Posted on 06/02/2004 9:52:03 AM PDT by Phantom Lord
Project aims to identify needs of growing elderly population
Lillian Lee of East Point learned the hard way that going without needed home improvements is risky for the elderly.
Not long ago, the 79-year-old widow found herself stuck inside her bathtub for two hours when she was unable to pull herself out. If she'd had a safety bar installed the potentially dangerous incident could have been avoided.
"I turned this way and that way," Lee said. "I finally got out."
Lee's story is the kind the Atlanta Regional Commission wants to hear. ARC is gathering experiences from senior citizens like Lee to set up programs to help the elderly with home improvement and transportation needs.
The metro agency mostly known for its sermons against suburban sprawl has launched a four-year campaign on the needs of the elderly, particularly in East Point and the Toco Hill neighborhood of DeKalb County. The areas were chosen because of their large elderly populations.
In East Point, volunteers are conducting surveys and disseminating information on free public services available to seniors.
Armed with pink fact sheets, the yellow shirt-wearing senior volunteers want to know how seniors are getting around, what inconveniences them the most and what services they need to stay in their area.
The survey portion of the $2 million ARC project will end this month. The results will be used to develop a long-range plan to help seniors in other parts of metro Atlanta.
"The main goal is to reach people who are not connected to the system and find isolated seniors and get them engaged in any way we can," said Kathryn Lawler, project director of ARC's Aging Atlanta.
Senior citizens are good for the local economy, according to ARC. They have assets and tend to be stable homeowners. Few have school-age children, so they do not burden the school system. They tend to stay in one area for a long time and are home during the day, looking out for communities in an era of two breadwinners. The elderly also tend to volunteer more than other age groups.
ARC already has identified a couple of big issues: getting around and home repairs. By 2025, more than 1 million residents of metro Atlanta will be over age 65, the ARC estimates. Nearly 100,000 of them face difficulties in getting health care because they do not drive, the agency said.
One possible solution is a trial program that gives poor senior citizens an allowance of $100 to $200 a month. Their modes of transportation then will be analyzed.
"They can hire their daughter, they can hire their neighbor, they can take a taxi, they can use their MARTA card, and they can do whatever they want, and we'll be watching how they get around," said Lawler, of the Aging Atlanta project.
Such an effort is crucial, said Professor Frank Whittington, a sociology professor and director of the Gerontology Institute at Georgia State University. Whittington was a consultant to the ARC on the aging project.
"We are going to have to plan better than we have done for the future because our senior population is on the verge of exploding," Whittington said. "Where the funds are going to come from is uncertain."
Census data show 13 percent of East Point's senior citizens, who make up 8 percent of the city's 40,000 residents, live below the poverty level.
After paying for gas, phone, electricity, cable bills and groceries, Lillian Lee said she has little left each month from her Social Security check.
Lee, who has lived in East Point nearly all her life, said she can no longer afford to live in her home. "I don't have enough money to take care of everything."
Farther north in Toco Hill, life is more affluent, but the demographics on the elderly are similar: 16 percent of the population is 65 or older. Many are Jewish and live in old neighborhoods of 1950s ranch-style homes.
ARC has reached out to the Jewish Family & Career Services and the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, plus the DeKalb County government, in trying to create a place for seniors to meet during the day. The agency also has created "Safe Homes for Seniors," a home repair program that provides minor repairs for seniors at no cost.
Denise Solomon, a 70-year-old widow who lives in a small three-bedroom ranch off Briarcliff Road, cited two instances where she felt she was cheated when it came to repairs: $500 to upgrade the ceiling lights in a bathroom and $1,000 to fix a hole in the crawl-in basement.
Her elderly friend, Gloria Kersh, summed up the feeling.
"This is not a good city if you're old," the grandmother of four said. "If you get older, you need contact with people of your own age. To me it's important to sit and talk, to connect."
Yeah, but they vote so they will get their handouts as the politicians on both sides pander to them.
Wow, so my dad can actually pay me for taking care of him!?! What a thought!
Now if I could only get them to pay me for carting around my kids.
So, are they the gimme generation or the greatest generation?
Having personally been the "Gimme Generation" for the first 18 years or so of my life, I'm a little reluctant to cast that kind of aspersion at the generation that raised me.
Yeah for real...I have to wonder about people who think we owe nothing to our elders.
We, as in family members owe a great deal to our elders. I however do not owe your grandfather free home repairs or a MARTA pass. Just as you do not owe my child a free school lunch.
I owe everything to my parents, who raised me and paid my way through college. But I don't owe squat to "seniors," just because they're old.
I provide help to seniors. I let them hit from the yellow tees instead of the white or blue tees.
"Handling of the needs of the elderly should be strictly a FAMILY issue, not an issue for all of society. If you refuse to help out grandma, don't ask me to."
On the other hand ... I can't count how many times I see or read of wealthy old people on the golf course - cruising around the world for the third and fourth time - spending their kids' inheritances in numerous ways. *They* certainly aren't helping their same-age cohorts.
Nor are many particularly helping their children and grandchildren. When Grandma's hanging out at the pool in FL six months a year, blowing it all on plastic surgery instead of helping raise her grandchildren, is it any surprise that *some* 30- and 40-somethings aren't terribly sympathetic?
Social responsibility slices both ways.
Just keep reminding yourself that they're the generation who drasticly expanded the Big Government social welfare state.
"And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."-- Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, May 28, 1816
BWAAAAhahahaha!
MineralMan wrote:
Yes, it should be. However, many old people have no families, or their families are far away. The woman stuck in her bathtub cannot install a grab rail for herself, now can she?
Here's a good job for the local churches, I'd say. I know that if a neighbor of mine needed a grab rail in the bathroom, I'd be happy to buy one and install it for her.
And, since everyone's really my neighbor, I don't begrudge these folks their grab rail.
It takes a Village alert.
"I'm torn here. On one hand, yes, I feel sorry for the childless old people with no one to help them."
There's a simple answer, and it requires no government funding. Just look around you. Are there old people living nearby? Ask them if they need anything done in their homes. If so, do it for them. They're your neighbors.
As for the rich old people you're complaining about...they're not the ones being discussed, quite frankly. They can afford to have the bulb replaced in their ceiling light fixture. Your neighbor might be sitting in the dark.
We can say we're not responsible for these old people who aren't relatives, but I disagree. Maybe your neighbor is an old WWII vet who helped keep our nation safe and end the reign of Hitler. Maybe your old neighbor worked on the development of some antibiotic that saved your life.
In any case, we should be out there making sure that the old people around us are OK. It only takes a little time, and is more than worthwhile.
"Just keep reminding yourself that they're the generation who drasticly expanded the Big Government social welfare state."
Just keep in mind that they're the generation that fought Hitler, too.
Irrelevant, in the discussion of the state confiscating private money for public use. You, yourself, are living Jesus' instructions in exemplary fashion. Whether people follow that example set by Jesus or you or whomever, his teachings on this issue cannot be used to legitimize welfare statism.
"I think Jesus has something to say about helping those around us"
And you know this as a godless atheist? Why would you say this if you don't believe? What a hypocrite. Why don't you use another godless atheist for your words of wisdom?
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