The state House Human Services Committee today advanced a bill that would allow community care foster homes to take in more than one private-pay client.

Should Senate Bill 190 SD1 become law, it would reunite a Big Island couple whose plight helped lead to the bill's introduction.

Eighty-nine-year-old Sidney Kaide of Hilo lives in a community care foster home.

His 87-year-old wife Terry does, too.

But because of state law, the Kaides — married for 63 years — haven't been able to live together the last two years.

Sidney lives in a home in Kaumana, Terry lives in a facility in Papaikou.

Today, Terry Kaide and her daughters, Charlotte Kaide and Gale Sakaguchi, were at the state Capitol to urge representatives to vote in favor of SB190 SD1.

Community care foster homes like the ones the Kaides live in can take in up to three patients and are regulated by the state Department of Human Services.

Because they are intended to service low-income Medicaid recipients, the state limits them to one private-pay client each.

The Kaides do not require government assistance, which means a community care foster home can't take both of them in without violating the law.

They have requested a waiver to the regulation, but have been turned down three times.

The bill allows DHS to oversee a two-year demonstration project that would permit two private-pay individuals to live in the same community care foster family home.

Sidney Kaide has cancer and is bedridden. His family says they hope the bill becomes law before it is too late.