OLDER AMERICANS ACT AMENDMENTS FOR

NUTRITIONAL SERVICES

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1970

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION

OF THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 9:35 a.m., the Honorable John Brademas (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Representatives Brademas, Dent, Daniels, and Hansen. Staff members present: Jack Duncan, counsel; Ronald L. Katz, assistant staff director; Arlene Horowitz, staff assistant; Toni Immerman, clerk; and Marty LaVor, minority legislative coordinator.

Mr. BBADEMAS. Today marks the second day of hearings before this subcommittee on H.R. 17763, an amendment to the Older Americans Act of 1965, which would cover Federal contributions to States for the purpose of providing nutrition programs for the elderly.

We are pleased to have with us today the distinguished Congressman from New Jersey, Mr. Daniels, who will introduce our first wit

ness.

Mr. DANIELS. Mr. Conrad Vuocolo, the director of tenant services of the Jersey City Housing Authority is here to testify on this bill for a nutrition program for the elderly. He has worked most earnestly and most efficiently on their behalf to not only supply decent housing for our citizens but also to provide them with nutritional meals. As you are very, very well aware I believe the testimony before this committee will show that many of our senior citizens, because of lack of adequate finances, are unable to provide themselves with nutritious meals.

It is indeed a pleasure for me to welcome Mr. Vuocolo here, who is a close friend and comes from my hometown, the city of Jersey City. Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you very much, Mr. Vuocolo, you come very well recommended. We are pleased to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF CONRAD J. VUOCOLO, DIRECTOR OF TENANT

SERVICES, HOUSING AUTHORITY, JERSEY CITY, N.J.

Mr. VUOCOLO. At the outset, I would like to express my appreciation to my dear friend, the Honorable Dominick V. Daniels, who is my neighbor and my Congressman from the 14th District of New Jersey, who has arranged with the Honorable John Brademas, chairman of the Select Subcommittee on Education, for me to appear at today's session on the nutritional needs for older Americans.

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The United States of America discriminates against its older Americans when it comes to needed nutrition programs. It is my fervent hope that I can, in some small way, do something with my testimony to help knock out the double standard on America's nutritional programs, which is doing irreparable harm by denying needed, compassionate, and simple programing which will help our senior citizens stay alive.

For almost 20 years I have been involved with the Jersey City Housing Authority which administers a program of low-income housing for over 4,000 families comprising over 15,000 individuals. Almost half these families are senior citizens with an average income of a little less than $1,000 per year. In today's economy, all of us can readily see how it is impossible for these elderly individuals to obtain sufficient food which will keep them physically, mentally, and yes, even spiritually alert.

For the past 10 years, at least, we have been begging Washington officials to permit us to have a feeding program for the elderly, but to no avail. In 1961, as a delegate to the White House Conference on Aging, I presented a plan which will allow America to provide community kitchens for the elderly. My plea had no positive result.

Last year, we became involved with a children's feeding program which has been most successful, but only makes me believe, all the more, that our Nation so severely discriminates against the elderly nutritionally.

In the past year we have provided more than half a million servings in breakfast, lunch, and snacks with funding provided by the New Jersey Department of Education, and the U.S. school lunch program, with surplus commodities granted through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Ironically, in almost all cases the food we served the youngsters was prepared by the elderly. They made sandwiches, baked cakes, prepared hot meals, which had to be served to the children but could not be served to them. They could see but not touch, they could smell the food they prepared but not eat it because of the unrealistic attitudes of our country's policies thus far.

We have asked the USDA, both through Congressman Gallagher and Congressman Daniels, to permit us to obtain surplus food which easily could be served to the elderly right at our own community halls without any further expenditures or cost to the U.S. Government. USDA says the Congress of the United States has their hands tied making it impossible to give us this food. The format will be exactly the same as the hot lunch program for schoolchildren which is now provided and which has been extremely successful.

