Once the East Baton Rouge Council on Aging begins getting funds from the dedicated property tax voters approved for the agency last fall, it plans to expand its Meals on Wheels program and serve the hundreds of people who are currently on waiting lists for services like respite and personal care.
That was the message COA Executive Director Tasha Clark-Amar delivered on Wednesday at one of a number of community meetings the agency is hosting in the coming weeks to discuss how it will spend the roughly $7.8 million the new 1.5-mill tax is expected to generate annually. The COA will not begin receiving any of the tax proceeds until next spring.
Clark-Amar says the COA’s top three priorities are: Expanding the Meals on Wheels service from five days per week to seven, eliminating waiting lists for programs and adding more senior centers.
Currently, some seniors have to ration their weekly meals to last through the weekend, Clark-Amar says. The group plans to spend an additional $2.5 million on the program.
Another $2.6 million will go to eliminating waiting lists for services, and $2 million will go to adding senior centers, including ones near Kenilworth, Gardere and Jones Creek.
Currently, 249 seniors are on a waiting list for homemaker services, 489 are waiting for Meals on Wheels and 624 are waiting for respite and personal care, according to data presented at the meeting.
The COA’s top priorities would eat up nearly all of the $7.8 million in extra funding it’s expected to receive next year, and Clark-Amar says the rest would go toward renovating senior centers and expanding wellness and disease management classes.
Seniors attending the community meeting asked about what President Donald Trump’s budget proposal—which includes eliminating funding for Meals on Wheels—would mean for the local program. Clark-Amar said that even if Congress passed Trump’s budget proposal, the COA gets its funding for Meals on Wheels elsewhere and would be unaffected.
“That doesn’t include us,” she told the dozens of seniors who attended the meeting at the senior center on Florida Boulevard. “We’re not up in arms yet.”
The Metro Council will consider a proposal next month that would use $1.3 million in federal funds to renovate a building near downtown that would serve as a new headquarters and senior center for the COA. Clark-Amar says the new building would provide more kitchen space for the Meals on Wheels program and needed extra space for seniors.
As Business Report noted in a recent cover story on the COA, the city-parish has agreed to let the agency operate out of the current headquarters and senior center at 5790 Florida Blvd. rent free through 2035. Clark-Amar says about 100 seniors attend the center each day, but more space is needed.
—Sam Karlin
