by Julia C. Reischel

The executive director of Somerville Cambridge Elder Services, a state-funded private nonprofit organization, spoke to The Somerville News last week about problems facing Somerville elders.   

“The aged population of Somerville has declined considerably in the last 30 years,” John S. O’Neill said.  “They’ve been driven out by rents.”

The largest problem facing elders in Somerville are the high costs of property taxes and rents, O’Neill said.  Somerville has a population of 70,000 to 80,000 people, only 10,000 of which are elders, he said. “That’s very low for the state.”

Somerville Cambridge Elder Services offers resources for older people, caregivers and people with disabilities by providing a variety of programs and services to Somerville’s elder population, O’Neil said. 

Established in 1972, SCES has pursued a mission of keeping older people safe and independent in their own homes. The national system of Eldercare organizations was formed that year as part of the deinstitutionalization movement of the 1970s that eradicated most mental institutions and asylums, O’Neill said.

“The idea was that nobody would be places in an institution that was more structured than absolutely necessary, O’Neill said.

“The state set up an entity that is not allowed to provide services directly,” O’Neill said.  “They contracted out the whole role to private nonprofits.” 

SCES is the local private nonprofit that serves the Somerville and Cambridge communities, one of 27 such programs in Massachusetts, O’Neill said.  These programs are the only federally-funded Massachusetts agencies dedicated to elders. 

“The Department of Social Services is responsible for people until they age,” he said.  “After that, we are it.” 

O’Neill said that SCES covers all aspects of elder health and safety.  “We have social workers, we are the nutrition program.  Here, we do them all.” 

The agency offers free consultations with Elder Care Advisors to all Somerville elders and their families to help older Somerville and Cambridge residents determine if they qualify for other programs and benefit.

Eligible Somerville elders, their families, and disabled adults of all ages qualify for many SCES services ranging from group adult foster care services to respite services for caregivers to transportation services, legal services, and nutritional programs such as Meals-on-Wheels. 

In Somerville, SCES works with the city’s Council on Aging to provide elder services.  Recently, SCES and the Council on Aging started a Brown Bag Lunch program that delivers the equivalent of three full meals to Somerville elders every month, O’Neill said. 

In January, the program gave out 200 meals to elders who cannot afford to purchase all the food they need, O’Neill said. 

SCES also helps run Properzi Manor in Union Square, a unique experiment in assisted living in public housing. 

“We receive allocated monies for home care,” O’Neill said, “which we put into having someone stationed there onsite all the time. It’s more flexible than assisted living and yet still affordable.” 

While many Somerville seniors are eligible for SCES programs and services, the organization is underused, O’Neill said. 

“A lot of older people who would be eligible for services never present themselves,” he said.  “There’s a stigma of welfare.” 

O’Neill said that there is also a stigma against identifying as “old.” 

“The truth is, elders don’t see themselves as old,” he said.  “There’s this myth that elders are a spoiled, powerful voting block. We have people in their nineties talking about ‘those older people.’”

Once, the Cambridge and Somerville area was home to more elderly rental units and apartments than anywhere else in the state, O’Neill said. 

“Now there’s a waiting list for elder housing,” he said.  “The loss of rent control was the last straw.”

“What people don’t realize is how long they’re going to live,” he said.  “There are fewer companies offering pensions nowadays, and 401ks fluctuate with nothing guaranteed.  A lot of people have plenty of money for five or ten years, and then they run out.”

“We need property tax relief without the city picking up the cost,” he said.  “I don’t want the city to get screwed.”

While there are programs run by organizations such as the Somerville Housing Authority that attempt to assuage high rents, many landlords do ot accept rent vouchers, making it difficult for elders to live in the city, O’Neill said. 

“There’s been a freeze on rental vouchers for the last 18 months,” he said. 

O’Neill said in both Somerville and Cambridge, the SCES is working to provide choice and autonomy to an aging population. 

“The big thing now is choice,” he said.  “We are trying to break down some of the regulations and conditions that stand in the way of elder choice.”

Currently, governmental regulations prevent seniors from choosing how they want to live, and often force them into situations they might not choose for themselves, O’Neill said.   

“For example, Medicare regulations are more stringent if you want to stay in the community than if you go into a nursing home,” he said. 

O’Neill said that in the eyes of the government, everything changes when an individual turns 60. 

“There’s a spend-down,” he said.  “The Medicaid allotment for a young person is $996 a month.  For a person over 60, it’s $776 a month.”

“But what this ignores is that the medical out-of-pocket expenses are higher for an older person,” he said.  “We’re saying, ‘let’s have a level playing field.’”    

O’Neill said that the Americans with Disabilities act and the landmark 1999 Supreme Court case Olmstead v. Georgia have changed the landscape of elder care across the country by redefining old people as people with disabilities. 

“We were still talking about ‘frail elders,’” O’Neill said.  “Now, we talk about people of all ages with disabilities.”

Because Americans with disabilities are granted equal rights that elders often are not, reclassifying elders as disabled people will level the playing field, O’Neill said. 

“It’s opened me up to a whole different viewpoint,” O’Neill said.  “The same kind of desperation unites older people with younger people with disabilities. It takes courage to be able to survive the devaluation of life as you get older. It takes a lot of courage to grow old in America.”