Our constant pleas have fallen on deaf ears. The USDA can provide some limited articles such as flour, butter, corn meal and hominy grits and other staples of similar character for a meals-on-wheels type operation which handles approximatey 50 confined elderly, who meet the low income criteria, per day in the Jersey City area. This Meals on Wheels program, which is conducted from the Jersey City Housing Authority under the competent leadership of Mrs. Mary Johnson, is funded with approximately $30,000 per year from the OEO.

What the Jersey City Housing Authority would like to do is simply extend our Meals on Wheels service to feed those who are mobile and could come to a community hall and have a hot meal which would

be nutritionally correct and would provide a social outlet in that the diners would have much needed companionship.

When your committee fully realizes just the physical problems of elderly people going shopping, being faced with the spiraling costs, and trying to stretch their limited income to make necessary purchases for a meal, then your committee should begin to understand the meaningfulness of the hardships involved.

How many of you gentlemen dine alone without the benefit of service or companionship of others with whom to break bread? I have personally daily contact with elderly individuals who have been eating alone for 20 and 30 years.

I have read with great pleasure the contents of H.R. 17763, which hopes to provide grants to establish senior citizens community kitchens, which I hope will provide the low cost meal programs which are so desperatey needed. In every major city across the land and in many suburban and rural areas there are public housing developments that could and should eagerly open its doors in community areas to provide such programs.

We in Jersey City, through the intercession of our local Congressman, have for the past 5 years been funded by the Project Mainstream grant through the U.S. Department of Labor which allows us to hire persons 65 years of age or over. The Jersey City Housing Authority, since 1965, has hired 39 such individuals and has placed them in various hospitals, social agencies, city and county administrative offices where they were paid approximately 35 hours per work week.

Ironically, they are now involved in food service programs feeding the young in hospitals and public schools and students in nutritional programs. This is beyond belief to have the elderly working in food service programs which do not provide such feeding assistance for those in their own age category.

We strongly urge the passage of this bill, which will amend the 1965 Older Americans Act. We urge necessary surplus commodities allocations by the USDA, and we urge suitable work programing which will bring this nutritional program to fruition.

Last December 1969 I was a delegate to the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition and Health. Many of the discussions centered about the inability of America's elderly to eat properly on their limited budgets. We believe that the passage of your bill would fill the void brought out time and time again during this White House Conference. I pray there will be no long delay because a recent survey shows that some of the senior citizens living in our units are surviving on less than the price of three good cigars per day.

One recommendation I would like to make amending your bill would make it mandatory that all new public housing units for the elderly being built have the facilities and program schedule which will allow this time feeding program to be put into action.

The Jersey City Housing Authority stands ready, willing and able to be the very first in this Nation to make this program work with the enactment of this legislation.

When your bill is passed we would like to extend an invitation to your honorable committee, through our Congressman Daniels to come to Jersey City and see our feeding program for the elderly in action. Without question it will warm your hearts.

I appreciate the privilege of being invited to testify before this honorable body.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you very much for your most useful statement. In essence, I take it, what you are saying is your hope for the legislation under consideration is that it would make possible the provision on a nationwide level of the kind of meals on wheels service program which you in Jersey City, through your housing authority, have been providing to older citizens there, is that correct?

Mr. VUOCOLO. Meals on Wheels provides basically services for people confined to their homes. We now have that, we serve approximately 500 such people a week. We would like basically, in addition to bringing the food to the people who cannot get out, to have a dining room. in the community halls where those who wish to come down can sit down and break bread.

Mr. BRADEMAS. I notice on page 2 of your statement you say your program handles approximately 50

Mr. VUOCOLO. 50 to 75 and at the end of the week it is about 350 to 400.

Mr. BRADEMAS. What kind of problems have you encountered, aside from lack of enough money to expand the program? What kind of problems have you encountered in the actual mechanics of the Meals on Wheels program that you think would be helpful to us to have in mind in writing this legislation?

