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pate in this program. With programs of that size, it seems an unnecessary administrative complication to insist that they subcontract with the city government. I anticipate difficulty in this area.

I would also like to see, particularly in connection with our downstate counties, the requirement eliminated that each project serve 100 meals a day. You were in a project recently which served 39 meals a day and kept 39 people in their own homes. We have many smaller meals programs downstate.

I have these maps* which I will be glad to submit. The darker portions indicate the county's percentage of the voting population which is over 60. The darkest portions indicate the counties in which that percentage is over 30 percent. In those areas, if we are to get meals to the withdrawn and isolated, it will be necessary to have some projects serving less than 100 meals a day.

Senator PERCY. Betty, I am going to have to interrupt you. I have been urgently asked to come to the floor to present a $12.5-million request for homeownership counseling for low-income people. There is no other Senator that I can quickly get to chair these hearings. I am very, very sorry. Senator Pastore assures me I will be up immediately, and this should be disposed of very, very quickly, but

Mrs. BRECKINRIDGE. This was really my last main point.

Senator PERCY. We want to hold you. You do not have a plane to catch, do you?

Mrs. BRECKINRIDGE. No.

Senator PERCY. We will just recess for a temporary period and I am extremely apologetic. The staff will try to find another Senator on the committee that can come in and chair the hearings while I am gone, but there is no alternative. I have to be over there or we lose this whole appropriation.

We will recess.

[Whereupon, at 1 p.m., the Select Committee was recessed, to reconvene at 2 p.m., on this same day.]

*See Appendix 1, pp. 327–329.

AFTERNOON SESSION

Senator KENNEDY. The committee will come to order.

We have a number of statements and comments from the National Council on Aging; Retired Teachers Association; letter from David Goldberg of the Bread and Law Task Force; detailed, thoughtful analysis of regulations by the Food Research and Action Center; and the National Council of Senior Citizens. We will include these* in the official hearing record.

We will keep the record open for 10 days to get other kinds of comments to be made part of the record.

We appreciate the panel and I apologize for the interruptions. Senator Percy and I are playing musical chairs here. He has some amendments on the-I believe it is the D.C. Appropriations, and right after that is "Lead Paint Poisoning," which is legislation I have introduced, which is terribly important as well.

He will be back shortly, but when the next bell rings, I am going to have to leave due to "Lead Paint Poisoning."

Do you want to proceed?

STATEMENT OF CHARLES H. CHASKES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MICHIGAN STATE COMMISSION ON AGING

Mr. CHASKES. Mr. O'Malley and Mrs. Breckinridge have both made statements and I would like to comment on some of their points; also, on some comments made by the previous witnesses.

I am Charles H. Chaskes, the president of the National Association of State Units on Aging, and the executive director of the Commission on Aging in the State of Michigan.

We are delighted with the nutrition bill, and the spirit behind the bill. We are forever grateful to you, Senator Kennedy, and to your colleagues for getting this piece of legislation passed.

We think that it can be a very, very useful piece of legislation and authorization for very useful programs to do what you intend to do, to provide an opportunity for nutrition for the elderly and an opportunity for socialization.

I think several of the statements that were made here this morning need elaboration, Senator.

Congressman Pepper and you questioned the desirability of the regional structure before programs were funded and I would point out that I do see an advantage to that approach in the long run.

However, I think it would be a mistake to insist that these regional planning councils are created first before we go about the business of creating programs within areas.

*See Appendix 2, pp. 333-364.

I think that it would be perhaps unwise to turn our backs on what we have learned in the half dozen years the Older Americans Act has functioned.

Every State agency on aging has created a number of multipurpose centers throughout their States and many of these are in a position to go ahead as a centrally located place where this nutritional program could be started.

I think to insist that the regional concept be built in first doesn't take into account the fact that the regulations and the guidelines seem to say that you must work with local governments. In order to get local governments, which in our State, I suppose, you would mean local county governments, to agree on accepting their responsibility toward the costs of a regional planning operation, is something that you couldn't get done in a short space of time.

