fact that it has only been disclosed to the public and Congress recently has led some to believe that the Obama administration knew about the problem during last year's Presidential elections, something they deny.  The practice is so serious it is now believed it could result in criminal charges against some IRS employees and it has already resulted in the resignation of the head of the IRS.  Although there has been no evidence of any connection to Obama himself, of course there is finger pointing in Washington D.C. and the President did reveal that on April 24 his chief of staff Denis McDonough was briefed on the investigation, but he said that he wasn't told until mid-May.  In addition, the former head of the IRS (Stephen T. Miller) was called to testify before Congress about how this could have happened, but didn't give answers which satisfied them.  Further casting embarrassment on one of the most powerful institutions in the United States, Lois Lerner, IRS Director of exempt organizations, was called before a House Committee on 5/23 and said she did nothing wrong and then enacted her Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate herself and refused to testify.  What's most disturbing about the incident is that the IRS is supposed to be non-partisan and yet it was asking questions of potential non-profits they thought had Republican leanings, and these were definitely questions that they weren't allowed to ask.  This included the names of donors, times and location of group activities, copies of their newsletters, whether any of the officers had plans to run for public office and the contents of speeches and the names of speakers at their non-profit forums.  Some groups reportedly had their personal tax returns audited after being listed as an officer of one of the more than 400 non-profits targeted.  This is very sad.  It's extremely generous of members of the community to give their time and efforts to serving on non-profit boards, and this could cause many to pause and wonder why it is worth the hassle of being a potential audit target of the IRS.  This scandal will be hard to put behind us.

Please note that this blog reflects my personal opinion and may or may not reflect the opinion of Hands to Help Seniors and the individual members comprising the Board of Governors.

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View From A Non-Profit Serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Gonzalez, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, Seaside And Soledad California

Non-profits have been having a difficult time recently in part due to recent tax-law changes which will limit the amount of money the wealthiest can give away to charity tax free.  It was gratifying to read that a managing director at Morgan Stanley issued a challenge to his colleagues and friends to give.  "If you give what I consider an acceptable speech, I will put $5,000 in the fund," Daniel Toscano said at a fundraiser for skin cancer research in New York.  Last year, the inaugural event raised $925K with tickets sold at $300 each and quite a bit raised via private auction and donations.  In just its second year, the event pulled in a whopping $1.2 million.  At Hands to Help Seniors, we are in the process of putting together our second annual fundraising event at Bernardus Lodge in Carmel Valley on September 19.  We don't have quite as lofty a goal as this, but it's a wonderful venue with great food and it's for a great cause.  We hope to see you there.  As always, we continue to strive to help as many seniors as we can stay healthy in their own homes and remain independent.  If you would like to help us with what we think is a noble goal in these difficult financial times for retirees, please click on the donate button above.

Please note that this blog reflects my personal opinion and may or may not reflect the opinion of Hands to Help Seniors and the individual members comprising the Board of Governors. 

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