Mr. VUOCOLO. One tremendous aid would be to have the U.S. Department of Agriculture release those surplus commodities which can be made of use to the program. For example now they give flour, they give butter, they give hominy grits, and things of that sort. But in the national school lunch program, which comes from the same USDA warehouse in Jersey City, they are authorized meats, vegetables, turkeys, chickens, and so forth. If some of these items could be made available to such a feeding operation we would have no problem. At the present time we have the work crew who could supply this program, we have the facilities, we have the hungry people, all we need from this enactment is authorization from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to treat the elderly the same as they treat the others. Mr. BRADEMAS. Mr. Vuocolo, your statement is a very helpful one indeed. On behalf of the subcommittee, on behalf of Mr. Daniels, I want to express my appreciation. I just have one or two other quick questions to put to you.

Do you believe the bill should apply only to the economically disadvantaged or should the programs under the bill be provided for a broader range of older citizens.

Mr. VUOCOLO. In our areas, of course, any of the elderly they all fall into the category that is below the OEO standards. If you utilize the services of public housing accommodations, you, Mr. Chairman, would certainly be reaching the low income in our community.

Mr. BRADEMAS. You make the specific suggestion that we make it mandatory that all new public housing units for the elderly have, in effect, facilities for feeding the older citizens. I take it that this requirement is not now a part of the housing authority?

Mr. VUOCOLO. For the United States of America to build public housing units for the elderly without the social services and the social facilities that are needed is absolutely criminal. You take an elderly

person and move them from a flat into a public housing unit and unless you have any social services, unless you have nutritional programs, unless you have a recreational program you are doing nothing but making public housing for the elderly large centers of institutionalized type accommodations. America is not fulfilling the purpose when it does a half a job by providing for rooms and gas and electric for an elderly person.

You cannot pay rent, you cannot provide for your medicare payments, you cannot eat every day on $100 a month. This is the situation we have.

Finally, I would like to express this statement that the U.S. Department of Agriculture I would say is very, very unkind or may be very, very honest in its appraisal of the Congress of the United States when it comes to these programs.

They tell us they would be happy and quite willing to release the foods if the Congress of the United States would wake up and put the surplus commodities where the greatest needs are.

As one USDA official told me, the Congress must realize that this group of Americans has certainly paid many, many years of taxes, they certainly have sent their sons to war, they certainly have made many contributions to the United States as a whole. But when you go and get a surplus commodity list and especially in our area and they tell you you can have hominy grits and maybe a little bit of flour and butter but you cannot have the other items, to me it is a sad reflection on the Congress of the United States who, in the minds of many, many people, have discriminated horribly against the nutritional needs of the American senior citizens.

It is absolutely unjust to have thousands and thousands and thousands of children get the school lunch program, which we are cer tainly not denying, but on the other hand not to allow a morsel of food to go into the mouth of an elderly person, to me this appears to be idiotic, in very, very plain English.

Thank you very, very much.

Mr. BRADEMAS. Thank you very much. We appreciate your testimony. In July, the subcommittee traveled to Miami, Fla., for the opening session of hearings on this measure. The Miami area has one of the Nation's heaviest concentrations of senior citizens and has, for some years, been the site of various experimental programs which are designed to enable older Americans to live out the balance of their years in dignity and comfort. In addition, Miami, which contains Florida's 11th Congressional District, is the home of the distinguished author of this bill, the Honorable Claude Pepper, who has long been known for his efforts to improve living conditions for the elderly.

While in Miami, the subcommittee was privileged to hear a wide variety of witnesses, including representatives from the Florida Bureau of the Aging, the Florida Senior Citizens League, the Metropolitan Senior Center, and various other organizations concerned about the care and condition of older Americans.

All of these witnesses, I would add, applauded the thrust and purpose of H. R. 17763.

The problem of providing an adequate diet for older Americans has a number of root causes, including inadequate income, an absence of skills to choose and prepare well-balanced meals, limited mobility, or