Old and poor: An especially bad combination in this Arizona county

[Liberal_in_LA]

When 79-year-old Delilah Zipse slipped and fell in her trailer home, she didn’t call anyone.

Splayed on her bathroom floor, she couldn’t reach the phone. But even after more than an hour passed and she managed to prop herself up against the toilet, she decided not to bother any of her neighbors.

They had their own problems. Jim had also taken some falls. Reba was going blind. Dick recently developed asthma.

“We’re left out in no-man’s land,” said Zipse, who eventually dragged her badly bruised body back to her favorite chair and turned on the television. “There’s nobody here and nobody coming.”

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In other Arizona counties, they would enjoy services including subsidized housing, food deliveries, rides to medical appointments and basic nursing care not covered by Medicare.

But in La Paz, they are largely left to fend for themselves. They live in nearly abandoned communities accessible only by dirt roads, places with names like Bouse, Utting and Hope that on some maps are labeled as ghost towns.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ff-arizona-seniors-snap-story.html

[LongtimeAZDem]

1. It's pretty grim there; they should never have voted to separate (nt)