A drive is being held to boost state funding for the visually impaired.

  • Drive held to boost blind services state funding 
  • More people becoming visually impaired; more money needed

Florida’s division of blind services is in charge of getting specialized equipment and therapy to the people who need it.

From teach braille to the young and elderly, to connecting them with the latest and greatest gear, blind services help make it happen by working with local non-profits to make an isolating experience bearable.

While blind services remains just two-tenths of one percent of the entire Florida education budget, demand is skyrocketing.

“We have—I don’t have specific numbers—but so many more senior citizens who are visually impaired coming our doors, requesting services. And, you know, I just got twenty new clients yesterday,” Alexis Read, a Blind Services Specialist, said.

As next year’s state budget begins to come into focus, so, too, is a mounting issue: the retirement of the baby boomers, who are developing vision problems.

In retirement-friendly Florida, that could pose some big complications—complications that require more funding.

As lawmakers return to Tallahassee for budget hearings this fall, they’re asking for at least a few more million dollars to help blind services.

Its money staffer Bertha Hyche predicts could yield a big return.

“It’s kind of cyclical: we’re given money to provide services to someone who’s going to get a job and then be a productive citizen in society and produce more money,” Hyche said.

Too many visually-impaired Floridians are quite literally “flying blind” without the support they need to make that productive future a reality.

The budget hearings are set to begin in September ahead of legislature’s annual session, which kicks off in January.