For Immediate Release Tuesday, March 1, 2002

Contact: Jon Hymes / Kimberly Brock (202) 408-0808

SENIORS COMMISSION CO-CHAIR ELLEN FEINGOLD LEADS
FORUM AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY ON SENIOR HOUSING AND HEALTH ISSUES

CAMBRIDGE, MA - Ellen Feingold, President of the Jewish Community Housing for the Elderly and Co-Chair of the U.S. Seniors Commission (Commission on Affordable Housing and Health Facility Needs for Seniors in the 21st Century) delivered the opening remarks and hosted a public forum on health and housing issues impacting seniors citizens in Boston and across Massachusetts. Also participating in the session were Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Michael Capuano (D-MA), Nicolas Retsinas, Director of Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, Lillian Glickman, Executive Office of Elder Affairs and Jane Wallis Gumble, Director of the Department of Housing and Community Development.

"There is a senior housing and health services crisis here in Boston and across Massachusetts," said Feingold. "Since I was appointed to serve on the U.S. Seniors Commission, I've wanted to bring together our state's best and brightest to develop proposals to extend the ability of our seniors to live independently by making affordable housing and services more abundant. Today's session is the beginning of an essential dialog between elected representatives in Washington, state officials, policy experts, community leaders and concerned citizens united in determination to make life better for seniors."

The U.S. Seniors Commission was created in 2000 by an act of Congress to study and report back to the House of Representatives, the Senate and the President on the housing and health needs for the next generation of older Americans. The panel is empowered to offer specific policy and legislative recommendations for enhancing services and increasing affordable housing for seniors in the years leading up to and following the demographic shifts associated with the retirement of the Baby Boom generation.

The Seniors Commission, made up of 14 commissioners from cities and towns across the country, is due to deliver its final report to Congress in June 2002. Last year, the commission launched a nationwide dialogue on senior housing and health care issues by holding a series of coast to coast field hearings that included testimony from Members of Congress and other elected officials, policy experts, housing and care providers and senior citizens and their loved ones.

Feingold added, "Senior citizens in the Bay State and across the country are facing very difficult choices when it comes to meeting their housing and health care costs. Our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbors are having their incomes and life savings stretched to the limit by rising housing, health care and child-rearing costs. We must look closely at programs and initiatives that are working and not working, and make absolutely certain that policies and funding priorities reflect the realities facing seniors now and in the years ahead."

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