-Federal Council on the Aging members Mrs. Dorothy L. Devereux and Dr. Sharon Fujii participated in panels at the Governor's Conference on Aging in Honolulu, June 7-14, 1976. This conference was a joint venture of the State of Hawaii, the Administration on Aging, and local trusts and foundations.

-Federal Council on the Aging member Bernard E. Nash spoke at the senior companion award ceremony at Las Vegas, Nev., June 17-18, 1976, held in the new senior center.

STAFF SUPPORT

According to provisions of the Older Americans Act, the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Commission on Aging are to make available to the Council such staff, information, and other assistance as it may require to carry out its activities. This is done in a variety of ways.

The Secretariat for the Federal Council on the Aging is located in the Administration on Aging. Staff is composed of five professional persons one of whom is a reemployed Federal annuitant, and an administrative aide and a secretary. FCA staff participate in a wide range of meetings in various parts of the country both to learn about developments in the field as well as to disseminate information about the Council.

The placement of the Secretariat in AoA and the Office of Human Development provides informal as well as formal utilization of their staffs and supportive services. The Committee Management Office in the Office of the Secretary aids in carrying out the provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Various units within departments other than HEW have given ready response to FCA requests for resource speakers and materials.

Short-term employees and contractors have been utilized to assist with certain FCA projects such as the assets study, national policy concerns for the older woman, and the frail elderly. The FCA budget for fiscal year 1976 of $575,000 was provided as part of the AoA appropriation with transition period funding of $150,000. The administration's fiscal year 1977 budget sets a funding level of $585,000.

NEWS COVERAGE OF FEDERAL COUNCIL ON THE AGING REPORTS

Comments on the Bicentennial charter have been published in "Age In Action," May-June 1976, publication of the West Virginia Commission on Aging; the Bureau of Aging, State of Arizona publication, May 1976, vol. 3, No. 5; and the May 1976, newsletter of the Department of Elder Affairs, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The spring 1976 issue of "Aging International" carried a story which headlined "U.S. Federal Council Seeks Equity, Efficiency, Economy in Aging Programs." Further comment was made on the frail elderly concept and the Council's preliminary recommendations around the need to give priority in allocating resources to those persons tentatively defined as over 75 years of age who need a basic core of services. In "Facts on Aging", April 1976, a publication of the Baltimore City Commission on Aging and Retirement Education, notice was taken of the increased emphasis upon the needs of the disabled elderly. The

term disabled was held to have some unfortunate implications. “It is most refreshing, therefore," says the article, "to find that the Federal Council on the Aging is using a more discreet classification of the elderly in need of support and services. In its recently issued 'Report to the President, 1975' the Council devotes a major section to the topic 'National Policy Concerns for the Frail Elderly"."

An article on the 1975 Federal Council on the Aging report to the President appeared in "Geriatrics" June 1976. The same periodical carried an interview with Chairman Bertha S. Adkins on the functions and responsibilities of the Federal Council on the Aging, in November 1976.

The magazine, "Aging", published by the Administration on Aging, in the seven editions published in 1976 has given excellent coverage to the activities of the Council, not only in the conference calendar listing, but in feature stories contained in the May-June issue covering the "Bicentennial Charter for Older Americans" and "Federal Council on the Aging Issues Three Major Reports," and in the November issue "President Sends Federal Council on the Aging Reports to Congress." The November issue quotes the President, "The Federal Council on the Aging Annual Report and studies reflect an earnest effort to deal with the lack of equity and efficiency in the present patchwork of income security problems . . ."

DISTRIBUTION OF FEDERAL COUNCIL ON THE AGING PUBLICATIONS

Distribution of Federal Council on the Aging publications continued throughout 1976. The publications have been requested in quantity by the Institute of Gerontology, University of Michigan, for workshop and conference purposes, by the National Council on the Aging for their regional meetings, the National Center for the Black Aged, the Gerontological Society, the National Council of Senior Citizens, the American Association of Retired Persons/ National Retired Teachers Association, the American Association of Homes for the Aged, the American Geriatric Society, the U.S. Commission on International Women's Decade, the National Institute on Aging, ACTION and the American Public Welfare Association. This distribution included 100,000 copies of the Bicentennial Charter for Older Americans.

Publications were sent also on Administration on Aging and Federal Council on the Aging mailing keys to the Administration on Aging network of area and State agencies, Senators and Congressmen on appropriate aging related committees, Federal staff and national orgnizations in the field of aging and hundreds of individual requesters.

Federal Council on the Aging publications in 1976: "1975 Annual Report to the President," "Commitment to a Better Life," "Bicentennial Charter for Older Americans," "The Impact of the Tax Structure on the Elderly," "The Interrelationships of Benefit Programs for the Elderly.'

In addition, over 100 copies of draft versions of papers on the frail elderly have been distributed to leading gerontologists for their

comments.

Appendix 2

REPORT OF LEGAL SERVICES CORP.

Hon. FRANK CHURCH,

Chairman, Special Committee on Aging,
U.S. Senate, Washington, D.C.

LEGAL SERVICES CORP., Washington, D.C., December 22, 1976.

DEAR FRANK: This letter is written in response to your request for a summary of the activities of the Legal Services Corp., during 1976, to be included in your committee's annual report on developments in aging. As you know, the Legal Services Corp., is not a Federal agency. The corporation does, however, receive its funds from the Congress, and we are pleased to report to you concerning the impact of those funds on the delivery of services, especially to persons who are elderly.

