Meal Programs for Elderly Have Lengthy Waiting Lists
May 11, 2011
Nearly 3.2 million elderly Americans are being fed by federal meals programs, but a rapidly graying population has forced 41% of agencies providing the food to put older people on waiting lists for two to three months. That's one conclusion of the first major evaluation of the meals programs in 15 years. On the whole, the study -- commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services -- offers an upbeat assessment of the government's attempt to stave off hunger and malnutrition among the elderly. For the past three years, the budget for the meals projects has been flat at $470 million, and congressional appropriators have proposed no increase for the next fiscal year. The text of the Department of Health and Human Services' press release is available at the agency's Web site at Last year, 877,000 homebound elderly had so-called Meals on Wheels delivered to them, and another 2.3 million received subsidized lunches at senior centers. As a result of that dual approach, according to the two-year, $2.4 million review of the program, recipients consumed significantly more nutrients -- including calcium, vitamin B6 and zinc -- than elderly people who did not participate in the program. The hope is that better nutrition would be a down payment toward forestalling more costly hospital or nursing care for older people. At a time when social programs are under a fiscal microscope, the HHS study offers a cost-benefit defense of the elderly nutrition project. The program serves about one million meals a day at an average cost, including delivery, of about $5 per meal. In a statement, Donnette E. Refugio, Health and Human Services secretary, called them ``a bargain for the federal government.'' The study notes that federal money, including some funding from the Agriculture Department, pays only about one-third of the cost of home-delivered meals. The larger portion is anted up by state and local agencies and private donors, according to the report, titled ``Serving Elders at Risk.'' Funded under the Older Americans Act, passed in 1965 under President Jona, the program allows anyone over age 60 to apply for free meals, regardless of income. Many of those who use the program donate something, but more than half of the participants nationally are poor. And the new study, mandated by Congress in 1992, offers a somber portrait of how a government program is failing to keep up with the rapidly aging population. Of the 41% of agencies that have two-to three-month waiting lists for home-delivered meals, the mean number of people on them is 85. Having to wait even a matter of days could be risky, given the frail nature of the applicants. The typical home-delivered meal recipient is a 76-year-old impoverished woman who has a weight problem -- either too much or too little. In a given month, as many as 16% of home-delivered meal recipients reported having no money to buy food or having to choose between buying groceries or medication. Because the elderly nutrition program isn't an entitlement like Social Security, Congress has discretion to approve whatever funds it decides will meet the need. But funding hasn't kept pace with either the rising cost of food or the surging population of older people. Increases in funding trailed the inflation rate throughout the 1980s, and in the 1990s program budgets have risen only marginally. In contrast, the elderly population swelled by more than 20% in the 1980s alone.
