STAFF REFLECTIONS

It's Time to Make a Differencer

n this upcoming election year, it is imperative
that the needs of Senior Adults be part of our
advocacy goals for shaping national policies.
Every morning, an elderly person wakes up in
substandard housing. Every month, someone's
grandmother wonders if her supplemental security
income check (SSI) will cover all her food, shelter
and medication needs. Every year, a golden-
anniversary couple struggles with the cost of long-
term health care. The effectiveness of our American
system has always been that when a problem is

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Every month, someone's grandmother
wonders if her supplemental
security income check (SSI)
will cover all her food, shelter
and medication needs. Every year, a
golden-anniversary couple struggles
with the cost of long-term health care.

discerned, people pull together to solve it. This is
the year to put our voices together and urge the
allocation of public benefits and services that will
move our services to the aged into the twenty-first
century. We have to tell our legislators; city, state
and national leaders, they must remember the
builders of the world we live in.

What do America's elderly need?

Affordable Housing:

The landmark 1990 National Affordable Housing Act
which authorized, among other things, revised
Section 202 housing, expires in 1992. Full funding
for this and the other programs and services
included in the act needs to be continued.
Significant changes to federal elderly housing
programs were made but they were not enough.

A. Milner, MSW
dm inistrator, Teitel Federation Apartments
Administrator,

What Can You Do?

America's elderly need the continuation of
current programs and the creation of new
ones to provide affordable housing for all
who need it.

Supportive Services:

There is a critical need to facilitate options for
supportive services to assist older residents in
elderly housing, particularly frail residents who
want to remain in their own homes. America's
elderly need programs and options to link
supportive services with elderly housing
through the use of Service Coordinators who
should be funded as part of a project's
operations.

Help in financing long-term care:

There is need for the establishment of a public/
private sector partnership in financing long-term
care services as an integral component of any
proposal for national health care reform. Public
sector coverage should include, at a
minimum, federal insurance for those who
cannot obtain private coverage due to
economic constraints or health status and
catastrophic protection for all individuals.

This is the year to put our voices
together and urge the allocation of
public benefits and services that
will move our services to the aged
into the twenty-first century.

1. Write your Representative and Senator asking
them to support legislation that guarantees
affordable housing for all Americans.
2. Write the governor, national and state
Representatives and Senators asking them to
reform the Medicaid program to provide
adequate payment for long-term care services.
3. Notify Secretary of HUD, Jack Kemp, that a
national lottery allocating service coordinator
funds to only four percent (4%) or
approximately 100 out of the over 4,000 eligible
Section 202 projects is not reasonable.
4. Write to The Honorable Gerald Kleczka, US
House of Representatives, Washington, DC
20515, requesting that the language on service
coordinators in his bill, H.R. 4435, be made very
explicit — that the Secretary "shall" rather than
"may" adjust for the cost of a management staff
member to coordinate the provision of services
— for as currently worded, this bill provides
room for inaction by HUD which has opposed
the provision of service coordinators for elderly
housing in the past.
5. Encourage public and private sectors, such as
your health insurance carrier, to work together
to develop innovative financing and delivery
alternatives for long-term care.
6. If you are too busy to write, call your legislator's
office to clarify your position (s) . Arrange call-in
days with your friends. Everyone calls on the
same day to support or oppose an issue,
underscoring the issue's magnitude.

* Material for this article was gleaned from:
GRA Network News, Grass Roots Action Network, American Association of
Homes for the Aging, Vol. 3 No. 1, Spring 1992.

Housing Bulletin, American Association of Homes for the Aging,
April 9, 1992.

To honor their former
Secretary, Frieda Barris,
the residents at Hechtman
purchased a Seder Plate
and kiddush cup in her
memory.

This year participants in the Tax Assist
Program were (I to r) Jeff Lopatin, Cindy
Schwartz, Lou Elkus, Elliot Ring, Dan
Hersch, and John Rofel.

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