Make sure you can get there from here

A service and support program is only as good as the ability to access it. This concern was raised at the January 16 meeting of the Make It Work Milwaukee Coalition of health and human service providers. Cutting funding for intake and other staff—or not increase staff along with increasing caseloads—can put people in jeopardy. It also can waste the money poured into the program itself.

The Milwaukee County Department on Aging has built some economic support positions into its own budget to make sure that older adults get into and through “the system” without the delays and frustrations that others may encounter.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial cartoonist Stuart Carlson weighed in on the subject with this cartoon January 15. We’d love to hear from you about your solutions to intake and access problems you’ve encountered!

Image and reality

I've been doing a lot of research in preparation for the Milwaukee Aging Consortium's Expanding Housing Options Issues in Aging Summit tomorrow morning, February 2, at the Italian Community Center.

And I'm pretty sure that the ads we always see of a handsome silver-haired couple in their spacious downtown or suburban condo/senior apartments don't represent the average situation at all.

In 2004, the Milwaukee County Department on Aging and E jj Olson & Associates created the second edition of The Face of Aging in Milwaukee County. You can find versions on this page.

Looking through the glass of statistics at how the 65+ group lives in Milwaukee County:

Only 5% live in nursing homes.
Nearly a quarter of housing units have at least one person age 65 and older.
One third of people in this age group live alone.
Three out of four who live alone are women.
People of color are significantly less likely to live alone than whites.
Forty percent have disabilities. This is higher than in the rest of the state.

Alone and female: it's a big group. Anybody building for them?