Sierra Services for the Blind, About Us

Sierra Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired
offers full services, at no charge, to clients in the foothill communities of Nevada and Placer Counties and beyond.
We help blind and visually impaired individuals stay in their homes and out of institutions.

How does Sierra Services for the Blind differ from other organizations for the blind, and from other organizations serving the disabled community?

First, blindness is a unique disability. Restoration or improvement of vision by modern surgery—corneal transplants, lens replacement, and laser surgery—is common. However, for other causes of blindness, beyond magnification in the early stages, there is no mechanical fix. Blind individuals cannot use a prosthesis, a wheelchair, have a car modified to accommodate a need, or use any of the other devices used to accommodate to a disability as described in the Americans with Disabilities Act. In fact, the ADA deals separately with blindness and can only require, "reasonable accommodation."

This is why in larger population centers there is a separate agency just for the blind, an agency which does not claim or attempt to serve all disabilities. National organizations such as Lighthouse for the Blind, the Braille Institute, the National Federation of the Blind, and the American Federation of the Blind operate these centers. The few organizations operating dog training centers, similarly operate in major population centers. A federal study done by the New York office of the Lighthouse for the Blind found Sierra Services for the Blind is the only agency in the nation serving exclusively a rural community. No other agency offers the extensive variety of transportational, classroom, and in home services provided by Sierra Services for the Blind.

Second, the nature of the community and the needs of a predominately elderly clientele make it impractical to use service techniques used for younger blind in higher density communities. Center based programs found in cities are based on attending a class for a finite period of time where the clients are exposed to a curriculum based on necessary skills to accommodate to blindness in the cities is offered.

In a rural community with a large percentage of retirees, the needs of individual clients vary widely. They are not suddenly blind. They require an increasing amount of training and assistance as they lose vision gradually. Center-based programs do not work because the required transportation system is missing. And simply stated, you don't have to teach them how to cook for themselves, just how to do it a new way. For residents of a rural community, the loss of the ability to drive for an individual living alone can be a devastating event, which for the blind requires immediate support. This is especially true when both members of a household lose this ability. Sierra Services for the Blind provides necessary transportation to medical appointments, including necessary escorted transportation to to a pharmacy for required prescriptions.

Departments of Rehabilitation are geared to retrain toward employment. Except for the blind, they are successful. Blind seniors are usually not able to find employment; they are simply trying to forestall institutionalization at public expense. Although they represent 5% of the senior population, they are 48% of those in long term care institutions.

Third, seniors tend to congregate in rural communities for three reasons. They retire there for a more relaxed lifestyle. Some arrive with their children when the children retire and bring them along. Or, they are remain behind when the younger population has to leave the area to find work. As a group, seniors in rural communities do not seek services from program-based agencies since these static programs do not fit their ever changing individual needs. Simply, it is for Sierra Services for the Blind to fill these needs as they occur.

The financial cost to the public for the institutionalization of senior blind individuals is measured in billions of dollars and will grow dramatically as society ages. As is often the case in national trends, this problem rises in rural America first. When it comes home to the cities, it is often too late to stem the tide, and far too expensive to accommodate. Further, this does not address the cost in human terms. This elderly generation wants a hand, not a handout. What we do now not only effects seniors left in institutional darkness, it effects younger generations knowing it is likely to be their future as they age.