by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

January 03, 2008

Expanding on the success of a three-year-old program to help senior citizens in Parsippany remain in their homes as they age, United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey has been tapped to receive a federal grant to expand the boundaries of a Naturally Occurring Retirement Community demonstration project.

The grant money, some $478,281, was procured in a bipartisan effort by Morris County Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-Dist. 11) and New Jersey’s two Democratic United States senators, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez.

The funds, known colloquially as an “earmark,” are part of a $10 million allocation to the state in the 2008 federal Omnibus Appropriations Bill. More than $1.5 million of that money will go to NORC programs administered by five Jewish federations in New Jersey.

As President George Bush signed the bill into law on Dec. 26, Roy Tanzman, president of the New Jersey State Association of Jewish Federations, hailed its passage as “wonderful news.”

“Reinforcing local aging services is a top priority for the federations and certainly is vital to at-risk older adults served by the federations,” Tanzman said in a press release. “The federal funding comes in the face of the fast-approaching retirement of our baby boomers. The newly funded NORCs allow federations to better foster innovations in service delivery essential to meet the increasing needs for community-based aging residents.”

Ken Heyman, president of UJC MetroWest, said, “We are very proud of UJC’s leadership in addressing the aging-in-place needs of MetroWest seniors. We feel privileged that our program is secure and that we will be able to expand its base to include other communities with a high concentration of seniors. The passage of the earmarks are an example of how elected officials and the Jewish community work successfully together.”

UJC MetroWest’s executive vice-president, Max Kleinman, expressed thanks to the legislators whose support was essential in securing the grant. “We are grateful for the strong conviction and commitment that Cong. Frelinghuysen, Sen. Lautenberg, and Sen. Menendez have demonstrated to serving older adults throughout New Jersey. Securing this dedicated funding for seniors during this year’s appropriations process was extremely challenging. These elected officials are very tuned in to the needs of our community and really care about the individuals we serve.”

Frelinghuysen said he believes that “aging-in-place programs engage older adults in their community and help them live longer, healthier lives. It is good to invest resources in programs like this that increase the quality of life for seniors throughout New Jersey.”

“Our aging seniors are a treasured component of our society,” said Menendez, “and I am pleased that I was able to help secure funding for the MetroWest NORC aging-in-place demonstration project….”

The well-being of the seniors participating in the project “is testament to the success of this program,” said Menendez, “and will serve as a model so that potentially many more seniors may benefit in the future.”

According to Lautenberg, the NORC funds will “support vital services for residents across our state [and] play a critical part in ensuring the health and well-being of New Jerseyans.”

The money for MetroWest is more than double the $196,000 in federal funds the federation received in 2004 to initiate the program, dubbed Parsippany LIVE — Lifelong Involvement for Vital Elders.

The funds, said Merle Kalishman, chair of the MetroWest Community Relations Committee, “will enable UJC MetroWest to maintain Parsippany LIVE...and to replicate its successful model of helping seniors to age in place in more elder-friendly communities in our service area.”

Karen Alexander, the director of eldercare services at UJC MetroWest, who set Parsippany LIVE in motion, was overjoyed at the announcement. “Quite frankly, I’m still pinching myself,” she said.

“We’ve been at bat a number of times, and this time we seem to have hit a home run.”

Alexander and fellow members of a multi-agency committee called MetroWest CARES — Committee Addressing Resources for Eldercare Services — had been struggling to keep Parsippany LIVE afloat since the earlier federal grant money ran out.

“We spread our first federal grant over two years, but for the past year the program was basically subsidized by UJC MetroWest,” she told NJ Jewish News.

More recently, UJC MetroWest secured state aid to fund the Parsippany program as it served some 700 local seniors. Alexander said she considers the new federal appropriation “a significant infusion of money to support the existing program and — even more importantly — to expand and replicate it in other communities.”

“What we helped to set in motion in Parsippany has taken on a life of its own,” said Alexander. Since many of the operations of the program have been taken over by volunteers, she said, the new funding can be applied to different aspects of the operation.

Eight federated MetroWest agencies — Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest, Jewish Family Service of MetroWest, Daughters of Israel, JESPY House, Jewish Community Housing Corporation, JCC MetroWest, Jewish Service for the Developmentally Disabled of MetroWest, and the Joint Chaplaincy Committee of MetroWest — make up MetroWest CARES, the body that will oversee the grant.

According to Lori Price Abrams, director of the UJC MetroWest CRC, the group “will work with this new earmark to expand to locations where we have a significant concentration of older adults who would benefit from suburban aging-in-place programs” in addition to the Parsippany population.

Among these will be places with large concentrations of older Jews, such as Livingston, Millburn, and Morristown.

But the beneficiaries will not be Jews alone, said Alexander.

The infrastructure created for Parsippany LIVE, Price Abrams said, will in the end “be cost saving. It is important to serve the people effectively and at a lower cost.”

“This is great news,” said MetroWest CARES chair Arthur Schechner. “This potential program expansion is particularly important for New Jersey, which is currently home to nearly 1.5 million adults over age 60. By 2030, we anticipate two and a half million people over age 60 in our state, with 600,000 or so in MetroWest. This funding gives us a head start on meeting that challenge.”

In regard to Parsippany LIVE and its demographics, Alexander said, “All you have to do is walk into Yoga for Seniors at the library and you can see all of Parsippany in the room — Jews, Asians, Indians, and people of other ethnic groups who may or may not be Jewish. We’ve had great participation from a broad range of older adults, both volunteers and those in the programs themselves.”

The underlying philosophy of Parsippany LIVE and the programs it inspires will be “the kinds of efforts that help people stay healthy longer, remain independent, and stay in their homes,” Alexander said. “Research on suburban aging shows that about 90 percent of older adults want to stay in their own homes. We want to build a program that helps them do that and helps them stay healthy longer.”

Price Abrams said the funding came after “a lot of negotiations. This has been a political football. Unlike some earmarks, which get a bad name because they are used to finance bridges to nowhere, we are all very proud of what we are accomplishing here.”

Added Alexander: “A lot of what we’ve learned during the three years we’ve been on the ground in Parsippany is portable — we can pack it up and apply it in another community. That is very exciting.”