A Q&A with Council on Aging of Elkhart County’s David Toney
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The U.S. Census Bureau predicts that by 2030, all baby boomers will be 65 years or older, creating a national need for services as America’s senior population grows.
The Council on Aging of Elkhart County is a not-for-profit organization catering exclusively to aging Elkhart residents through transportation services, in-home care and life enrichment programs.
The agency is independent of local government and relies heavily on grant funding and individual donors to serve an increasing number of seniors, more than 97% of which require financial support.
Inside INdiana Business met with CEO David Toney to talk about his agency’s needs and two-to-three-year plan to open a centrally located senior center as 2030 approaches.
Who are the seniors you’re serving in Elkhart County?
The people we cater to on average are in their late 70s. The average person that we provide services for makes less than $1,600 a month. About 18% of the population that we serve live off of $10,000 a year, which is $830 a month. I can’t fathom that at times, between food and utilities and everything else. The Wall Street Journal did a study at the beginning of this summer, and because so many people are underwater on their car payments, when they buy a new one people spend $1,000 a month. And so it’s hard to fathom that we have people living off of $830 and somebody has a car payment for $1,000.
How would you describe the Council on Aging’s reach across Elkhart County?
We’ve had eight years of growth. We get most of our calls from their children, not the senior themselves. We get normal calls from their children. Some of them live here. Most of them live in other counties, or other states. We have people in California and they want somebody to take care of their parents, but they’re not available. We have a lot of children who are in that crunch generation. They’re working, they have their own careers, they’re moving ahead in their lives, and now, they have their own children, and now they have to take care of mom or dad and that stretches their time. It stretches their love. It stretches almost everything that they do, because they can’t be there all the time. They’re at work. So, what they want is somebody to help them support their parents while they’re not there and that’s where we come in.
How has the senior population changed over time?
We’re seeing more seniors. By 2030, which is only almost six years away, we will have more seniors in this county than any other growth and we’ll have the smallest population of kids under the age of 18 that the area has ever experienced. So, that’s a true game changer. I mean, think about it. Who’s going to be doing the jobs that people need?
Are there things that can be done to prepare for this?
Very much. The community, the foundations, the grants, that provide the funding to us, they need to start stepping up because six years goes awfully fast, and if you wait to the very last minute, you’re going to spend more money than if you had prepared. You’re going to have to build buildings for them. You’re going to have to spend more money. You need to prepare now for that, and that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to prepare for that. It’s almost like a tidal wave. It’s really going to hit you hard.
It seems as if people wait to the last second, both the seniors and their families. Their families, in most cases, that’s something that they don’t really want to deal with, not because they don’t care; they don’t know how to. They don’t know what support is needed. They don’t know what offerings they have. So, that’s where we come in. We can answer all those questions. We have a resource library for them. We used to do it on the phone. We realized that a lot of people don’t like to call during office hours, so we had a group of Notre Dame students, and we put the whole thing on our website so now anybody can go on our website, pick out the categories and get their answers.
Besides our transportation and our in-home caregiving services, we also have a life enrichment program and that entails a list of services. Before COVID, we would meet three times a week. We would meet in the Tolson Center and at one of the churches. There were about 80 people there each time. We had speakers come in. We did exercises. We had entertainment. We served lunch and then we played games. Mostly, bingo because that’s what they liked. We even brought in special ed kids to mingle with them when they played the games. So, we’re relaunching that right now. We’re going to do it a little bit differently. In the past, we were between Tolson and the church, First Presbyterian. This year, we’re going to start off at Tolson, but then we will do different places throughout the county. So, we’ll be able to reach more people.
We also do taxes. Right now there’s open enrollment that you’ve seen on TV. We are the registered group here in the county. We have a half dozen professional counselors. They help seniors to get to look at their medical prescriptions and all to make sure they get on the right plan. The average person that comes to that probably saves about between $750 and $800 a year, because things go up and things change. We also help the person who’s going to go on to Medicare, because it’s confusing. When somebody comes in, they help them to figure out what plan is good for them and how to proceed when they retire.
