A few years ago, former Summit County Executive James McCarthy initiated a drive to improve the quality of life for many of Summit County’s residents. Entitled “Summit 2010: A Quality of Life”, the initiative recognized the need to “increase the self-sufficiency of seniors living alone.”  A recent 2004 Study by the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio indicated that, at that time, there were 98,070 individuals over the age of 60 in Summit County. Of these 11% currently were living in poverty and many of these had at least one disability.  With the population of those 60 and older expected to grow by 40% by the year 2020, it is imperative that we continue to increase our impact each year. Federal, state and local funding available to assist these citizens falls far short of the need and continues to decline.

In addition, many of these individuals live in unsafe conditions without CO or smoke detectors, grab bars to help them get up and down, and with broken steps, doors, and windows.  Some have to navigate down old stairs into the basement to wash their clothes and reach high up into closets to put things away.  They are often unaware of the danger they are in or are unable to take corrective action.  In many cases, because they can no longer access certain areas of their home, they cease to even try to maintain their home allowing clutter to build up and unsafe conditions to develop.

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