Mr. MILLER. What is the estimated number of people who are eligible for that program?

Mr. AHRENS. You see, the entire population would be eligible, 517,000 people. The kind of difficulties we are running into, you sit down and you plan that there will be 55, 70 sites and this is how we will allocate them around the city to carry out the regulations, to put emphasis on minority poverty. You begin to open site 54, 55 and the registration just burgeons. You can't turn anyone away. They are all entitled to the program. You begin to delay opening the next site.

I wonder what our statistics will show about the mandate to give emphasis to certain groups in the population. The thing that frightens me is that I asked for statistics as I was leaving and found that our weekly average attendance the week of January 10 was 3,900. I am going to have to go back to the mayor pretty fast and say, you know, we have an additional 500,000 or 600,000 for the year, but I am almost up to 4,000 in January.

I am going to have to get more funds if we are going to have unlimited eligibility. The kind of words I hear this morning, that the Federal Government is wanting to back away from a commitment here is pretty sad news indeed, I assure you.

Mr. MILLER. How many were you feeding in September or October? Mr. AHRENS. It has been a steady increase, from 2,000 to 2,500. We were at the 3,000 level when I talked to the city council finance committee and that was on November 19.

We are also now oversubscribed on our home delivered meals. We allocated 150 people a day with the Federal money, with the city matching $125,000. The new $600,000 would enable us to add 40 more a day. We are up to 215 as I was leaving and that is sure to increase. The question came up on Monday, I sat for 3 hours with Gray Panthers in what they call an accountability section. They want to know already why is there a waiting list building on home delivered meals. We are going to have to find more money.

Mr. MILLER. Did the rapid increase in the feeding programs relate to the deteriorating economic situation?

Mr. AHRENS. Absolutely. In addition to the fact that we in Chicago have a pretty good program, we have been in it from the beginning. It took us 6 months to get the first site opened in 1968. The outreach required handbills and going door to door. The people now know about the program.

We have tried to keep the family style so that there are many sites but we don't like to go above 150, which we are now at at some sites. It has become very popular right across the board with the elderly. I would assume that there are probably some people who maybe could afford it and are there just because of the factors of isolation. which are very real and a way to find friends and access to other social services. We have a big problem to face here.'

I don't know what I will tell the elderly back in Chicago. I saw somebody carrying a sign not too long ago saying "Given that we are No. 151, are we the ones you are going to turn away?"

Well, no, the city of Chicago came up with some money. The mayor of Chicago does not like to turn anybody away. You know, somewhere along the line we have to get the Federal support that we need and as I mentioned, too, the State support because we are ready to go to the State legislature with proposals that the State of Illinois fund the

Illinois Department on Aging for considerably more money than just to access the Federal funds.

That is all they have ever done. The question is a little complicated at the moment. We have to review strategy because, first, we have to pass again some legislation on tax rebate which the Governor vetoed last week. When we attend to that we will go back to the other. Mr. MILLER. Thank you.

I would like to congratulate you for your frankness in regard to your objection to the use of language in a way which does not reflect the truth. I think this goes back again to a commitment by the Government when we talk about "such sums as may be necessary" when we know damn well that the moneys are never going to be appropriated. Also, I think you draw into very clear focus in the feeding program the limit that we face when we know the need is there. I guess it is their unwillingness to meet that need, not the inability to, the unwillingness of this Government to meet that need.

As you state, when you have funds for 3,000, you have a number out there the identical need, it draws us into a conflict that we are going to have to address, I think, very quickly in this program especially in light of the economic situation with the elderly.

Mr. AHRENS. I have a real feeling for the words, because they do have an impact back home. I objected as I said when I testified in here that this was not a volunteer program, these foster grandparents, these are low-income elderly that need the money and need the work.

Then I got faulted on a program audit back in Chicago because I didn't have the proper spirit of voluntarism, whatever that is. You know, words should not mask reality. They ought to help us get at the truth.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Mr. LEHMAN. I would like to ask another question.

