Senior services feeling the pinch

If every other face on Coeur d’Alene’s streets seems to belong to a grandparent, you’re not imagining anything.

The senior population – people older than 59 – has exploded 43 percent in Idaho’s five northern counties since the 1990 census, adding 10,110 senior residents to North Idaho’s tax rolls. The growth rate is the fifth-fastest in the nation, and it’s forcing senior citizens from the Canadian border to the southern end of the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation to wait for home-delivered meals, help with care and assessments of their needs.

“We started to sense the problem before the census came out in 2002,” says Pearl Bouchard, director of the state’s Aging and Adult Services of North Idaho. “When we saw the numbers, we knew it was a bigger problem than we thought.”

The 2000 census told Bouchard that the number of people 55 to 59 years old grew by nearly 90 percent in Bonner County in the past decade. Kootenai County’s same age group was second with an 82 percent growth spurt. The population older than age 74 increased the most in Kootenai County _ by about 65 percent. The 60 to 74 age group grew most in Benewah County – by 38 percent – edging out Kootenai County, where the growth rate for that group was about 34 percent.

What hasn’t grown significantly in the same period is the amount of tax money supporting senior services. Aging and Adult Services received $1.6 million in 1999, 26 percent of that in local money. This year, the budget is $1.9 million with 23 percent of that being local money.

“The increase is mostly in federal money and most of that is earmarked,” Bouchard says. “So we’ve begun to document the need with waiting lists.”

Her waiting list from April 1, 2003, to March 30, 2004, shows 808 seniors throughout the Panhandle waited up to 200 days for someone to help them bathe, clean their homes or offer them a break from caring for another senior. They waited the longest for visits from a case manager. When a senior requests help from the agency, a case manager starts the process by visiting and assessing the needs.

Today, 121 people are on the list.

Waiting lists are only part of Bouchard’s plan to catch up with the Panhandle’s senior growth and control the problems it has caused. She’s scheduled public meetings in each county to hear from seniors. She has met with the Idaho Commission on Aging. Now she’s recruiting volunteers to expand the work force delivering services to seniors.

She needs volunteers to help seniors through the paperwork required for services and people to make and deliver meals, among other jobs.

“The secret to longevity is to stay busy in the community,” says Barbara Lund, a VISTA volunteer for the agency. Lund takes her message to community groups, hoping to spark volunteering interest in the youngest seniors – the 55-59 age group. Last year, the agency signed up 138 new volunteers.

“We can do better,” Bouchard says. She’s asked the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) to recruit as many volunteers as possible.

Brenda Henkers, 78, volunteers in the agency’s office. She began a decade ago after her husband died and now is vital to the operation. Her volunteer work frees other workers to deliver services seniors need.

“It keeps my mind occupied and I’m back in the swing of things in the business world,” Henkers says. Before she retired, she worked as a legal secretary. “I don’t understand why people don’t volunteer, particularly if they’re on their own. It keeps me uplifted.”

Jim Erlanger, 65, leads Habitat for Humanity of North Idaho and drives seniors without transportation to appointments. Both are volunteer positions and keep him busier than when he worked full time.

“I probably never felt as positive or self-confident as I do now,” Erlanger says. “Once you start satisfying the needs of other people, you become important to them. No matter where I go I get pats on the back. Is this supposed to make me feel bad?”

Earlier this month, Bouchard shared her waiting list with the Idaho Commission on Aging. She pointed out that 388 seniors in the Panhandle waited an average of 20 days last year to see one of the agency’s five case managers. They could receive no services until a case manager evaluated their situation. Bouchard asked the commission for money to hire one more full-time case manager.

She also asked for help with adult protection. When police receive a report about elder abuse, her agency has 72 hours to begin an investigation to determine if law enforcement should be involved. In 2000, her agency investigated 352 reports. Last year, it investigated 494 reports and 60 were turned over to police.

Now, one investigator serves the entire Panhandle. To meet the 72-hour response requirement, Bouchard often reassigns case managers as investigators and then case management suffers.

Bouchard also asked for more money for home-delivered meals. In 2000, 42,221 meals were delivered to Panhandle seniors. That number rose to 50,849 last year. Her budget hasn’t increased enough to cover the additional demand for meals plus the higher cost of food and gas, she says.

“One senior center cut its meal service to one a week because of meal costs,” Lund says.

The commission agreed to include Bouchard’s needs in the budget request it will send to Gov. Dirk Kempthorne next year.

Next month, Bouchard will meet with seniors in each of the five counties to collect information on how the population burst is affecting them. Each county has a senior council that meets twice a year with the public, county commissioners and service providers to discuss senior issues. Those meetings start in Shoshone County on Wednesday at 10 a.m. in the Silver Valley Senior Center. Kootenai County’s is at 9 a.m., Sept. 29, in the Aging and Adult Services conference room.

Bouchard wants to hear how businesses and developers can better meet senior needs, how to reach volunteers, what roads are too dangerous for seniors to drive on and more. The agency can’t fix some lingering issues that plague seniors, such as Medicare and transportation.

“We want to be able to keep serving seniors,” Bouchard says. “And to do that, we need help.”

For information on the September meetings, call (208) 667-3179.