Buses labeled “Adult Day Care” and some invigorating name like “Long Life” or “Forever Young” can often be seen on the streets of major American cities – New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami … own these vehicles, Russian-speaking immigrants call them “kindergartens” – in fact, these are daytime leisure centers for pensioners and disabled people. Most often they are contained by non-profit organizations of a medical or retirement profile.
They were nicknamed “kindergartens” by analogy with kindergartens: those who attend “kindergartens” spend the whole day there every day (some “kindergartens” work even on weekends), with medical assistance, two meals a day and a lot of all kinds of entertainment – excursions, lectures, physical education, watching films, concerts, shopping … All this is free for most clients, as well as transport: they will be taken away from home, taken to the “kindergarten”, and at the end of the day they will be taken home.
Medicaid pays for everything
For the elderly and people with disabilities, these centers are often paid for by the government’s Medicaid health insurance program. However, there are other sources of payment – for example, Active Day, which has 14 day centers in New Jersey, writes on its website:
“We can help you navigate a wide range of payment options so you can confidently decide to visit one of our centers … Payment options include private payment, long-term care insurance, Medicaid, and possible local grants. In addition to this, we also have access to the Alzheimer’s Disease Association grant. ”
To this list, you can add the payment of “kindergartens” at the expense of the United States Veterans Affairs Office. It is engaged in medical and social services for war veterans – from World War II to Afghan and Iraqi. Our, ex-Soviet war veterans remain outside the American guardianship of veterans, which, in general, is quite logical: people who shed blood for a certain state should be provided with everything they need from that state, and not another country in which they find themselves by the will of fate.
However, it is a sin for our old people in America to complain: even if they have never served in the American army and have not worked a day in the United States, they, in the absence of a livelihood (the rich are rare among our people), are paid poverty benefits, provided with medicine, food help, and the same “kindergartens” are free for them. Moreover, they are loved by them! And how can you not love free entertainment, medical services, food, and most importantly – communication with your peers who speak your native language? For many people, especially lonely people, “kindergartens” are grace sent from above, a window into the world, an incentive to continue life.
“I go to the kindergarten every day, and it keeps me in shape: in the morning I have to put myself in order, dress well. Then you come to a place where there are many of ours, Russian-speaking, and among them there are several with whom I have common interests. We communicate, share our thoughts and concerns, spend time together … And what would I do, sitting at home alone? ” – This is how the familiar Georgian Dali, who lived in New Jersey, said. Now she has already gone into another world, but thanks to the “kindergarten” she lived, despite many serious illnesses, up to 90 years.
Fun for immigrants
In the States, you can observe a paradoxical situation: there are a lot of “kindergartens” in big cities and suburbs, they are used by a lot of people, but there are few “real Americans” among their clients – immigrants from the republics of the former USSR, China, South Korea, Mexico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic prevail. Republics, Haiti … This is explained by differences in mentality: Americans differ from most other nations by their dislike of the state, mistrust of it, unwillingness to pay taxes to it and use any social assistance. Real Americans like to proudly tell others that they have never received unemployment, disability, or poverty benefits — this is considered civic prowess. People who were born and raised in America are brought up in this way – from preschool age they are taught to work hard, rely only on themselves and strive to become rich and famous. This is the historically worked out path to the “American Dream”.
According to the US National Center for Health Statistics, the number of kindergartens throughout America exceeds 4,600, the number of their clients is approaching 300,000. But the ethnic composition of the kindergarten clientele does not exist in the public domain. I can only assume offhand that out of this 300 thousand population, “ours” make up at least 20%, that is, about 60 thousand. There are three million Russian-speaking people in the United States – and these are only immigrants from the old RSFSR and modern Russia. It is difficult to say how many of them are old people and disabled people, potential clients of kindergartens, it is possible only by eye to estimate their share as quite large, especially in the last wave of emigration (from the 80s to our time). And it is obvious that mostly lonely people with psychological problems use the kindergartens. Visiting “kindergartens” prolongs life for many – any of our old people living overseas and using the “kindergarten” will tell you about this.
Daytime leisure centers are different, with some specializing in serving people with dementia, for example. “Kindergartens” have different working hours, a different set of services, different cost of service (sometimes it reaches $ 100 per day, or even more, but few who visit “kindergartens” pay out of their own pocket). Depending on the composition of the clientele, kindergarten can be bilingual or work in one language – for example, Brighton Beach in New York is unlikely to need any other language other than Russian. But if necessary, there will be no problems with bilingual personnel – there are many of them in America, with any language.
It is more difficult to obtain a license for a kindergarten as a private business and formalize its status as a non-profit organization (NPO) in order to have benefits from the state. As the owners of one “kindergarten” in the suburbs of Miami said, in order to obtain a license, they had to deal with the state and city authorities, and this process took a year. A complete refurbishment of the premises was required to make everything suitable for people with disabilities.
It takes a lot of time – from six months to one and a half years – to process a payment through Medicaid for a stay in a daytime leisure center. But quite a few enterprising people from among our emigrants take up this business – although the content of the “kindergarten” is not a business in the full sense of the word. It is not for nothing that NPOs are called “non-profit organization” in English. literally translated – “non-profit organization”. If you successfully launch a kindergarten or, if you’re very lucky, create a whole system of kindergartens, then this business will feed its owners and those who work there, but there is no need to talk about any real profit.
Will kindergartens take root in Russia?
And what about Russia? There are also “kindergartens” in Russia, although they are rarely called that. The first service center for pensioners appeared in Russia back in 1989. Further, similar establishments began to open in different cities of the Russian Federation, they are invariably popular, but their number is growing very slowly. They say that the most “fruitful” year was 2015, when 58 leisure centers for pensioners were opened in the country, and now there are more than a hundred of them. I don’t know how much more, but even if we are talking about several hundred, it is not very impressive.
According to Rosstat, 46 million pensioners live in the country – this is almost every third Russian. If we add here 12 million people with disabilities (data from the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation), then we get more than a third of the population. If we, trying to calculate the potential clientele of Russian kindergartens, suppose that it is, say, only 3% of 58 million pensioners and disabled people, i.e. 1.74 million people, then there should be about 15 thousand leisure centers. Or am I methodologically wrong about something? Then let more qualified comrades from the departments dealing with this issue correct me.
Probably, there are few daytime leisure centers (often called CSOs – social service centers, in some places they are called clubs) in Russia, because they are financed from municipal funds. In Moscow, St. Petersburg and other large cities, such establishments have already spread quite well, and where “the chimney is lower and the smoke is thinner” are still rare.
I think Russia would benefit from a more intensive development of a network of centers that extend life and improve health. Indeed, both in terms of life expectancy and health of the population, Russia is not among the leading countries. The money invested in kindergartens could bring real returns. In any case, the American experience clearly demonstrates this.
New York.
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