Ironically, the scientific and technical advances which have made longer life possible for more people also make utilization of this gift more difficult.

In earlier societies few lived to be old and the majority of those who did were able to reserve to themselves or were assigned-functions essential to the survival of the group.

The elders were the counselors of the people. It is harder for us today to provide this role for our senior citizens, despite the fact that the older members of any group are still its true source of continuity, and a resource of experience, talent, and skill.

Simply put, what all senior citizens need today is "A place in the world." This may be a relationship, a friend, a job to do, a role to fill, a house in which an elderly person can move about safely, a nursing home bed, home care a chance to live, not by sufferance taking up room in somebody else's world but by continuing their earned right in their own world.

This is a goal-simple to state-but not simple to achieve.

The enactment of the Senior Citizens Community Planning and Services Act of 1963 will contribute greatly to its achievement. It is only in recent years that we have begun to understand this variety of need. We have begun at last to seek appropriate solutions. On the national scene, the Congress has, in the last 2 years, provided new tools to do these things-the Community Health Services and Facilities Act of 1961 and the Public Welfare Amendments of 1962, in particular, have made possible a wider array of services.

The work of the President's Council on Aging and of the Office of Aging in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in coordinating and stimulating programs and progress for senior citizens is having and will have an important effect.

The heart of any program for the elderly must be opportunities for, and actual services to, older citizens in their home communities.

While at the Federal level we can urge greater opportunities for older men and women, it is the community that must develop the specific plans and offer the services.

That is why perhaps the most significant proposal of all the proposals in the President's message on the elderly is that calling for the establishment of a 5-year program of grants to States and localities, to public and voluntary organizations, educational institutions, to serve the elderly, to make possible comprehensive, coordinated, adequate services and programs.

Enactment of the proposed legislation entitled "The Senior Citizens Community Planning and Services Act of 1963" would carry out this part of the President's program.

It would provide Federal financial assistance to those who would provide care and opportunity for the elderly on their home grounds. It involves four kinds of grants under four major titles.

PART A-GRANTS FOR COMMUNITY PLANNING, SERVICES, AND TRAINING

Under part A, the new title XVII of the Social Security Act would provide formula grants to each State based on the ratio of the State's population aged 65 or older to the national population of that age. These moneys are to be used by the State to strengthen its program and agencies for the aging and to work with communities to strengthen theirs. Funds would be available for community planning and coordination of programs, establishment, expansion, and demonstrations of programs and services, and the training of necessary personnel. A comprehensive State plan would be drawn up; a single State agency would administer or supervise the program.

The States are deeply concerned with the needs of their older citizens. Many have moved to action with increasing urgency. Permanent State commissions or committees on the aging have been established in 34 States, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands; temporary State units exist in 9 other States. But only 25 of these State agencies have a State appropriation-in most cases very small-and only 22 have a full-time executive director or secretary.

Funds proposed under this part of title XVII would permit States to encourage planning and coordinating committees in cities and counties to determine the needs of their older citizens and to stimulate public and voluntary agencies to develop communitywide programs of health, social services, employment, recreation, education, and housing to meet them.

Pilot projects could be developed and existing programs improved in such areas as preretirement education, the teaching of creative skills, development of social and recreational programs, provision of meal centers and home-delivered meals, establishment of homemaker services, development of sales outlets for senior craftsmen, and such safety measures as establishment of special telephone service to maintain contact with older people living alone.

Grants could be made by the States from their allotments to agencies and organizations such as adult education and training centers and university extension services.

These Federal funds would make it possible for the State to obtain and maintain up-to-date information on the numbers and general needs of their older citizens, to analyze existing programs and available services, to plan improvements, new approaches, and techniques. In particular they would make possible better coordination of services and provision of guidance and consultation to communities.

I ask unanimous consent that a table of State allotments indicating the Federal sum each State can expect to receive under part A in the peak years of the program be inserted in the record at this point of my remarks.

Estimated allotments to the States under part A of the Senior Citizens
Community Planning and Services Act of 1963

PARTS B AND C-RESEARCH, DEMONSTRATION, AND TRAINING PROJECTS

Parts B and C of the new title would provide funds for research, demonstration, and training grants to be made by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, with the advice of a 15-man advisory committee and special review committees.

Under this provision grants could be made to public and nonprofit agencies, voluntary organizations, institutions, and individuals to develop or demonstrate new approaches, techniques, and methods, which hold promise of substantially contributing to worthwhile and meaningful life for older persons.