Down in Miami we have a lot of these programs. In some of these programs many of the people pay all or part of their food cost. It kind of mixes the groups up.

How are you doing with that kind of situation?

Mr. AHRENS. We are doing pretty good. One of the things we have been able to build is a pretty good information system in Chicago. The overwhelming majority of people pay something. I think it was only 3 percent of our participants who were paying nothing at all.

The larger percentage, and I am sorry I did not bring the lastest monthly figures, were paying 50 cents, another group at 75 cents and another group at the $1 level.

The older people are proud and independent. They are not asking for a free ride. They are asking for such help so that they can stay independent and stay productive.

Mr. LEHMAN. Mr. Beard.

Mr. BEARD. You know it is a tremendous education to hear every speaker bring the problems out. To become a senior citizen today is like a ball rolling up the hill. When you get at the top you should be in cutopia. But you come sliding down and you are a second-class citizen.

The leadership has to come from the Congress. From everything I have heard here the President is interested in cutting this, cutting that, cutting the programs right across the board for the elderly.

I just hope to God that this Congress here takes the bull by the horns and really leads. There are over 1 million elderly Americans in this country. It is a disgrace. When you look at some of the countries around the world that have a lot less than we do, they have a high respect for the elderly. I have heard statements today that the cities it is the Federal Government's responsibility. Actually the responsibility starts in the home. It is the children's responsibility to help the parents out. Then it goes to the city in cooperation with the State and Federal Government. That is where the responsibility is.

Mr. AHRENS. I think this is absolutely so. Here again is the problem I mentioned when the Administration on Aging thinks it has a system in place that it is Federal, State, and local. Yet, I think in the State of Illinois is the only public agency that is an area agency is the city of Chicago.

All the other area agencies are some kind of private boards. You know, the local government must make a commitment. Let me volunteer there is so much discussion on revenue sharing and I know we have our special problems in Chicago which I don't think have really been made clear on the question of job relatedness of examinations, but I felt for several years that we are taking the wrong handle on revenue sharing.

It is less important to me-I recognize as a citizen it is important where the funds come from and we want to reduce property taxes and so forth, but it is less important to me where the money comes from than that the programs exist.

So, what I would want to encourage senior citizens and others to do is to start analyzing the county budget, city budget, State budget. Are your programs in place? Are the housing programs, mayor's office for aging running a decent show? And then let them worry about where the money is going to come from.

Maybe you can access revenue sharing. We have a budget in my office of close to $1 million just to run the office. In one sense I don't particularly care where that money comes from, whether it is revenue sharing or some other source, it is there.

I think we need to encourage the people to focus on the programs and on the budgets of our different levels of government.

I think any study which I would like to see done on revenue sharing would indicate, and I have done my own study from newspaper clippings in the suburbs, every suburb around Chicago has done something with revenue sharing, bought a minibus, done something with a center, but none of them has ever written something into their local budget on an ongoing basis.

We have a title III problem that if this money goes down these programs are going to vanish. I think we need a sharper and more. sophisticated look at the whole question of revenue sharing than any that has yet been taken to my knowledge..

Mr. LEHMAN. Congressman Cornell.

Mr. CORNELL. One thing that bothers me. When you talk about the needs of the elderly and income and nutrition, transportation, socialability, health services, what-have-you, if we have a certain amount of money that would be available for older Americans, provisions of this nature, where would you say priority should be put?

Mr. AHRENS. On services designed to keep the elderly in the community and this whole battery of things, transportation.

I know very well through many pleasant summers in the northern area of Wisconsin what you are speaking of, the ability of people to get to services. The services do not exist if you can't get to them.

I would be willing to stand by a statement that is in the record somewhere by the Senate Special Committee on Aging last year on the home health care, and I would hope the Congress would really write a health bill that makes some sense and that it would give some emphasis in this whole area of home health care.

