Always the independent woman, Hazeline Heath didn't want to leave her home after her daughter grew concerned about her health.

She had always been active and loved to be around people. But her daughter, Alice Martin, was struck by her mother's weight loss and visible depression when she moved back to Charlotte in 2004. So she persuaded Heath to live with her in the Hickory Grove community.

Soon, Martin increased her volunteer work and couldn't leave Heath, now 96, at home alone.

She found Blessed Assurance Adult Day and Health Services Inc. in Matthews, one of 14 facilities in Mecklenburg County that provide day care for adults over 59.

She and her mother couldn't do without it now.

But a proposal in Gov. Bev Perdue's budget would take away about $1.1 million in funding in the State Adult Day Care Fund. Instead, the care would be paid for through Home and Community Care Block Grants - money that counties can use for in-demand services such as Meals on Wheels, adult day care and in-home care. Across North Carolina, such block grant programs typically have as many as 15,000 people on waiting lists.

"The reason it's cut out is that it was a duplication of services," said Chris Mackey, a Perdue spokeswoman.

However, moving the adult day care program to a list of many other services instead of having its own funding source means that it would be competing for money with programs that are already full and oversubscribed, social services officials said.

The loss of more than $1 million in the adult day care fund means that less money would be available to reimburse centers for the care of people who use them, said Michael Boles, director of adult day services at Resources for Seniors in Wake County.

3,500 people across N.C.

Adult day care centers provide protected daytime activities and fellowship to older people who for various reasons can't stay by themselves. The centers also allow caregivers, often adult children, to hold jobs and do myriad other tasks that would be next to impossible while looking after an older person with disabilities.

About 3,500 older people across the state make use of adult day care. Many have caregivers like Margaret Toman of Garner, 65, who lost her job last year and is looking for work while also looking out for her mother, 97-year-old Lou Longest.

"She's so representative of so many people," said Teresa Johnson, executive director of the North Carolina Adult Day Services Association. "We're really trying to mobilize family caregivers. They receive the service; they recognize the value of the service."

The proposed cuts would cripple Blessed Assurance, said Nate Huggins, its founder and executive director.

Nearly three-quarters of its operating costs come from county and state funding.

"It would directly impact not only the people who come here, but the caregivers," said Huggins, who has an MBA from Pfeiffer University and is a registered nurse. "If they don't come here, the caregiver stays home to take care of Mom. Consequently, the caregiver loses employment. The quality of life goes down. And we have a problem in the community ... because caregivers are ill-prepared or ill-skilled to meet the needs of an aging population."

The cuts, Alice Martin said, would be tragic.

"With the option of day care for elderly people, they'd be living longer and better lives - rather than sticking them in nursing homes," Martin said. "They're not just warehoused and pushed away. I don't think my mother would be here today if she'd been stuck in a nursing home."

Most adult day operations accept both private and tax-paid clients, and the mix helps make up for the relatively low state pay rates, said Gail Holden, director of adult services for Wake County Human Resources. Adult day care is a key element to keeping many older people out of long-term care, which is typically much more expensive to the resident, she said.

"Without this care, they'll wind up in a facility or they'll be at home alone," Holden said.

'Happy places'

Long-term residential care may be in the cards for many older adults if Perdue's budget passes as written. The GOP leadership has asked for deeper cuts as a means of dealing with the state's projected multi- billion-dollar budget gap.

"This one really worries me," said Holden, the Wake official. "The adult day care centers are just happy places. You can still live at home, you have peer interaction."

It worries Huggins of Blessed Assurance, too.

As people are encouraged to leave nursing homes if they can and find care from family members, the need for adult day care becomes more acute, he said.

"It would save money, but at the same time these people can't live independently at home and must have community support," Huggins said. "That's where adult day care comes in. And they're trying to cut our government support, too."

People need more care

Teresa Johnson, who leads the state's trade association for adult day care centers, says there are about 100 such centers in the state. Costs range from about $40 to $75 per day.

According to a 2010 study by the MetLife Foundation, the number of adult day care centers nationally has increased by 35 percent during an eight-year period.

Increasingly, centers are adopting the adult day health approach, in which clients have access to a limited amount of medical care. Such centers charge a little more than the once more common "social model."

"People are sicker and needing more care," Johnson said.

Adult day care has been good for Hazeline Heath and her daughter. Heath spends Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays at Blessed Assurance. On those days, a city bus picks her up at 8 a.m. and gets her home usually by 3:30 p.m.

After Heath got acclimated at the center, her daughter started to see dramatic improvement in her health.

"She liked getting into a routine: getting up in the morning, taking a bath and getting dressed," Martin said. "She's picked up weight. Her face has filled out. She looks cheerful, vibrant. They stimulate her in every way.

"I think it's criminal that the state is thinking about these cuts, when they ought to be thinking in terms of having more places like Blessed Assurance."