"IT Is Nor NORMAL TO LIVE ALONE”

There is another point that I could make. Somebody else suggested it today and I have thought about it a great deal. It concerns the large number of widows who are living alone in houses. You know, we were born into a family-we have a herd instinct. We were raised in a family, we go to school, we marry, we raise a family. It is not normal to live alone. A lot of elderly people down in Florida are shocking their children by shacking up together, so to speak, because of economic reasons. [Laughter.] This is common knowledge.

Senator CLARK. Yes.

Governor BLUE. No kidding. I can see no reason why it could not be socially accepted for two widow ladies to share a home together. They would have companionship, and two people can maintain themselves longer in a home than a single person can. This is not socially acceptable at the present time. I think it could be made socially acceptable and I think it would help solve the housing problem. I think it ought to be given some thought.

Senator CLARK. Well, I want to thank this panel in particular for a number of innovative and interesting ideas about what we are doing, how the housing is being used, for what purpose, and so forth.

Let me try, in a couple of minutes, to summarize what we have learned here today. I thought the first panel-Mr. John Beer talking about what has happened in Hampton, in particular in terms of developing their senior center, was good. Paul Schroge talked about how his center was developed and some of the interesting ways that they raise money-some of the services that are provided there, and how far they have come.

I thought certainly Mr. and Mrs. Judd from Thompson expressed that that community has done a great deal in terms of really beginning now to provide a broad spectrum of services. They point out particularly that they still need health care in Thompson, and that is characteristic, I think, of almost every small community in Iowa, the Midwest, and all across the country.

I thank Harry Empting, the coordinator at the center in Mason City and I hope he has left his flow chart with us so the committee can analyze the priorities that he recommends.

I also thank this panel-Mr. Kempf for talking with us about the Good Shepherd Retirement Association, some of the things they have done, and the fact that they still have a great demand for further expansion of housing units. I am grateful also to Mr. Jacobson, who is a user of one of these facilities, for his views on what he considers to be a great advantage, at least from his and his wife's points of view, in terms of flexibility-going into a place and being able to walk away from it for weeks or months at a time.

I also thank Governor Blue for a number of ideas regarding housing, with particular emphasis on preserving those that are there so that people who choose to live in their own homes can have decent housing, the emphasis on rehabilitation of older housing, and then something that is a favorite topic of his-accessibility of the facilities. Of course it does not mean much if the facilities exist if you can't get to them.

1 See p. 380.

TESTIMONY SUMMARIZED

Lastly, I would like to try to summarize really what it seems that we have learned not only from this hearing but from all of the hearings combined. As I say, we have had six hearings: four here in Iowa, one in Nebraska, and one in South Dakota. We have heard principally from people who are over 65 years old themselves in terms of what they feel, what has happened, where they have been, what is going to happen in the future, and what the Federal role ought or ought not to be.

We have heard from a number of people who live on Indian reservations, for example, up in South Dakota earlier today. Of course with the emphasis on these rural problems, we really heard about six or seven things that can be briefly stated.

First we heard over and over again the necessity for transportation, which is part of what Governor Blue is talking about in accessibilitythe fact that we must have mobility. If you are stranded out alone and you need to go to a doctor, a hospital, you need to get prescription drugs, groceries, or simply to see someone, transportation is a key to that.

We have heard from witness after witness these last several days about the need for health care in the smaller communities. We realize now that we are never going back to a time when we had a doctor in every small town, or hospitals in the numbers that we once had. But we do need some kind of extension out into the rural areas so that we have the basic kinds of health facilities, so that we have registered nurses some kind of center or clinic, as small as it might be, in the smallest communities.

We have heard over and over about the need for housing. We have not had a single witness who said if they had more housing they could not use it. Every community we have talked to could use more housing for older people-there is always a waiting list-so that has to be emphasized. And not only new housing but, as we have heard here today, rehabilitation of older housing. We have heard many, many times, and particularly from this first panel today, of the importance of a multipurpose senior center. That is one key to many of the problems that we are talking about. Such a center enables people to come together socially, and also to come in contact with these other services that are being provided under the Older Americans Act and under some other provisions.

