Aging-in-place study to focus on Parsippany’s elderly

by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

A new survey of senior citizens in Parsippany could provide a national blueprint for programs aimed at helping the elderly age in place.

Starting this week, some 200 residents of Parsippany will receive telephone calls seeking information on their personal needs and lifestyles.

The survey is a collaborative effort of the city’s Department of Human Services and United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey, along with other municipal and Jewish agencies.

The results may enhance the lives of Parsippany’s seniors by identifying services they need to remain in the homes where some have lived for a half-century.

“The purpose is to find what is on the minds of our seniors. We’re hoping to come up with ways we can be of greatest help,” said Barbara Ievoli, Parsippany’s director of human services. “The whole idea is to keep seniors in their own homes for as long as possible, even if they need some medical attention.”

The survey is an early step in a program supervised by Karen Alexander, director of eldercare services at the MetroWest federation. It is funded by a grant of $196,235 from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, with additional support from the Wallerstein Foundation for Geriatric Life Improvement and the Grotta Fund for Senior Care of the Jewish Community Foundation.

“Part of the reason the federal government is so interested is that the vast majority of the people who are aging are doing it in the suburbs,” said Alexander. “So if we can figure out how to support older residents in a suburban environment, they can stay in their homes, which is what most people want to do anyway.”

Using a questionnaire developed by Visiting Nurse Service of New York, a market research firm in Media, Pa., will contact 200 Parsippany residents above the age of 65. They will be asked questions about their living conditions, health needs, finances, and mobility to determine what needs to be changed or improved to enhance their lives so they can remain comfortably in their own homes.

The telephone interviews are being augmented by what Alexander called “listening sessions in the community,” meeting with groups of seniors in Parsippany to ask “what kinds of improvements they would want to see to make it a better place to grow old.” In five sessions, she has already heard from 100 seniors. Her research is being conducted on a nonsectarian basis “because this is a federal demonstration grant; this needs to be open to everybody who is over the age of 65 who would benefit from the services,” Alexander explained.

Alexander told NJ Jewish News that the site of the survey, one town away from the MetroWest home base in Whippany, makes sense for several demographic reasons.

“Parsippany is a community where Jews bought homes 40 years ago, and they have been able to age in place in those homes,” she said. “The Lake Hiawatha area had a thriving Jewish community in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. It still has elders who are still in those little houses.”

Alexander said that the Township of Parsippany-Troy Hills and Morris County both supported working with MetroWest on the project. Other collaborators include the Volunteers of Morris County, the Morris County Division on Aging, Jewish Vocational Service of MetroWest, Jewish Family Service of MetroWest, the Daughters of Israel Geriatric Center in West Orange, and the JCC MetroWest.

Lake Hiawatha “has an aging, primarily white population and younger families of color coming into the community, creating this melting-pot phenomenon. That is also happening in other communities with smaller starter homes,” said Alexander. “Part of what we are going to be looking at is how we can create opportunities for intergenerational and intercultural relationships.”

She expects “some preliminary results” of the survey by early April. But she already has some sense of the town’s assets and liabilities.

“Parsippany is a community in which seniors are well-served, especially if they are somewhat mobile and fairly hardy. There are activities and programs in place. But there is a whole continuum of needs that go from the need to be social and get out and drive your own car to somebody who is homebound and getting meals-on-wheels. Understanding the middle of that continuum and what needs to be added so that people can really age effectively in place — that’s what we’re hoping to get some insight on,” Alexander said.

“This project and the way we get agencies to coordinate to serve older adults in their homes is like a laboratory for the larger MetroWest community,” said Diane Klein, assistant director of planning and allocations at MetroWest.

“To the extent we can successfully assess the needs of this population and provide coordinated services, we can then see what can be developed for the whole community.”

Robert Wiener can be reached at rwiener@njjewishnews.com.