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“Our Turn”

T

hank you to the Detroit Jewish
News and to our counterparts
at Jewish Senior Life (JSL) for
beginning the conver-
sation about the 2018
Jewish Population
Study’s meaning
for the local Jewish
human service agen-
cies and funders that
help older adults and
Suzan Folbe
their loved ones (Nov.
Curhan
15 and Dec. 6 issues).
There aren’t easy
answers but hopefully
conversation will get
us closer.
An important part
of this discussion is
the work of Jewish
Perry Ohren
Family Service (JFS).
Many community
members don’t realize that more than
half of the total service provision
that JFS provides is directed toward
helping older adults. Ninety-five per-
cent of the older adult services JFS
provides are to help people to age in
place in their single-family homes,
apartments and condominiums.
Once someone is in an “institu-
tionalized” setting (whether Jewish
or not) they are fairly well “tucked-
in” and usually no longer needing
JFS’ aging-in-place help. Having writ-
ten that, once someone is at Meer or
All Seasons or wherever, he can and
sometimes does get help from JFS.
According to all the studies out
there, an overwhelming majority of
older adults want to and will stay
in their homes. Therefore, as older
adults live longer in their homes,
become frailer and are increasingly
socially isolated, more and more help
will be needed in our communities
for these friends, neighbors and rel-
atives.
Let us be clear, housing, like that
available at JSL, as well as increas-
ingly popping up all over our com-
munity, is an essential part of the
equation. But bricks-and-mortar
congregate settings are just one piece
of the puzzle.
JFS has developed its aging in place
muscle over its 90-year existence and

really ramped it up over the last 15
years. We help people access a variety
of services, including:
• Geriatric care management
• Door through door
transportation
• Home care
• Assistive technology
• Friendly visitors
• Emergency financial assistance
• Home-based psychotherapy
• Kosher Meals on Wheels (in
partnership with National
Council of Jewish Women and
JSL)
• Holocaust survivor services
• Mind University mind aerobics
(in partnership with JVS Human
Services)
JFS is able to provide this
help because of funders like the
Federation, the Jewish Fund, the
Kahn Foundation, the Applebaum
Family Foundation and so many
others. The breadth and depth of the
help JFS provides to older adults to
age in place during the last full year
is illustrated by:
• Almost 2,000 total older adults
were helped to age in place
• 273 older adults received assistive
technology, making it easier for them
to get help if needed
• 592 Holocaust survivors were
helped to age with dignity and
respect
• 119,212 hours of home care were
provided
• 28,000 door-to-door rides were
provided to get older adults to essen-
tial appointments
On the issue of NORCs (naturally
occurring retirement communities),
a NORC is a population phenome-
non. They naturally occur usually
decades after someone moves into
a home, expecting simply to raise
children there. Time moves on and
the kids move out and grandkids are
now on the scene and the bedroom
is on the second floor and aging in
place is happening all over the same
neighborhood with lots of older
adults. NORCs don’t naturally have
supportive service programs per se,
but they certainly cry out for them.
The Detroit Jewish community has

continued on page 10

8

December 27 • 2018

jn

responsibilities of the Post-Age Age.
“Young” people deserve real-time
agency for issues that affect them.
Parkland students didn’t need to be
old enough to vote to experience the
devastating effects of gun violence or
advocate for common-sense reforms.
Adults will change jobs 10-15 times
over their careers, during which near-
ly half of all jobs will be vulnerable
to automation. Judge not a colleague
or competitor by her age, lest ye be
judged (by robots).
And mutual respect — the wisdom
and patience to know you can learn
from anyone, irrespective of age or
station in life — is a better way than
gray to ensure respect for our elders.
How, then, to navigate the Post-Age
Age without the historical indica-
tors of music volume, shoe fasteners
(Velcro, laces, unlaced, loafers, slip-
pers, gripper socks) and s’more or less
chocolate?
The method to my madness for an
age without age: Kidulting.
Kidulting is a way to curate the
unironic joys of (what we once called)
childhood, the productive discomfort
of engaging in (what will hopefully
persist as) society and the calm of
reflecting on cumulative experiences,
with or without a rocking chair.
My kidulting involves:
• T-shirts with more characters but
fewer stains.
• Maintaining a public policy inter-
est in state governments while making
peace with the fact that I never mem-
orized the state capitals.

Greenberg’s View

• Bringing my (of age) nephews
to hear Slizz rock out at the Old
Miami and being neither surprised
nor embarrassed when my parents
showed up.
• Liking college sports rivalries —
and loving college sports mascots —
without overlooking the cartel-style
way in which the NCAA exploits
athletes.
• Never turning down food, be it
exotic fare that will challenge my pal-
ate or surplus Halloween candy.
• Talking to strangers’ dogs.
• Riding bikes with my kids and
being serious when I instruct them to
wear a helmet and eat my dust.
Some of the finest kidulting I’ve
ever seen played out over the last cou-
ple weeks in Huntington Woods. Drag
Queen Story Time, a cherished public
library program, already blended the
ageless qualities of inclusion, positive
self-image and storytelling.
When an outgoing city commis-
sioner invited MassResistance, a
violent out-of-state hate group, to
fight Drag Queen Story Time, the
community showed them what mass
resistance really looks like.
Some 300 residents and allies filled
the ad hoc city hall (rec center gym)
to share on the record the personal,
social, legal, ethical, local, universal,
scientific and psychological bases for
creating a space where everyone on
the kidult continuum can safely say, to
borrow from next month’s title, “I like
me just the way I am!” ■