Research is needed in many areas. There are great gaps in our knowledge about the elderly. Many current approaches and programs need to be evaluated and improved. Current patterns and conditions of living of older persons need to be studied to determine what factors are beneficial and what detrimental.

We know little of the social-psychological processes of aging.

We know little of the preferences and patterns of older people as

consumers.

We know little of the most satisfactory design and method of providing services in housing projects for older people.

We know little of the extent and kinds of activity in which older people are interested and of which they are capable.

Demonstration projects would, in the main, be pilot projects of national scope and significance, which could serve or be adapted to varying local conditions.

They could, for example, include experiments in total community organization designed to keep older people informed of all services available to them.

They could be experiments in activity, education, and recreational programs and concerted social services within or adjacent to senior housing projects designed to determine which are most effective in maintaining independence, mental health, community participation, and good family relationships among older people.

They could be projects to develop teaching and training tools, study units and materials, for use by educational institutions and the professions.

Training of personnel to teach and work with the elderly is greatly needed. Institutions of higher education have only begun to work in this field. Colleges, universities, and professional schools need teachers with knowledge of aging, and almost every profession and technical occupation involved in serving older people is acutely short of persons adequately prepared to work with them.

There is immediate need for university-based training and research centers in all parts of the country.

The proposed legislation would provide funds for internships and fellowships, for establishment of courses, institutes of gerontology, and development of new training materials and curriculums.

PART D

-CONSTRUCTION OF RECREATIONAL ACTIVITY CENTERS

Part D of the new title would provide grants for construction, remodeling, or equipping multipurpose recreational activity centers for the elderly.

These unique centers are essentially community centers especially designed for older people. Comparatively new to the American scene, they are generally regarded as the most important facility that has come into existence in connection with community efforts to meet the needs of their older people.

They serve both the elderly and the community.

They provide opportunity for older people to continue as active participants in community life, to build retirement lives based on the pursuit of interests, skills, and recreation.

They help prevent tragic withdrawal and isolation which so often lead to premature physical and mental deterioration and hospitalization, and consequent family breakdown.

For the community they provide a point of contact at which to offer older people educational experiences promoting health, literacy, and mental alertness, a place to give personal counseling and information concerning existing community services, and a source from which to recruit the elderly for volunteer service to others in the community. Although there has been a widespread increase in interest and devel opment of such centers over the past 15 years, most of them today

exist in old houses, store buildings, lofts, and other makeshift quarters, often unsafe and poorly suited to the purposes they are intended

to serve.

Ideally, a senior activity center would offer as many as 50 or 60 different activities in response to the widely varying interest of older people. It should be centrally located, accessible by public transportation and, preferably, in an area where retired people are concentrated. It would be open every day and often during the evenings. The membership fee, if any, would never be too high to preclude low-income people.

Construction grants for these centers could be made by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, to public agencies or voluntary organizations. Staffing and operating of the centers could be assisted under the State formula grants in part A. The programs contemplated by the centers applying for construction grants would be subject to approval by appropriate local authorities.

PART E-SPECIAL PROJECTS TO STIMULATE EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Part E of the new title XVII provides for grants to stimulate employment opportunities for the elderly, primarily through projects to demonstrate their employability.

It is one of the anomalies of our day that while more people reach their 65th birthday than ever before, the percentage of older persons in gainful employment has declined steadily. To the extent that this is a result of voluntary retirement, it is good. No one would deny retirement to the worker who seeks it after many years of toil.

But there is evidence that for many of our older citizens, retirement is forced and unwelcome. They are able to work. They wish to work, yet opportunity is denied them, largely because of age. As the President has said, rules of employment that are based upon the calendar rather than upon ability are not good rules. No economy can reach its maximum productivity by wasting its human resources. This is both personal tragedy and a national loss.

Prevailing attitudes, casting doubt upon the capability of senior citizens to continue working beyond arbitrary retirement age, are major barriers to their employment. Yet, as the Presidential message points out, studies of the Department of Labor show large numbers of older workers exceeding the average performance of younger workers, and doing so with steadiness, loyalty, and dependability.

In order to demonstrate this employment capability of older citizens, part E of title XVII under the administration of the Secretary of Labor, would make grants available to public and nonprofit agencies to provide employment to older persons in public or community undertakings or services that would not otherwise be possible.

PART F GENERAL-ADVISORY COMMITTEES AND ADMINISTRATION

To strengthen the effectiveness and administration of all grant programs in the act, part F of the new title would establish, in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, an Advisory Committee on Aging, made up of 15 distinguished citizens, men and women of demonstrated experience and interest in special problems of the