The Legal Services Corp., is a private, nonprofit corporation charged with the responsibility to provide legal assistance in civil matters to low-income persons of all ages. The need for legal services is particularly urgent among the elderly poor, because their legal problems are often matters of basic survival, particularly in areas such as income maintenance, housing, health, and food. Thus, the corporation's activities during 1976-to stabilize, strengthen, and expand local legal services programs-have special impact for the elderly.

Among the most significant developments in 1976, the corporation's first full year of operation, are the following:

(1) Increased Appropriations to Improve and Expand Local Legal Assistance Projects. The corporation requested appropriations for fiscal year 1977 in the amount of $140.3 million, a substantial increase over the $92.3 million appropriated for fiscal year 1976. In spite of the President's recommendation of only $80 million, the Congress appropriated $125 million for payment to the corporation. That money is being used to begin implementation of a plan to provide minimum access to legal services for every poor person in the country.

Of the increased funds, $13.48 million has been distributed to the legal services programs funded previously by the corporation to increase their capacity to represent eligible persons in the areas they already serve; $15 million is being used to establish legal assistance programs in areas where there have been no projects supported by the corporation. This represents the first significant expansion of legal services since the 1960's. The effect of this expansion and improvement activity is to add approximately 3.9 million persons to the number of poor who have minimum access to legal services. Many of these people are elderly.

Adequate funding of legal services projects is especially important for the effective delivery of legal assistance to the elderly. For the past 5 years, local programs have had nothing more than static funding, a reduction in terms of their real purchasing power. As a result, many programs have been forced to reduce staff, limit client intake, and in some cases close offices. Few have been able to undertake the aggressive outreach and community education activities that are necessary to reach those older persons of limited mobility.

Even with these expansion activities, 15.7 million poor persons still will not have minimum access to legal services. The corporation will request a substantially higher appropriation for fiscal year 1978 to continue expansion activities.

(2) National Support Centers.-Support centers assist local programs in delivering specialized legal assistance to eligible clients, by providing research and technical help in complex areas of the law and by participating directly in litigation. The work of these support centers has been particularly important in the delivery of legal services to elderly persons.

One of those programs, the National Senior Citizens Law Center, specializes exclusively on legal matters anecting the eldery, including supplemental security income (SSI), pensions, social security, protective services, age discrimination in employment, medicare and nursing homes. The availability of these support services has significantly increased the capacity of local legal services programs to provide enective representation to clients who face these particular problems. In addition, many of the other support centers place special emphasis on problems that affect the elderly. The Center for Social Welfare Policy and Law now devotes a major portion of its practice to SSI. The national health law project estimates that approximately 20 percent of its litigation time involves elderly clients, particularly in matters related to medicare and home health care programs. A substantial part of the practice of the national housing law project is in the area of public housing, where the vast majority of new construction is for the elderly. That project also devotes a great deal of time to the relocation provisions of urban renewal laws, of particular importance to older persons who lack mobility, and to home ownership, which affects the elderly more than any other identifiable group of poor people.

On March 5, 1976, the board of directors of the corporation adopted a resolution establishing standards that permit the funding of 13 support centers that provide legal assistance to eligible clients. All of those centers received increased funding in 1976. A further adjustment for past inflation, in the amount of 5.5 percent of their present funding levels, will be made on January 1.

(3) Delivery System Study.—Section 1007 (g) of the Legal Services Corporation Act requires that the corporation study, through the use of demonstration projects, alternative and supplemental methods of delivery of legal services to eligible clients, including judicare, vouchers, prepaid legal insurance, and contracts with law firms. On September 30, the corporation approved 19 demonstration projects, all of which will include the elderly in their client groups. Three will place special emphasis on the elderly and one will serve only the elderly.

Utah legal services will provide specialized legal services to the elderly in the southern rural part of the State, through a judicare project that will utilize the existing aging network to reach eligible clients. The National Senior Citizens Law Center will provide training and support materials for the judicare attorneys.

Judicare of Anoka County, Inc., in Minnesota will provide general legal services to eligible clients, with a special emphasis on reaching the elderly through the existing aging network in the county, to be supplemented if necessary by the addition to the staff of an elderly outreach worker.

The Legal Aid Society of Birmingham in Alabama will contract with a private law firm to provide special services that the society does not generally offer. One-quarter of the grant is set aside to prepare wills and testamentary instruments for eligible clients who are elderly.

Group Legal Services in Los Angeles County will provide prepaid legal services to groups of clients selected from social security and public assistance roles. That selection process will assure that a significant portion of the clients will be elderly.

The corporation does not expect that the results of the delivery system study will suggest any one best method of delivering legal services to the elderly or to any other client group. It will provide valuable suggestions to local programs on how they might improve their own methods of serving eligible clients.

(4) The Project Reporting System.-When the Legal Services Corporation assumed its responsibilities in late 1975, there was no information system in place that would yield data to the projects, to the corporation, or to the Congress about the management of the legal services program.

The corporation is instituting a project reporting system that will yield such information. The system will be in place in 60 programs by mid-1977 and in all programs by the end of the year. Among other data collected will be information on the numbers of elderly clients served, the nature of their legal problems, and the means of their resolution. This program reporting system will be combined with quarterly monitoring and management assistance visits to programs by the corporation's regional staff.

No generalizable information about the services that legal services programs provide to the elderly has been collected since 1969. There is reason to believe that services have expanded significantly since that time. The advent of the SSI program in 1974 has resulted in substantial activities by programs to secure the