Drivers in decline: Shortage of volunteers complicates reaching health care and other necessities in rural America

"People who don’t have immediate access to transportation, especially in rural areas where public transit options are either limited or nonexistent," need help getting to health and other outside the home appointments, reports Christina Saint Louis of Kaiser Health News.

To answer this call, some non-profit organizations and charities reach out with volunteers to assist those who do not drive. "Several times a month, Jim Maybach drives 5 miles from his house in Hay Creek, Minnesota, toward the Mississippi. When he reaches Red Wing, a city of nearly 17,000 people, the 79-year-old retired engineer stops to pick up a senior whom he then delivers to an appointment, such as a dentist visit or an exercise class. When the appointment ends, Maybach is there to drive the person home. Maybach is unpaid, a volunteer among a cadre organized by Faith in Action in Red Wing, a nonprofit that relies on retirees to ferry residents to essential services," Saint Louis reports. 

Saint Louis cites a major obstacle that charities and volunteers face to simply give rides:

insufficient travel reimbursements under federal law. "Volunteers, like Maybach, are eligible for a reimbursement of 14 cents per mile, which generally doesn’t come close to covering the cost of gas and wear and tear on a vehicle. And while the Internal Revenue Service increased the business rate from 58.5 cents per mile to 62.5 cents per mile in June, it did not raise the charitable rate because it is under Congress’ purview and must be set by statute. The charitable rate was last changed in 1997."

Then there is the lack of volunteer numbers. Frank Douma, director of state and local policy and outreach for the Institute for Urban and Regional Infrastructure Finance at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, told Saint Louis, "When the baby boomers were retiring, they were driving people from the Silent Generation and the Greatest Generation, who were less numerous than baby boomers, so you had more people available to do the driving for fewer people . . . but now that the baby boomers are aging, those who may be most eligible to drive them are Gen X — and that’s a much smaller generation."