After White House Conference, Groups Focus on Ways to Help Older Americans

Delegates to the White House Conference on Aging, which took place last month, are pondering how to make sure the 50 resolutions that they adopted to guide national policy on older Americans have some impact.

The resolutions dealt with the major social and economic challenges that are facing the United States — and many charities — as the country’s older population grows. But President Bush’s decision to skip the conference limited its visibility and dampened the spirits of some delegates from nonprofit organizations.

“I was horrified,” says Nancy Zweibel, senior program officer at the Retirement Research Foundation, in Chicago. “It was the first time a President hasn’t attended in the history of the conference.”

Added Mary Ellen Kullman Courtright, vice president of the Archstone Foundation, in Long Beach, Calif.: “The work that needs to happen to prepare the country for the changes that we’re facing with the aging of the population really needs leadership from the top. The fact that we don’t have it, we’re going to have to work that much harder to push it forward.”

A White House spokeswoman declined to say why President Bush did not attend the conference, noting only that other administration officials, including Michael Leavitt, Secretary for Health and Human Services, and Claude Allen, assistant to the president for domestic policy, had been there.

400 Meetings

Delegates to the four-day White House Conference, the fifth of its kind and the first in a decade, were selected by governors, members of Congress, the National Congress of American Indians, and conference organizers.

They voted by ballot on 73 resolutions that were drafted by the conference’s policy committee based on suggestions from more than 400 meetings that took place across the country over 14 months, as well as written comments

The delegates then divided into workshops to figure out how to translate the 50 resolutions with the most votes into action.

The No. 1 resolution, with 1,061 votes, asked Congress to extend within six months the Older Americans Act — which provides money for the Meals on Wheels nutritional program and other services to help older people stay independent — and to increase the act’s budget. Most of the other top 10 resolutions called for improvements in health care for older people, including developing a comprehensive government-private strategy for long-term care and strengthening the Medicaid and Medicare systems.

A resolution proposing better medical care for older Americans suffering from mental illness and depression ranked No. 8, an outcome that thrilled Deborah DiGilio, chair of the National Coalition on Mental Health and Aging.

“Seventy-five percent of the delegates voted for mental health. I found it astounding,” she says. “It was like high fives all around.”

She says the coalition of about 50 mental-health and aging groups had worked for more than a year to raise awareness of the issue to ensure it was discussed at the conference.

Carol A. Farquhar, executive director of Grantmakers In Aging, in Dayton, Ohio, a delegate at the conference, says she was happy that transportation emerged as the No. 3 priority, noting that grant makers are becoming increasingly interested in finding new ways for older Americans to get around despite physical ailments.

Delegates who discussed the issue at the conference said public-transportation operators and local governments should participate in disaster-preparedness planning to evacuate older people who need help and that public spending on transportation for older people should be increased.

‘Get Involved’ Campaign

Another resolution, ranked No. 25, proposed a national strategy to promote volunteer work by “current and future seniors” — an issue of growing interest to nonprofit groups and foundations, which are hoping to tap into the energy and expertise of the huge wave of baby boomers who begin to turn 60 this month.

Workshop participants proposed that the president appoint a commission with broad representation to develop a blueprint for tapping into the “social capital” of baby boomers. They also proposed a national marketing campaign to encourage volunteering, a national online volunteer clearinghouse, a toll-free number (such as 211) to link people to local volunteer opportunities, and tax credits to encourage businesses to expand opportunities for employees to volunteer and to compensate people for the time and expenses they incur volunteering.

The Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency that operates several volunteer programs for older adults, unveiled a project at the conference that fits the spirit of those proposals. The “Get Involved” campaign, which debuts this month, will place television, radio, and print advertisements in both English and Spanish to encourage baby boomers to volunteer.

People can go online to http://www.getinvolved.gov or call (800) 424-8867 to search for volunteer opportunities by their ZIP codes and interests. The American Red Cross, Catholic Charities USA, Communities In Schools, and United Way of America are among 34 nonprofit groups that have agreed to promote the campaign through speeches, printed materials, and Web sites.

But Ms. Zweibel of the Retirement Research Foundation says she’s glad the top 10 resolutions focused mostly on getting help to older Americans who have financial or physical problems.

“Civic engagement is something that can take care of itself,” she says. “It will be driven by business, driven by the community.”

New Format

In addition to the President’s absence, the conference format was a sore point for some delegates. Unlike at previous White House conferences, delegates were unable to discuss or amend the draft resolutions from the floor. “It’s sort of demeaning to all of us not to be treated as individuals who have opinions,” says Bruce Reeves, president of the Washington State Senior Citizens’ Lobby, in Olympia.

Policy-committee members said they planned the new format so that delegates could spend time on ways to ensure the resolutions are actually put into practice, rather than on fine-tuning language.

Several delegates said it’s now important that advocates for older Americans work to keep the issues highlighted by the conference alive — by building coalitions and lobbying local, state, and Congressional representatives.

“If you approach this conference as a once-and-done event, it’s the wrong way to approach it,” says Arlene Lund, director of operating practices at the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley, in Bethlehem, Pa. She says the Pennsylvania delegation plans to reunite this month to discuss ways to take action on conference resolutions at the state and local level.

A fellow delegate, William Johnston-Walsh, deputy secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Aging, is organizing the meeting. He says there was little follow-up to the 1995 White House Conference on Aging, which he also attended, and he wants things to be different this time.

He notes that some proposals — for example, tax incentives for people who volunteer for charities — can be enacted at state or even county level.

Terry Kaelber, executive director of SAGE — Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders — in New York, says the Diversity in Aging Coalition, which was formed to ensure the White House Conference discussed problems affecting groups such as gays and ethnic minorities, will continue to monitor the work of the conference’s policy committee.

“The real proof of the pudding will be in the final report,” he says.

After further consultation with governors, the policy committee must submit a final report to the President and Congress by next June.

More information about the conference resolutions is available on the Web site of the conference, http://www.whcoa.gov.