Scott (on right, in front) with aging-organization leaders at a meeting in 1995 with President Bill Clinton to discuss a report on the damaging impact on older Americans of Congress’s budget.
As baby boomers move into retirement at a rate of
This means that waiting lists are often years long. “Congress
approximately 10,000 a day, Scott believes that two issues
should consistently appropriate a lot more money to help
threaten the future economic stability of many seniors
develop — whether it’s nonprofit or for-profit — a ffordable
and their families: a lack of affordable housing and the
housing for poor seniors,” he says. “There’s a lot of
astronomical cost of long-term care. According to a recent government report, as housing costs have risen precipitously in recent years, the share of
affordable housing being built, but it’s not necessarily for older adults.” Long-term care, the other issue that threatens to under-
older households paying more than 30 percent of their
mine the economic stability of families, is one that no
income on housing is projected to soon rise to 50 percent.
one wants to talk about, he says, even though its cost can
And the number of homeless seniors is also growing.
devastate individuals or families. “It’s something people just don’t know about or just don’t want to think about until it hits them square in the face.
“Most of us don’t realize that there are so many people who didn’t do well, who didn’t perhaps get a decent education, who weren’t able to save money, often through no fault of their own.”
“It’s frightening, because by the time someone arrives at a point where they understand what it costs — when they’re taking care of either a parent or a spouse — they’re already in their 70s,” Scott says. “They thought that perhaps Medicare would be helping — and it does help if you need short-term rehabilitation, but not with long-term care either at home, in assisted living, or in a nursing home. “There’s really nothing other than impoverishment for many people confronted with those costs,” because of this, Scott adds, “and it’s a failure of our political system not to
In June, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to
been a reluctance over the years to come up with a federal
for the Elderly Program. This would be the largest amount
program.
dedicated to building more affordable housing for low-
“And it really hasn’t made a difference who’s been
income seniors since 2010. From 2017 to 2019, Congress
in power. In late 1988, during the Reagan administration,
provided only $166 million in total to the program.
Congress passed the Medicare Catastrophic Care Act,
“In the old days, we were regularly getting significant funding every year for the program,” Scott says, “but interest in building more affordable housing has dwindled.”
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address the problem. There are policy solutions, but there’s
appropriate $803 million for the Section 202 Housing
M I LT O N M A G A Z I N E
which addressed long-term care, but it was repealed after many seniors thought its costs were too high,” he says. “It was a great idea, but it was poorly communicated.”