All local governments would have to put it in their budget. At this point in time, most of the budgets have been made up, which would mean that it would give them a built-in reason for not doing anything until after the first of the year.

I think that it would be perhaps wiser to fund programs at central locations that are now operating, and I think that if the regional plan prevails, that all of these programs could be folded into a regional concept if that is the desire of the administration.

The only advantage that I can see to the regional concept would be the advantage of perhaps asking for larger grants, which the Office of Management and Budget seems to understand better than maybe a series of $30,000 or $40,000 or $50,000 grants for local programs. If all States are the same as Michigan, and I think that they perhaps are, then there are enough centers operating at the present time or enough programs operating that if we could fit this nutrition program into the existing centers, we almost would have statewideness of the program.

We have probably 60 to 70 centers located in the State of Michigan. And I would advocate that we be allowed to fund individual programs where, in the opinion of the State agency, it would reach a sufficient. number of elderly to make the program economically feasible.

Senator KENNEDY. Well, how many is that, approximately? Are you talking about 100 or 5,000?

Mr. CHASKES. No; I do not think 5,000. For example, I can see in a city-the city of Ann Arbor which has a population of 60,000 to 70,000 there I can see one program that might feed 150 people a day. Also, I can see another program in that same city, in a different part of the city, that might only feed 60 people a day; but they would be reaching the majority of the elderly within their logical area.

The other point that I would make and that our chairman raised a question about-and I would support what Congressman Pepper has said is I think it is tremendously important under whose auspices these programs are presented to the elderly.

KEEP NUTRITION PROGRAM FROM WELFARE CONNOTATION

Now there are many States, my own included, where there is sentiment by certain individuals to place this nutrition program into the social services department with Title XVI moneys. I think this would be a big mistake I can just see older people saying, "If we want serv

we have to agency,

hat-in

ice, we have to to a go welfare say please, go hand, rather than participate in a program that the Congress, in its wisdom, said we should have.'

I think that it would be a great mistake to allow this program to be run by any agency that has a connotation of welfare or connotation of poverty connected with the program.

Experience has taught us that there are many, many older people that don't avail themselves of food stamps, for example, when they meet all the criteria for obtaining food stamps because they feel that when they go through that supermarket line, if they give food stamps in exchange for the payment of their groceries, that everybody in the supermarket is looking at them. I think that if those of us in the field of aging, if we have learned anything about older people, it is that we should do whatever we can to bolster their self-esteem, not to put them in a position that they might regard as demeaning.

Senator KENNEDY. Very helpful comment, and I appreciate it. Directing your attention about that planning council level, I agree with you in questioning its necessity, and I appreciate it.

Was there anything else in those regulations you would like to make a comment about?

Mr. CHASKES. Well, Mr. O'Malley and I have been discussing the regulations, as a matter of fact, and he has a long statement* on the regulations.

I think that the one other point I would say that would be quite a stumbling block would be the suggested strategy as proposed by the administration. If the governor designated one area as a PSApriority service area-it could get funds for the nutrition program for 90/10; whereas, if you were going to start a similar program in another area of the State which was not designated as a priority service area, that program would be funded as the regular Title III programs are: 75/25; 60/40; 50/50; and I think that this would be a decision that I would hate to make.

INDIVIDUAL NEEDS SAME EVERYWHERE

I would hate to tell somebody because he was in a smaller town or a more rural area-that he could not get a program on the same basis as somebody in a more heavily populated area; and this is why I think that we ought to take a good hard look at this priority service area concept because I think that the nutrition requirements of the individual are as severe and as necessary if a person lives in a rural area as they do in an impacted urban area.

As I read the bill, I thought that the intent of the bill was to provide the necessary nutrition to maintain a person's health; and while the bill does emphasize that we focus our attention on the low-income elderly, it does acknowledge the fact that people might not have a severe economic need but still might have a severe nutritional need because of isolation and boredom, et cetera, all of these things you know all too well.

I would point out in the last two words of the second paragraph of the bill which says, ". . . in dignity." I think that this is the crux of

the whole situation.

*See Appendix 1, p. 317.

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