could not manage their money. Public assistance cannot take guardianships for the people that they give the money to, so we went into the business of becoming guardians.

This is expensive in terms of time and money and we will have to have help to carry on these additional services which we had to incorporate in the project.

Mr. NORMAN. Mrs. Guiney, is my understanding correct that at the present your only source of income is the United Fund-Community Chest?

Mrs. GUINEY. The only source as of June 1.

Mr. NORMAN. Have you ever considered seeking assistance under the Economic Opportunity Act?

Mrs. GUINEY. Yes, indeed, we did, Mr. Norman. We developed a project some 2 years ago, but this never got off the ground. First of all, there was not very much money coming into Detroit for the aged. It was already spoken for for youth, as you know, and although we had written up an elaborate project involving six counties, there were so many different evaluations and committees of all kinds that this number of jurisdictions simply stopped us from trying to get through. The community action centers of OEO have cooperated in many ways with the project staff, but you know that they have very little money for comprehensive services to the aged. Recently Oakland County OEO was funded for Project FUND and we are very encouraged about this.

This will help to alert the community, will help to locate older people, but we still have to have somebody to deliver the service needed and this takes a high level of know-how.

Mr. NORMAN. Thank you.

Senator WILLIAMS. Do you have the support of the municipal city government?

Mrs. GUINEY. Yes, indeed.

Mayor Cavanagh is a stanch supporter. There are letters in the record, maybe I didn't give them to you, Mr. Oriol, of support from the mayor, from the public housing commission, from the Social Security Administration who we worked with hand-in-glove in the medicare programs.

We held numerous neighborhood meetings with the social security representative there talking with the older residents, individually and in groups.

Senator WILLIAMS. How about the newspapers in Detroit, do they help you?

Mrs. GUINEY. My, they really do.

Senator WILLIAMS. The Detroit Free Press?

Mrs. GUINEY. The Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News. The editors serve on the UCS board and planning committees. We have had tremendous support not only from the major newspapers, but from the little community newspapers. You know, this has been a two-edge kind of blessing, because while it brings us greater community support, it also brings us an awful lot of business. Senator WILLIAMS. A lot of new clients?

Mrs. GUINEY. Yes, new clients.

Senator WILLIAMS. That is my battle call, that bill.

Mrs. GUINEY. I just want to say one thing before you go, Senator Williams. We have found in this project that we cannot overlook the potentials and the skills of older people. These are the opportunities which you promoted in the bills which you introduced and we have had some success in the neighborhoods with this.

Just one example. We had a very wealthy old lady who lives in a very expensive nursing home, but her family is away, far away. They wanted someone to take her out in a wheelchair around the block, pin a rose on her shoulder, pat her and make her feel that somebody cared about her.

We found a retired nurse in the neighborhood who comes in at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, works 4 hours, just giving her these little extra comforts. For this she is paid $10 a day. This extra money makes it possible for her to live independently in her own apartment which she would have had to give up if she didn't find a job.

Senator WILLIAMS. You brought these two together, is that right? Mrs. GUINEY. That is right. We have done this in many ways. We brought a woman out of a convalescent home where she had been for 2 years after breaking her hip by finding another older person who needed a home and a job to go in and become a housekeeper. I can't recall the exact figures, but it costs much less to care for her in the house which she owned for 45 years and where she wanted to be.

It took the help of many others- the public assistance worker and the neighborhood resources, including a group of teenage volunteers who cleaned the house and cut the grass but, it served again the needs of two people and it worked out very well.

Senator WILLIAMS. Well, yours is a very inspiring story of success, help for older people that need help. You are in a settled major city and as I glance through your prepared statement, you almost went house-to-house to find older people that needed attention. Mrs. GUINEY. Yes, and we still do.

RURAL POSSIBILITIES

Senator WILLIAMS. Well, let's hope that this example spreads through other metropolitan areas in this country.

Now, let me just ask you this. How is this kind of service and attention and care going to be brought to rural older people? That is a lot harder, I think.

Mrs. GUINEY. Well, I don't believe so.