We have a plan. We’re the only ones here in the county that does it. It’s called a medical savings plan and it’s for people who don’t have a lot of money. You have to be, I think it’s 60 years old, and if they qualify for the program, their Medicare premium is taken care of. It’s paid for. That’s the equivalent to about an extra month’s income for them. It’s like getting 13 months in 12 months. And, they’re not going out to fancy restaurants or buying stuff. They’re buying food. They’re buying their medications. They’re taking care of their houses. Since 2015, we’ve helped a little over 1,600, 1,700 people and that means that about $2.5 million has gone back into the Elkhart communities because of us.
Tell me more about the Council on Aging’s transportation services.
Our transportation, the primary reason, is for medical appointments. If we do have time, we may take a person to the Martin’s or whatever, but 98% of our trips are for medical purposes. We would take somebody anywhere in the county. We go to (St. Joseph County) probably three or four times a week. We do a lot of dialysis. Probably about 28% to 30% of our business is to go to dialysis. You have to remember, if you’re going to dialysis, that’s 24 trips a month. Trying to do that on their own is difficult.
Years ago, before COVID, for whatever reason, we had three drivers out, and we didn’t want to say no to the patient, so my CFO convinced me to drive and I didn’t want to, but I did it. It was a learning experience, because I thought these people were just glad to have a trip. They all had stories about how important our service was. In digging deeper into that conversation, what I learned was that most of them started out having a friend or a neighbor or family member take them. The thing they didn’t like is that they couldn’t rely on that person to take them. Those people, for whatever reason, and things happen, we call them up at the last minute and say, ‘I just, I can’t take you,’ and they were embarrassed because now they had to call the doctor and say ‘Oh, I can’t come.’
We deal with a group of people who grew up trying to do the right thing. The best thing. They grew up in a different time, and that really hurt them and embarrassed them. The one thing that they learned from us is that when we say we’re going to be there, we’re there.
What types of in-home services do you offer?
We clean. We cook. We’re running errands for them like to the grocery store. We’re there to make them feel comfortable at home. We’re there to make them feel that somebody cares for them. We’re not really there to clean, even though we do. We’re here to put a smile on their face. That’s one of the biggest things about all of our services. They count on us that when we say we’re going to be there, we are.
What plans does the Council on Aging have for the future?
We have to be thinking about having our own facility. A facility to us would be similar to what the Michigan people have. They have a large area. They have different programs that a senior can come and stay all day. We do a survey on an annual basis for all of our programs and what we found is that in the life enrichment program, 70% of those people that was our main socialization for the entire week.
I was just surprised about that because I thought if you had a car and you can get around, you would be more friendly or more active. That wasn’t true. The senior would say, ‘Well, I want to talk to Betty, but Betty’s busy.’ And, I go to talk to Betty and Betty says, ‘Well, I want to talk to Susan, but Susan’s busy.’ Everybody thinks everybody’s busy. Everybody’s at home being bored or whatever. So, one of the ways that we can prepare for the future is to have a location somewhere in the middle of the county and be able to service all types of seniors for what their needs are.
How can the workforce community help?
It would be nice if businesses would put their influence with the local government representatives so that, in addition to the cities and the county, the state would actually help with growth. You can’t hire a bunch of people, or different types of people, if you don’t know what’s coming down the pike, because you could hire one now but the money may not be there. Over these next six years, the county has to figure out how they contribute to the seniors. When it comes down to it, nobody would do the stuff that we do, because there’s no money in it.
The overall grants, when you put all the grants together, they only pay for 68% of the cost of the actual service. I’m not talking about a profit margin. I’m talking about the actual cost of delivering that one trip or that one hour. Nothing pays for the entire year. You’d never run a for-profit business that way. The community has to come together to say, ‘Hey, we need to do this for the senior community.’
We need to look at funding differently. And, I don’t know what that is to be honest with you. Do we get into the real estate taxes? Because, that’ll be less money going into the schools. Will we get into different funding? Will different cities be more consistent? We’re not a line item for anybody and until we are, it’s hard to plan because we don’t know what’s coming down, so we have to go out and make sure that people are aware of us.