I think the other thing you gentlemen all know is that we simply lack a national policy on the question of long-term care. This needs to be addressed again at the Federal level, but any kind of thing that is going to help that older person stay in the community.

Now, in the grant we have, which we are reporting on and there are many studies that will be coming out during the year, they have research firms assessing the cost and so forth.

I am interested in this information, yes, but older people in Chicago and the Nation have made a decision they want to stay in their neighborhoods. They want to stay where they know people. They want to stay with the services and things that are familiar. They don't want to get into any kind of institutional situation.

I don't really care. I think, myself, the weight is on the side of the benefits rather than the cost. It may be more cost effective to do these things in a community but even if it weren't these are the kinds of things I would advocate because we have to look at human development sooner or later as some kind of continuum of a life and we ought to go out of it with as much dignity as possible as well as live through it.

Mr. CORNELL. You have a long list here of proposed revisions of the Older Americans Act.

Mr. AHRENS. Well, some are technical.

Mr. CORNELL. I noted one of them, in view of the remarks made here earlier today, that you suggest the authorization of payment of the construction of multipurpose senior centers. Have you had problems with that?

Mr. AHRENS. You know, the act has never been funded. I have gotten what I thought were good things ready to go in the city of Chicago.

Now, what we have done is propose the same things to the committee that is working on the community development bill.

I would like to see in Chicago's Loop one really model multipurpose senior citizens center. I would like to see one in each of our five service

areas.

Now, it may be cheaper to construct in some instances than to renovate and repair and that is what we are suggesting here, to add the authority to construct when this is economically more feasible than renovation or repair.

That program has a tremendous constituency and there is a reason for it. The reason is that all of our building has been for kids. We have built schools, we have built every kind of facility for kids.

I went one time during the year with a former member of this committee, Roman Pucinski, who is an alderman now in the city of Chi

cago, scouring the neighborhood he represents to try to find what we felt was a really good facility for a nutrition site and again remarked. upon this, how many facilities in the parks, in the schools, have been built for our children; and we have got to catch up with the population that has grown older.

So, we need multipurpose senior centers constructed as well as repaired and renovated to meet the needs of our older people.

Mr. CORNELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Mr. Ahrens, I am very pleased to see you here. I am apologetic that I had to run to the floor of the House for other business.

I shall read with great attention and care your statement. I am looking forward, as you know, to coming out to Chicago next month to be with you and your associates there so that I shall not put any questions to you at this time, but I shall study your statement and have some questions for you when I get to Chicago.

Mr. AHRENS. Fine. It is a pleasure to see you as always, Congressman.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you very much.

The Chair would observe that we have three more witnesses who need to be heard from today because I believe they have planes to other parts of the country.

I am apologetic that we are running this long. I have to confess that one of the reasons is-and this shows you the impact of the elections of last fall-that we have a number of members of the subcommittee who are deeply interested in the subject matter and they are here. That has not always been the case in the past.

So we shall simply do our best and invite our witnesses to be as brief in their summaries as possible so that we can put some questions to them.

Our next witness is Mr. Paul Nathanson, executive director of the National Senior Citizens Law Center.

STATEMENT OF PAUL NATHANSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SENIOR CITIZENS LAW CENTER, ACCOMPANIED BY JAMES LANIGAN

Mr. NATHANSON. Mr. Chairman and members, it is a pleasure to be able to address a few remarks to you about the problem of legal services for the Nation's elderly.

I have prepared some comments which I hope will be included in the record. I will really try to summarize my other comments and

make them as brief.

The National Senior Citizens Law Center is an OEO-funded legal services backup center which is a sort of mouthful.

It means, No. 1, we are funded until March 31. Beyond that it means that we are funded to provide technical assistance to the Nation's legal services programs and legal services attorneys, in other words. There are approximately 2,500 OEO-funded legal services attorneys around the country.

In addition in the last year, and this is the most exciting development, I think, approximately 50 programs specializing in legal services to the elderly have been funded primarily under title III of the