If you’re 60 or older, you might consider giving Clark County officials credit for doing something about the growing number of local “white tops” — aging residents.
That tally is estimated at 63,019, said David Kelly, executive director of the Southwest Washington Agency on Aging and Disabilities. And the more important factor is this: The number will nearly double by 2025.
These are “baby boomers,” a name coined in 1951 by New York Post columnist Sylvia Porter and eventually applied to people born between 1946 and 1964. There were 77.3 million Americans born during this post-World War II period — the biggest population surge in history. They are now entering their senior years, and many are retiring.
And while we’re at it, County Commissioner Marc Boldt deserves recognition for focusing attention on services and needs for this group, with the formation of a special aging task force. Within 20 years, a quarter of the county’s population of some 424,000-plus will be seniors.
“I firmly believe this is the most important task force Clark County is ever going to do,” Boldt told members of the study group at its first meeting May 18 at the county’s Public Service Center.
A second meeting, with senior housing as its theme, took place June 17, and a third meeting is planned from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 16 at Clark College at Columbia Tech Center, 18700 S.E. Mill Plain.
Commissioner Boldt selected the 25-member task force through an application process. Jesse Dunn, executive director for the Arc of Clark County, was named chairman, according to a story by Columbian reporter Stephanie Rice.
Over 18 months — through Dec. 31, 2011 — the group will study senior citizen needs in the areas of housing, transportation, work force and health care. “Clark County is leading the state on this issue . . . taking a really responsible approach,” Kelly said.
There are so many factors to consider, Kelly added, as we attempt to come up with “the elements of an aging-friendly community.”
For example, “the vast majority wish to age in their own home, and in their own community,” Kelly told Rice. Another part of the issue is a definition of “affordable housing.”
It’s essential that the public become a part of these deliberations and final recommendations.
“The commissioners want to know what the public thinks. You are going to be the public’s voice,” county administrator Bill Barron told the task force at its first meeting. All meetings are open to the public. A survey to obtain public input on specific questions is part of the planning, Kelly said.
During the next few months, the task force will hear presentations from groups such as C-Tran and the Vancouver Housing Authority that help seniors remain mobile and independent.
The significance of the county’s proactive approach to understanding needs for a growing population of aging residents cannot be overstated. Commissioner Boldt is on the right track in asserting that the county is not adequately prepared to deal with critical changes in the demographics within its borders. The effort to form the task force is long past due.
“By the middle of the next decade, the United States will become an aging society with those over age 60 outnumbering those under age 15,” said John W. Rowe, a Columbia University professor who chaired the MacArthur Research Network on Successful Aging, which led to a book by the same name.
The graying of America is on the rise, and we must learn what direction it will take this nation and its golden citizens.
