MARYSVILLE — As a result of state budget cuts, the ElderHealth adult day health center in Marysville will be discontinuing its services to participants who live in adult family homes, starting July 1.

In the last legislative session, funding for adult day health center care was cut by 70 percent, and Kristin Ott, north region manager for ElderHealth in Snohomish County, noted that approximately 90 clients are currently enrolled in the program at the Marysville center, of which approximately 40 will not be able to return after June 30.

“We’ve tried to educate the state legislature, but a lot of them think that people who live in adult family homes are being taken care of by the state already,” Ott said. “Adult family homes are okay, but their populations are among the most frail and at-risk. Our workers maintain their health, through nursing and rehabilitation, and to have those services taken away would be devastating.”

Those services include diabetes monitoring, foot care, blood pressure checks, scheduled medication, tube-feeding and ambulatory safety assessments, the latter of which Ott deemed especially important.

“The risk of falling is a huge issue,” Ott said. “We work on their balance and cognitive skills, and do group activities.”

Ott explained that part of the point of adult day health center care is to help program participants avoid the need for more intense, and expensive, medical treatment, through preventive care that she estimated costs the state an average of $56 a day per person, as opposed to acute care that she estimated can, in some cases, cost close to $70,000 a year per person.

Landy Cole has been coming to the ElderHealth adult day health center in Marysville for the past eight years. He’s transported from his adult family home in Everett, and receives everything from foot and nail care to occupational therapy, but he treasures the social aspect of the center the most, and he knows exactly where he would have been without it.

“I’d be a drunk,” said Cole, a Vietnam veteran and former construction contractor. “I was a drunk. Because of this program, I haven’t had a drink in seven years. I’ve made many, many friendships here.”

Like Cole, Jon Carlson stands to lose access to the ElderHealth adult day health center in Marysville after the end of June. Unlike Cole, Carlson has only been receiving transportation to the center from his adult family home, in Lynnwood, since August of last year, but he appreciates the social aspect of the program just as much, if not more.

“I come here five days a week,” said Carlson, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and sleep apnea, but is middle-aged rather than elderly. “Where I live, they’re all nice people, but they’re all old, and it’s boring, because there’s nothing to do there.”

Carlson joined Cole in praising Mo Pocha, assistant site manager of the ElderHealth adult day health center in Marysville, along with her workers, for their proactive attentiveness to the needs of the program’s participants.

“They’re always trying to help everyone out,” Carlson said. “Whatever you want, they’re just right there. I like the exercise, physical and mental. It gives me something to do, and keeps me out of trouble,” he laughed.

Cole agreed with Carlson that this program is vitally important, to both them and other participants.

“I used to build big houses and big offices in Seattle, but that was years ago,” Cole said. “That life doesn’t exist for me anymore. This program is key to my life now.”

“The people who are in charge need to come here and look at this program,” Carlson said. “They need to see how their actions affect the human beings here, and see how we’re doing.”

The ElderHealth adult day health center in Marysville is located at 4312 84th St. NE, in St. Philip’s Episcopal Church.