Senator WILLIAMS. I hope you are right.

Mrs. GUINEY. We have had some experience in the rural areas, of Metropolitan Detroit. We found that in a rural community some 50 miles out of Detroit, older people are absolutely homebound. There isn't any way for them to get transportation to the nearest hospital clinic.

There used to be a train and then that went out. Then there was an interurban and that went out. Today there is a high level expressway and you can't thumb a ride on an expressway. There is no way for them to get to needed services without a team of circuit riders who will go

to them.

Senator WILLIAMS. Do you have that?
Mrs. GUINEY. We have improvised it.

Senator WILLIAMS. Have you done that?

Mrs. GUINEY. Certainly. We have gotten service to them. In rural areas we have county health department nurses who make home visits. If we can add other people to the team-we need lawyers. We need doctors to make home calls; the whole community has to become part of the team. Pockets of poverty exist in the rural areas as well as in the central cities.

Senator WILLIAMS. Is this circuit rider described in your testimony, that concept of going to the rural areas?

Mrs. GUINEY. No, it is not. It will be in the upcoming summary report.

Senator WILLIAMS. We sure want that report. Your report will be comprehensive of all of your activities?

Mrs. GUINEY. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. But, as you indicated, it is not only those who are living with inadequate income, even a woman of wealth was in need. Mrs. GUINEY. A case example of the economically independent is a woman of considerable wealth who was brought to our attention by the social security office, OASDI. They called to say that this lady was not cashing her checks. We went to her apartment and found a dirty, crotchety, old gal dressed in a bathrobe and slippers. The bathrobe was the kind that was made out of an Indian blanket that has not been seen in quite a while.

She was reluctant to let us in. The caretaker said she would not have a telephone. She kept sticking notes under other tenants' doors, saying, "You stole my check."

She was paranoid, she was accusing everybody of stealing things. After the first visit we received daily calls from the landlady telling us that she had lost her bankbooks. She could not find the records of her safe deposit. As we gained her confidence by going there constantly, and finding her papers for her we discovered that she was getting $800 every quarter from her stocks. That was quite an investment when the dividend check is $800. We found that she had savings and checking accounts in four different banks. She was a very wealthy woman, but she lived like a pauper.

We took temporary guardianship with the help of a trust officer and lawyer from one of the banks. Lawyers and judges serve on our advisory committees and they help us to quickly become guardians. We went with her to open the safe-deposit box. We found there letters which indicated she had a brother in Spokane. We telephoned the brother in Spokane, who was 92, but his wife was younger and there was a son, a nephew of the old lady, who said that they would make a home for her if we could get her there.

She agreed to go and to have us use her money to bring the nephew from Spokane. We helped her to pack up her hearing aid and little trinkets and to go back with the nephew to live in the home of the brother and sister-in-law and is now cared for by her relatives.

She was inviting robbery and attack by writing notes indicating that she had money and she could have been one of those casualties you read about in the paper.

Human needs are easy to name, but they are difficult to serve, when the frailties of the human frame make people inadequate, mentally frail, physically frail, to carry on their own business.

Senator WILLIAMS. Well, we certainly have responded inadequately, and we certainly have not met the economic needs of older people, but with our social security program, retirement plans, and pensions and trying to update them to economic levels that are realistic today, we still are left with human problems which money does not solve at all. Mrs. GUINEY. Yes; and we still have the problem of helping the elderly to take advantage of the great social advances that have come about through the new legislation.

The medicaid program in Michigan is in a state of chaos. The person who has no money and is on old-age assistance is protected by the title XIX benefits, but the person with a few dollars too much-the medically indigent cannot afford drugs or doctors. The brochure which explains the State program says people with marginal incomes can now get clinic services, drugs, and service from their own doctorsbut, because of the fiscal situation in Michigan, the appropriation was stopped almost as soon as it began.

Senator WILLIAMS. Well, the Governor would not permit that would he?

