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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-11-04-COA-min (Age Friendly Working Group)Age-Friendly Working Group – November 4, 2022 - Minutes Present: John Zhao, Julie-Ann Shapiro, Ellen Cameron, Sudhir Jain, Sandra Shaw, Betty Borghesani, Melissa Interess John Zhao called the meeting to order at 2:05pm 1) Home Modification Survey: • 207 responses 61% are in a single-family home, apartment or town home. More than half live with a spouse or partner. Almost 1/3 live alone. Rest live with someone or multiple people. • Over ½ said no home modifications necessary but over 1/3 said yes, home modifications are necessary and some said likely in the future. It appears that a “no” means “not yet.” • Home maintenance activities – most said they can take care of them on their own but 20% said they need help. Some respondents said they need help with some, not all. That appears to be the majority, but in general, respondents said they can manage. This can be interpreted as the ability to hire people versus doing it on their own. The question may have been ambiguous and open to interpretation. • Regarding whether the respondents would need to leave their home due to challenges, there was a 50/50 split. There were a lot of “maybe” responses due to the potential for declining help. • There were many answers to the question regarding programs. 29% wanted financial advice; many said they need referrals for resources, over 70% wanted additional tax subsidies, and there were many answers related to taxes, commerce, isolation, home maintenance, transportation, housing. There were many responses regarding taxes. • John noted that this pattern is similar to when we only had 50 responses. • Largest percent is people who want to stay and want some assistance with home safety and taxes. This is in line with the Age Friendly Survey. • Survey was not broken down by age. 2) Next Working Group initiative discussion • A lot is changing since the Age-Friendly report due to Covid-19. • Housing - There is a lot of discussion concerning the affordable housing sites in Lexington with in one mile of the MBTA. We do not know if Lexington already meets the required number of sites, but the town is currently very focused on housing. Comprehensive Plan has some discussion relating to seniors. Housing Partnership Board has general housing discussions for all residents, not just seniors. • Senior parking - We considered senior only parking at the Community Center. So far there is no need because there are enough open parking spaces. • Lexpress – we were considering asking for additional free ridership hours for seniors. Cost was a factor in our not acting on it. There is little enforcement of Lexpress fares. We do not know the afternoon ridership level of seniors, but fares are not uniformly enforced. Lexpress is not an on-demand program for seniors. That is a different form of transportation, and can be separately considered. • Parking Program – consider additional marketing so that people renew and new people obtain stickers. We will need to update Select Board. • We can now consider one of our original initiatives - mobile COA forums. • Home modification – consider the issues with setting up this type of program. If we distribute a list of providers, there are liability concerns and issues of unfairly supporting certain vendors over others. There is a need for a referral resource list. Consider a post on Help Around Town website. • Question regarding an equipment lending service in town i.e. wheelchairs. Also a question of liability. Meeting adjourned at 3:30.