BROKEN ARROW, Okla. -- Oklahoma's funding for senior and disabled people is expected to vanish, affecting thousands across the state.
This will be a huge challenge for assisted living facilities as lawmakers cut the ADvantage program.
Diakonos Senior Living has 26 residents under the ADvantage program across three facilities. On November 1st all of them received notices saying they'll be evicted in 30 days.
Barb Woodard was the first to join the ADvantage program. After ten years at Franciscan Villa, she said she can't imagine uprooting her life.
"I hate to lose this place. Because this has been my home for ten years. I've made a lot of friends, and buried a lot of friends from here," Woodard said.
Woodard plans to move out to the country with family if ADvantage is cut, but others say they have no funding or family to fall back on.
"I don't have any other options. I'm trying to be upbeat and positive but it's really hard right now," Patricia Allen said.
Allen said she's called senators herself, asking if they have an extra room she can stay in, or if they expect her to move out on the street.
"A lot of tears and a lot of stress just trying to think what's going to happen? And where am I gonna go? I started looking at the want ads and I kept crying and couldn't read them," Allen said.
The owner of Franciscan Villa said his staff will make sure every person that's evicted is accounted for and has a place to stay, even if that means relocating some to a nursing facility.
"This is all a byproduct of the legislature struggling to come to a budget resolution. I don't know the blame there. Whether it's Republican, Democrat... I don't care. I don't care. Fix the problem," Scott Pilgrim said.
In total there are about 200 ADvantage recipients living in assisted facilities across the state of Oklahoma. Thousands more receive nursing and nutrition care within their own homes.
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