Council on Aging

Post date: Mar 01, 2016 9:12:33 PM

Latest newsletter and calendar attached below

to me

I called and spoke with Andrea Burns, Age Friendly Coordinator for the city of Boston yesterday. She was recommended to me by my colleague Emily Shea, Boston Commissioner for Elder Affairs.

She stressed that much of this is still in the aspirational stage and they’re picking away little by little, have 6 different areas to address including a master plan, “Go Boston 2030” which involves transport and other initiatives including affordable housing.

Here’s the skinny;

Andrea me that they are looking at ADA compliant walkways, signal timing, smoothness of sidewalks, bump outs, roads, (they are looking at dedicated bus lanes and increasing bus transit) Complete Street agreement has been signed and another program called “Vision Zero” which involves pedestrian safety, says that there have been lots of accidents involving pedestrians and they have had the most in the state, an unhappy stat. They have also held “design your street” workshops with locals and have lots of people on board. Andrea told me that they are designing bike paths on the sidewalks separated by rows of trees from walkways - the feeling is that bikes on streets don’t work for them. Some of this can only be done with new construction, they’re creating new neighborhoods thru some urban redevelopment and they are using practical as the design principal. She told me that they are trying to make these things attractive and include options like affordable stores where you can buy socks without going to the mall…flat areas walkable areas are getting benches and public lavatories are important too. So is outdoor recreation and open space. They have something like 48 square miles to try to create options in.

Their biggest issues are affordable housing and transportation. They use as many existing resources as possible, hospital shuttles etc. but transport is frustrating.

Affordable housing is hard too. They have created an “Inclusionary Development Policy” bylaw which requires 13% affordable housing and when they fall below the number, they develop more. She told me that they are trying to make Boston Age friendly but lots of seniors cannot afford to live there. They have raised tax reduction eligibility requirements and eligibility programs, work off programs but taxes continue to rise, people struggle to pay property taxes and there are lots of complaints. Andrea says that they are the most unequal city in the country for income distribution with 50% of their residents living at less than what’s considered necessary to live which is 60G annually.

She told me that seniors weigh in on everything they do. I bet they do…

I told her what we were looking at here and it doesn’t appear to be too different philosophically. She will include me on their mailing list for news and notes and I’ll share when I get materials.

The Aging Mastery Program (AMP) is an award winning program developed by the National Council on Aging and now being offered for a third time by the Williamstown Council on Aging. The goal of this program is to empower older adults to make and maintain small but impactful changes in health behaviors. Classes exploring sleep quality, physical activity, financial fitness and more are available in this 10 week series beginning April 14 and running through June 16. Classes are 1.5 hours in duration, begin at 1:00 and healthy snacks will be served. AMP is open to individuals aged 50 and over and free! Call the COA at 458.8250 for information.

The final session of the AARP Tax Aide program at the Harper Center will be Tuesday April 12 and reservations are closed for the 2016 season. We’ll reopen reservations for the 2017 season next February.