We heard a great deal in the last 2 days about the importance of employment for people over 55. We heard about the green thumb program in South Dakota-and now it is being started in Iowa-that hires people over 55 to do a great number of different things. We have heard of other kinds of employment problems. Again, as we have seen in so many of these programs, it is not just a case of employment, it is a case of the psychological factors that go with it-the fact that you get up every day and go to work.

MANDATORY RETIREMENT CRITICIZED

Certainly we have heard-a pet peeve of mine, at any rate-the fact of mandatory retirement. Society thinks that somehow when you get to be 60, 62, 65, or 70, that you have to retire. I think that is just total

nonsense.

There was talk about discrimination on the basis of race or sex. The fact of a mandatory retirement is not a good idea, and we have heard a good bit of testimony about that as well.

We have heard about other things-the homemaker programs and the chore aides who make it possible for people to stay in their own homes.

Then last-and in some ways first-the fact that people just do not have adequate income. So many of these things could be available if they simply had the income. We know statistically that in State after State almost half the people over 65 who live in rural areas live below the level of poverty. That just has to change.

Those are some of the major things that we have learned in these hearings. We hope now that we can go back to Washington with this information and convince other members of the committee, other Members of Congress, and those in administration that it is important to look at the unique problems of rural America when we talk about the problems of the elderly. If we are going to pass a new kind of national health insurance, we better be very careful that we know how that is going to be applied in the smaller communities like this one, the one I was raised in, and others. We must be sure that we have accessibility of health care, not just in the metropolitan areas but in the rural areas as well. In each kind of legislation that we pass we must keep a consensus of this fact, and in the distribution of funds, so the small communities have the benefits that larger communities have. We thank you very much for coming and we look forward to seeing you often in the future.

[Whereupon, at 4:55 p.m., the committee adjourned.]

APPENDIXES

Appendix 1

LETTER AND STATEMENTS FROM INDIVIDUALS

ITEM 1. STATEMENT OF JOHN SUTTON, PRESIDENT, WAPELLO COUNTY (IOWA) FARMERS UNION

I want to thank you for your leadership in bringing these important_field hearings on the special problems facing elderly people in rural areas to Iowa, and to our neighboring States of Nebraska and South Dakota. We are glad you are asking the older people themselves to participate in the hearings, to tell you their story from their community, their county. They know the problems we have in our rural areas that complicate the lives of older people-lack of public transportation, lack of health care facilities and of doctors, lack of social services, lack of employment opportunities, poor housing.

When Senator Church, chairman of your commitee, called these hearings, he pointed out that approximately 8 million persons, or 27 percent of all Americans. 60 years and older live in rural and farm country. That would mean over 750,000 older people live in rural areas in Iowa. He said, "There is good reason to believe that many are served less adequately than other older persons by Federal programs meant to help them." I am sure your committee, and other Members of Congress, will keep this in mind when you work on the renewal of the Older Americans Act in 1978.

Farmers Union has long recognized the need for special help for disadvantaged people in rural America. National Farmers Union sponsored the first study of poverty in America in 1964 and 1965 which was published under the title "Pockets of Poverty." This pioneering report was followed by the monumental study "The People Left Behind" by the President's National Advisory Commission on Rural Poverty in 1967. We have felt it is important for an organization of family farmers to help provide the leadership to develop programs to meet the needs of less fortunate citizens in their communities.

When President Johnson launched his "war on poverty," we felt there was a need for an employment program to supplement the incomes of older low-income people in rural areas. Many people had lost their farms in the rapid mechanization and growth of farm size in the thirties, forties, and fifties. We lost about 90,000 farmers in Iowa between 1940 and 1969 according to figures presented at our convention last fall. They moved to small towns with limited employment opportunities and lower wage scales. So many farmers and their wives reached retirement age with little or no social security credit or other retirement income.

EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM INITIATED

Recognizing this need, Jim Patton, then president of National Farmers Union, Blue Carstenson of his staff, and Lewis J. Johnson, Sr., president of the Arkansas Farmers Union and a member of the National Board, went to Sargent Shriver, head of the Office of Economic Opportunity in 1965, and proposed that an employment program to supplement the incomes of older low-income people in rural areas be launched. They said Farmers Union would act as sponsor of the program. And so Green Thumb was started in five States. We have wanted the program to come to Iowa for a long time and are so happy that a small Green Thumb program is being started this summer (49 job opportunities). I want to thank you, Senator Clark, Congressman Neal Smith, and others in the Iowa congressional delegation for your successful efforts to get Green Thumb started here and expanded to a total of 28 States, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia.

We are glad the program could be expanded to 6,070 job opportunities with the new grant effective July 1, 1976, and to know you are working for additional expansion next year if the 1977 fiscal year appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor and Health, Education, and Welfare is enacted into law.

But we would remind Congress that there are over 5 million Americans, 55 years and older, who would be eligible for employment under such programs as Green Thumb. We estimate there are 70,580 who would be eligible in rural, nonmetropolitan areas in Iowa. We have a ways to go.

We know our rural areas need the services provided by these Green Thumb men and women. In other States they do many jobs beyond the conservation and beautification, roadside parks and trails that the name "Green Thumb" implies. They work at a wide variety of essential, worthwhile facilities and services that local sponsors (local and county governments and nonprofit organizations) could not afford to have done otherwise-from deputy sheriffs to fire wardens, from nutrition aides to teachers' and library aides, museum attendants, painting the fairgrounds, or helping to refurnish the county courthouse. They serve as drivers for rural transportation projects. They do outreach work, taking people to the doctor, or to buy groceries, or to the senior citizen center for dinner and a visit. They work at housing repair and winterization for other low-income people. And always the work they do would not otherwise be done so they do not deny jobs to younger people needing work, which is important with our unemployment rate still standing over 7.5 percent.

Green Thumb provides the opportunity for older rural citizens to participate in the life and work of their community and increases the security provided by the wages they earn. And their wages are spent on Main Street where it is estimated that each dollar turns over seven times before it leaves town. Rural communities gain and save about $10 for each dollar used on Green Thumb projects. The return to the Federal Government is at least $5 for each dollar expended in wages.

So we hope you will be able to expand Green Thumb and other such opportunities for our older people.

And we hope you will expand the other programs covered by the Older Americans Act. The nutrition program under title VII is a great investment for America because people well fed are able to meet other problems of being old and alone. Meals-on-wheels is so important to older people without transportation in rural areas and in our towns. But there are so many people who are not able to have these services-which might keep them out of the much more expensive nursing homes, expensive to themselves, their families, and the Nation.

You and others here can speak in more detail about the other programs developed under the Older Americans Act. But we know they are needed in rural Iowa as well as other places. And we know they are a good investment because if we can keep people in their own homes, in their own communities it is cheaper, better for them and their families and our society, and a lot cheaper too.

Again, we appreciate the opportunity for you to hold these hearings and for us to participate in them. We support you in your effort to make life better for our senior citizens.

ITEM 2. STATEMENT OF DONNA DAVIS, HAWKEYE VALLEY AREA AGENCY ON AGING, AND PEG ANDERSON, CHAIR, IOWA WOMEN'S POLITICAL CAUCUS

PROBLEMS OF OLDER WOMEN IN RURAL AREAS

INCOME

First, the rural or small town older woman's problems start with the fact that she is female and therefore likely to be one of those who are or become the poorest of the old, themselves poor in much higher numbers than their proportion of the population. It's double jeopardy being old and female.

For example: Using 1970 census data from selected counties in northeast Iowa, we find that even in one of the richest rural counties, 20.2 percent of the older population was below the poverty level. When we look at the age distribution of that "rich" county's poor, we find that more than a third (34 percent) are 65 or older. We know that most of these are women, because: (1) Women are a higher percentage of the senior population in general; (2) the rate at which females