"The central aim in any community effort toward improving the welfare of older persons should be to make it possible for a maximum number of these individuals to live normal lives, in their own homes or with their own families, fully related to the substance of community life.... Whatever a given community may do, it should strive to avoid unnecessary institutionalization of whatever type, and should encourage the development of measures and services that will continue the older person as a productive, useful member of his community, in an environment that is his

Samuel V., age 74, suffered a stroke that paralyzed one side of his body and caused loss of speech. In a community that was not socially organized, he might have been condemned to be bed-bound at home or in a nursing home, dependent upon others during his remaining years. Such a melancholy fate might have stemmed from lack of community organization, from ignorance of the possibilities of geriatrics, and from the negative public image of the aging as people too old for rehabilitation. However, in a well-organized community he would have the immediate services of a public-health or other physiotherapist to combat the paralysis, and he would be admitted to a rehabilitation facility where his speech condition would be given attention by a speech therapist.

Soon, through the work of a team of rehabilitation specialists and the availability of modern equipment and techniques, he would be restored to selfsufficiency and would undergo training for the use of his remaining skills.

Thus community organization spells the difference between hope and despair for the individual; independence or dependence for his family; and preservation or loss of the individual's contribution-industrial, social, civic, economic-for society.

THE PROBLEM

Our society has been largely child-oriented. Consequently we have gathered a great deal of information on the needs of children, youth, and families, especially in New York State.

We have explained those needs to the general public, and we have obtained community

support to plan, organize, and establish a variety of public and voluntary agencies, institutions, and other facilities and services to meet the needs of younger groups.

Today we face the same tasks of fact-finding, public interpretation, planning, and setting up of programs and services to meet the needs of the aging and the middle-aged.

Until recently, only minimum facilities and services had been available for the aged: primarily the county home and the private home for the aged. In the last decade, voluntary organizations, especially councils of social agencies, have added committees on aging; and local communities have set up old-age centers and other facilities and services. Government, too, has begun to act. States and cities have established units to study, advise on, stimulate interest in, and deal with problems of the aging.

However, no city in New York State, or elsewhere in the Nation, is geared to do the kind of job our present knowledge of problems. of the aging makes possible. The needs of older people in New York State represent lit erally millions of individual problems: how to get along on minimum income; how to ge work; how to obtain medical care; how to find a decent place to live; how to face problem of enforced retirement; how to learn what ine

stitutional or other facilities are available for a person who must be cared for outside his own home: how to get homemaker or other services that will enable one to remain in his own home; how to get information and guidance on social security, public welfare, veteran benefits, and a hundred other matters of vital importance to aging individuals. The aging in rural areas without any services present problems that differ from those of the aging in metropoltian areas where a vast, confusing complex of services may exist.

THE RECOMMENDATIONS

Regional meeting participants weighed almost every aspect of organization and planning, and pointed out that community organizations must make it possible to reach basic decisions about what help and services are necessary for the aging: which should be tax-supported; which ought to be operated through voluntary contributions; which should be made available through family and friends; and which should be provided by the aging themselves.

Another major problem discussed was how to translate into effective community programs the growing body of knowledge that is beginning to flow from geriatrics and gerontology.

Finally, the community has the ultimate responsibility of bringing to focus upon the problems of the aging its total resources available for such purposes in the face of all the many other demands made upon the community's conscience and resources.

In considering the problems involved in community organization to meet the needs of the aging. the Committee adopted the following recommendations:

General

115. There should be a greater coordination of agencies and personnel in each community with regard to planning and provision of services to the aged.

116. Each community-state, city, village, county or other should continue to study the needs of its aging population. 117. On the State level, a structure should be established to coordinate, stimulate, and promote the further development of services to the aging, and on the local level community committees should be established to carry on similar functions.

118. In all projects the senior adults themselves should be involved in the initial and the later stages of planning.

"To meet the need, a community requires a community plan and total mobilization of community resources."

Geneva Mathiasen, Executive Secretary
The National Committee on the Aging

APPENDIX I

A PROFILE OF THE AGING IN NEW YORK STATE

SERVICES FOR THE AGING IN NEW YORK STATE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

APPENDICES

NOTE: The material in these Appendices is reproduced primarily for record, reference, and resource purposes.

Most of the material was prepared especially by the Interdepartmental Committee on Problems of the Aging and the Joint Legislative Committee on Problems of the Aging for the guidance of members of the State Committee and all others who participated in the regional meetings of the State Committee.

This background material was prepared to highlight certain problems and programs, and was not intended to describe all the services to the aging of the agencies involved. Neither is the summarized listing of public and voluntary programs in Section 4 to be regarded as more than representative. Definitive information on such services is available upon request from the agencies concerned.

A number of statements in Chapters 1 through 10 of the report are based in whole or in part upon the definitive data to be found in the Appendix.

The State Committee is grateful to the Interdepartmental Committee for its indispensable cooperation in the preparation of this and other material and for all of its other guidance, services, and help, without which the State Committee could not have carried out its responsibilities.