PROVIDENCE — Meals on Wheels of Rhode Island and the Senior Agenda Coalition have scheduled a news conference for today to protest a 20-percent state budget cut to the meal-delivery program for the elderly who are homebound.

Sandy Centazzo, president and CEO of Meals on Wheels of Rhode Island, said the $100,700 cut in funding would mean that 120 fewer Rhode Islanders will get hot meals delivered to their homes so they can continue to live independently. If the money isn’t restored, many of these elderly people who live alone and can’t drive, shop or prepare meals for themselves may end up in nursing homes, said Centazzo.

This is the second straight year that the Rhode Island Meals on Wheels program has had funding cut. Last year, it sustained a 5-percent cut, according to Centazzo.

The news conference to call attention to the new cut is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. in the community room at the Charlesgate North Apartments, where many elderly live.

Currently, the Rhode Island Meals on Wheels program provides a hot lunch five days per week to 2,300 of the state’s elderly residents in apartment complexes and single- and multi-family houses as well as those who go to senior centers for their meals. A contingent of 1,200 volunteers delivers the meals, along with 17 paid drivers who have trucks equipped with ovens and refrigeration units.

But in the last two weeks alone, the waiting list for the state’s Meals on Wheels program has grown from 24 to 207, Centazzo said in an interview last Friday. “We get 45 to 55 referrals a week” from hospitals, doctors, family members, case managers and the clients themselves, she said.

To qualify for the program, one must be at least 60 years old and homebound. There are no income guidelines “because the government feels that nutrition is a staple of life,” said Centazzo. But with the state’s elderly population growing rapidly — according to the U.S. Census, Rhode Island ranks eighth in the country in terms of percentage of elderly 65 or older and the state’s over-85 population has increased 57 percent since 1990 — fewer of the elderly will be able to take advantage of the program unless additional funding is made available, she said.

Centazzo said Friday that one 84-year-old Providence man — a recent widower who has to use two canes to maneuver around his house — had to wait 41 days to get the meals he needed because of the wait list. The man, who lives alone, has a grandson, who flew in from California to help care for him temporarily. The man, who suffers from poor vision, has two bad knees but can’t have surgery because of a heart condition. He needs Meals on Wheels because he is unable to shop and cook for himself.

Centazzo said that although the state budget was enacted this summer she found out about the $100,700 budget cut about a month ago and that its impact “is severe and immediate … . In humane and quality-of-life terms, this is devastating. We know that some of those waiting will have to leave their homes to avoid malnutrition. Many seniors are often without a family or support system and may well end up in a nursing home,” she said.

Rhode Island’s Meals on Wheels program gets 37 percent of its funding from the federal government, about 32 percent from the state and the rest from private donations and the clients who are served by it.

tbreton@projo.com