Taos County seniors ‘deserved to be recognized’
Senior age wave requires more services and funding
According to the latest U.S. Census data, more than 26 percent of Taos county residents are now aged 65 years and older; as baby boomers age, that percentage is expected to swell across New Mexico, where 18.5 percent of the total population of 2.1 million is already in the senior-citizen age group.
In addition, as the population here ages, more older Taos county residents will find themselves in need of specialty medical services, nutrition assistance, help navigating programs like social security and Medicare, in-home care and housing modifications that allow them to stay in their homes, as well as new assisted living and nursing facilities for those who can’t “age in place” in their own homes.
According to a proclamation issued by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham after she took office in 2019, “by 2030, approximately 682,000 New Mexicans will be 60 years of age or older, which is more than 30 percent of New Mexico’s population.”
That means there’s a race against time to build out the infrastructure necessary to care for seniors and the elderly. And organizations and political subdivisions that provide services to elderly rural New Mexicans already need more money to pay for those services.
“Our seniors are not being recognized like they deserved to be recognized,” said former District 5 Taos County Commissioner Candyce O’Donnell, speaking during one of her final commission meetings last month before she left office. “These programs are suffering. Our seniors who are caring for the dying? They need some help.”
“The funding for that is key,” said Neal Segotta, director of the Non-metro Area Agency on Aging, who said his organization’s primary concerns are “nutrition, number one; transportation, number
two.” The agency oversees programs in 32 out of New Mexico’s 33 counties.
“You’ve got seniors who cannot drive themselves to their appointments,” Segotta said. “A lot of times their appointments are in Santa Fe or Albuquerque. This year our legislative ask is for an additional $7.5 million. Now, 40-plus percent of that is to get our staffs up to a $15-an-hour wage, something we can compete with. A majority of our senior centers, your staff is making minimum wage and working long, long hours. The average wage for a [senior center] site director is $16-an-hour; the average wage for a manager at McDonald’s is $19.45-an-hour.”
“We’re asking you contact your local [state] representatives and show them the need is there,” Segotta continued, adding, “I want you to go one step further. I want you to talk to your federal representatives.”
Segotta said the state provides nearly 43 percent of his agency’s operation money, while local governments pay for about 34 percent and the federal government “puts in 17 percent.”
“It’s been that way for 10 years now,” he added. “The sad part of this is our own seniors are putting in — through donations — about 7 percent of those funds. We can’t continue to ask our seniors to pay for something we should be providing for. We’ve got to change.”
“We’ll certainly be talking to our legislators and our federal delegation,” said Darlene Vigil, District 3 commissioner.
Deputy Taos County Manager Jason Silva noted that, in order to be more effective, Taos County would have to be compensated more for the distance it needs to cover in order to provide seniors with transportation to essential services. Currently, he said the county budgets more for its animal shelter than it does for senior programs.
“When we provide essential services of $102,000 for our senior center budget, but then have allocations of $170,000 for the animal shelter — they are both equal, but we really need to prioritize,” he said. “Our seniors demand that support moving forward, and need that moving forward.”
Taos County seniors’ most pressing need, according to a survey completed last year by the state Aging and Long Term Services Department in Peñasco, and aided by former District 5 Commissioner Candyce O’Donnell in Taos, is transportation.
Gwendolyn Gallagher, who presented the survey results to the Taos County Commission last month, is special projects manager with the New Mexico Aging and Long Term Services Department.
“By far, the most important need is transportation,” Gallagher said. “We already know in our agency that transportation is a great need for older adults, many of whom [in Peñasco] expressed concern that they can’t get to the senior center in Chamisal.”
A total of 33 percent of respondents indicated they have trouble finding transportation when they need to go to medical appointments, buy groceries or pick up meals and supplies.
The Non-metro New Mexico Area Agency on Aging, a department of the North Central New Mexico Economic Development District, contracts entities like Taos County to operate senior centers. The services offered at senior centers like those in Chamisal, Taos and Questa largely reflect the federal government’s focus on nutrition and providing meals to seniors.
“Nutrition is one of the primary services provided under the [1965 federal] Older Americans Act,” said Denise King, director of the state’s Aging Network Division of Aging and Long Term Services. “That was identified as one of the needs not only for older adults, but for grandparents raising grandchildren.”
Other survey results revealed that 6.4 percent of grandparents in Taos County are raising grandchildren in their homes.
King said the department of Aging and Long Term Services “recently issued guidance to the area agencies on aging opening up state general funds to be used by direct service providers to allow for older adults caring for children — especially during times when schools are closed — to have their meal. This allows providers to use state dollars to feed the kids and allow the grandparents to receive those meals at senior centers or have the meal delivered.”
Transportation and food aren’t the only things Taos County seniors need. More than 30 percent of respondents said they do not have anyone to turn to when they need help signing up for or navigating programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, supplemental security income or veterans’ benefits, among other assistance.
About 11 percent of respondents said they don’t “have enough groceries and supplies to take care of yourself and anyone who lives in your household, like your grandchildren,” and 9 percent said there is no one “in their area or community that can help get groceries and supplies.”
“That’s definitely a concern for older adults in Taos County,” Gallagher said.
“In response to that need, we hosted a series of presentations for older adults in Peñasco at the Mas Comunidad SPOT Center once a month,” Gallagher noted. The series included seminars on home modifications like grab bars and ramps, a preparation course for the Medicare open enrollment period, “nutrition for seniors,” diabetes prevention and disaster preparedness.
Monica Abeyta, executive director of the North Central New Mexico Economic Development District, said the spirit of the original Older Americans Act needs to be honored as the senior age wave gathers momentum.
“The Older Americans Act is based on the premise that older adults should be able to live with dignity and independence in their own home to the extent possible,” she said. “That’s been a long-term mission. The more holistic approach is that we shouldn’t see all these services as disconnected. They should all be connected. I’m not sure any of our federal programs make those connections very well, but I think we need to start making them.”