L. S. Plans To Help Aged

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30842, 30 August 1965, Page 13

L. S. Plans To Help Aged

(N Z. Press Assn.— Copyright) JOHNSON CITY

(Texas), Aug. 29. President Johnson has announced a new programme “aimed at lifting 5.5 million elderly citizens out of poverty.”

In its first 41 million dollar stage, it will provide employment and job training for 18,200 elderly men and women. These will include: 4000 “foster grandparents” to serve as “substitute parents” for 5000 neglected infants and 2000 older children in institutions. Within a year, this project will “reach into all 50 States at a total cost of 10 million dollars. 10,000 to be trained as “home health aids to bring help

and comfort to the bedridden sick and disabled." 1800 to start work this year “in both urban slums and rural hollows, caring, for children from broken

homes.” 2400 to be trained this year “to meet the needs of mentally retarded children.”

The President said: “The aged poor have maturity and experience to offer. They are eager to help themselves and others. We are going to use

this rich, untapped human resource to help others less fortunate. “In turn it will enable these elderly people find the dignity and usefulness they seek.’*’ “War On Poverty” Describing the programme as “a new front in the war on poverty,” he said that, in addition to helping the old people, it also would aid “140,000 of the nation’s most cruelly deprived—the neglected babies, retarded children, the home-bound sick, and the bed-ridden and isolated elderly.” The White House said that a task force on programmes

of the aged had recommended additional programmes which are now under consideration. These include:—

Employment services for the elderly with skills. Work opportunity centres for the elderly who are unable to compete in the labour market. Home maintenance service, employing the elderly poor, to assist in the repair of substandard dwellings inhabited by the elderly. . Special services to the elderly poor in rural areas, and A food programme.