Mrs. GUINEY. I think he is the man who gave the order. It was an executive order. Of course, it was based on the amount of money which it was going to cost, but it leaves the person who is solvent otherwise without drugs and care if he becomes ill.

Senator WILLIAMS. I have to leave, Mrs. Guiney. I just want to observe that the State of New Jersey that I come from was highly honored yesterday with Governor Romney as a visitor, today with Kosygin and the President.

Mrs. GUINEY. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. We are on the map.

Mrs. GUINEY. We have Governor Romney most of the time. We don't have the President very much. We do have a very great feeling of gratitude for what this committee and this Government and especially the Public Health Service did in giving a direct grant to a local nonprofit agency like ours, to make it possible for us to work so closely in partnership with both the public and private sectors.

Senator WILLIAMS. We are very grateful to you, I am sure of that. Mrs. GUINEY. It is a thrill for me to come.

Senator WILLIAMS. Mr. Oriol and Mr. Norman would probably like to keep this conversation going. As I said earlier, it is inspiring and it gives us great promise for better days for older people.

Thank you.

Mrs. GUINEY. This is a rewarding kind of job, although it is hard work and often frustrating, it is a very exciting opportunity.

Senator WILLIAMS. We are the only special committee of the Senate and we have to be reinstated every year, but this kind of testimony, I think, will show the importance of the work we are trying to do in cooperation with you.

Mrs. GUINEY. It is reaching out to those who fall in between the services of other programs.

Senator WILLIAMS. Thank you.

Mrs. GUINEY. Thank you.

Mr. ORIOL. Mrs. Guiney, have you concluded your presentation? Mrs. GUINEY. Well, I think mainly I was going to talk about the need to involve the total community, as I mentioned, from the barber

to the banker, from the merchant, from every person in the community, from the volunteer, the young mother with a station wagon to haul her six kids who comes and picks up our older people, from the professional people, the doctors who will make home calls in spite of their personal feelings about medicare. This disappears when they are confronted with an older person who is sick-the firemen who give up their card game for 15 minutes, and go across the street with a ladder to take down the storm windows of an old lady who could not possibly get them down herself.

So every aspect of the community is part of the team in a way. This makes support not only for the community, but it opens up many tangible resources for us. When a banker on one of our budget committees heard about individual cases, he remembered that he had a small trust fund of $2,500 which had been left in an estate to help needy old people. He said, "You can help me find the needy people." We will be able to put a new fence around a haunted house in the downtown area where an old lady lives alone with her dog. The kids in the neighborhood broke down the old fence, and the dog got loose. He was her only protection. A fence will keep the dog in and the kids

out.

We can get some needed dental care for an elderly woman who for 2 years has been going to the public clinic for a sore mouth. She had gotten a new set of dentures-I should not have said "store teeth," before, but they never fit her mouth and her mouth continued to be sore. She has a serious fungus condition in her gums. We have no way of getting this expensive treatment except through a special fund.

Money is often needed to call an ambulance or to pay a gas bill when the gas has been shut off. The utility companies have been very cooperative in prolonging shutting off dates if we can find the resource. The telephone company contributes gifts and clothing.

One of the banks gave us a dozen baskets for Easter. Each with a 10-pound ham, 5 pounds of sugar, and large packages of food that one older person or two could not use all summer. We took the baskets to a little supermarket in the neighborhood which repackaged the food in smaller quantities, and we were able to give Easter baskets to twice as many people. They also deliver. This is the kind of cooperation which comes from being an institution in the neighborhood.

NEED FOR A "HUB" ORGANIZATION

Mr. NORMAN. Mrs. Guiney, it seems to me you are making a very important point here if I understand your point. It is my understanding you are saying there are perhaps in many communities resources and sources of assistance for elderly people if there is an organization to tap these resources and to bring the resources together with the elderly people, and that by organizing a group like your Project WellBeing, it makes it possible to find these resources and to make them available to the older people.

Mrs. GUINEY. This is really the hub of it all. It calls for a competent staff who can make independent decisions without calling up the central office and asking a consultant who is at least one step removed from the older person and the community resource.