Issue Position: Support for Seniors to Age Well in Our Communities

Issue Position

Connecticut is the 7th oldest state in the country. We boast hearty, independent Yankees, over 80% of whom are aging in their own homes in the same communities they've lived for decades. But our state's mostly suburban districts were designed as automobile dependent, single family households that have become increasingly difficult for older retirees to heat, manage during winter storms, navigate stairs in and out of, and financially sustain.

As our need for long-term services and support with daily living, health needs and social contact increases, we discover there is NO "user-friendly' system for accessing services like transportation to appointments, social and recreational activities, grocery shopping and meal preparation, attending worship services, obtaining help with health needs, daily living, etc. Yet even as aging neighbors become less able to manage, self-administer, supervise and pay for outside help, the need for in-home long-term supports skyrockets. Who will help navigate these services and protect retirees from exploitation and neglect? We need to collaborate as towns, communities and as a state to coordinate the gaps and myriad of costly service options to support "aging well' in place, which ultimately saves CT big money in long-term care costs in institutional spending.

We're all aging, and have loved ones who already need long-term care and supports, why not show how its done here in CT! We can find solutions to age well in our CT home neighborhoods (see CT's Livable Communities initiative, Public Act 13-109) and can build on CT's goal to establish a Long Term Services and Supports system that offers people the services and supports of their choice in the least restrictive, most enhancing, community inclusion opportunity. Let's model what "Aging Well At Home' looks like!

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