Tag Archives for Kathleen S. Connell

AARP Rhode Island Web Report Puts Spotlight on Hunger

Published December 28, 2012, Pawtucket Times

Especially during the holiday festivities this week the plight of Rhode Island’s hungry seniors in Providence’s West End Community and throughout the Ocean State, may have remained hidden to many Rhode Islanders, especially at Christmas Dinner, who gathered with families and friends to eat turkey, ham, the fixings, topped off with delicious pastries, and even pies.

But with the funding support of AARP Foundation’s Drive to End Hunger, AARP Rhode Island officially launches its Hungry in the West End investigative web report next week, to ratchet up the public’s awareness that seniors do go hungry every day in this Providence neighborhood and throughout Rhode Island’s 39 Cities and Towns.

Executive Director, Kathleen S. Connell, of AARP Rhode Island, notes that, according the USDA statistics, 67,000 Rhode Island households are considered “food insecure,” which means families do not always have the financial ability to purchase adequate food. “Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of Rhode Island households,” she adds, “receive SNAP (Food Stamp) benefits.

Targeting the West End of Providence

According to Connell, the West End of Providence is the city’s — and the state’s – most economically challenged community. The unemployment rate among its largely Hispanic population exceeds 20 percent, more than double the state average, she says.

Connell adds that hidden in the West End are the “elderly hungry,” whose “food insecurity” is reflected in the number of people who must rely on the federal SNAP program, Meals on Wheels, congregate meals sites at senior centers and neighborhood food pantries to eat.

To get the story out about Senior hunger, former journalist and now AARP Rhode Island’s Director of Communications, John Martin, worked closely with former Providence Journal reporter, Jody McPhillips to investigate and put this issue on the radar screen of the general public as well as the Rhode Island General Assembly and state policy makers.

One disturbing fact came to light during Martin and McPhillips’ interviews, is that resources to relieve hunger are “stretched thin. Federal and state funding to end hunger have not kept pace with the problem. For instance, the Rhode Island General Assembly funding for Meals on Wheels is below funding levels of four years ago, before the nation’s worst recession began.

The Web-based reports, to premiere on Friday, January 4, 2013 at http://www.aarp.org/ri, clearly showcase this daunting domestic issue. What you will see are McPhillips’s eight separate stories, added one per day, many parts of which are supplemented by links to Martin’s videos. They range from extended interviews with McPhillips’s sources, to vignettes shot on various locations, including at the Rhode Island Food Bank, with a Meals on Wheels driver, at food pantries and senior centers, and at the Sodexo family food weekend backpacks program. Also, Martin has put together an overarching video in documentary form that will be posted on the site in segments ranging from four to five minutes each.

Before next week’s premiere you can watch a video preview of this project at – the Web site listed above.

Hunger, One of America’s Biggest Domestic Issues

Connell says that “Hunger and goes hand in hand with a host of serious health consequences – including diabetes, depression, even malnutrition. These are big issues that America faces today. It’s not just a ‘senior problem,’ it’s a societal problem, too. As someone has posted on our Facebook page, senior hunger is simply a disgrace.

“One of our conclusions [noted in the Web-based reports] is that that a lot is being done to help address senior hunger. But federal and state money is not a one-sized fits all solution. For the truly isolated seniors – especially those with disabilities and health issues — well-stocked food pantries may not be a practical resource,” noted Connell.

“We think people who read and watch Hungry in the West End will reach their own conclusions about how we tackle this on a one-to-one basis. It’s a call to action for people to be more aware of senior hunger and to reach out personally to those who might need help,” says Connell.

Connell asks: “Is there someone you can check on? Can you offer someone a ride to the supermarket when you go shopping? Or offer to pick something up? Can you visit a food pantry on their behalf? Perhaps you can ask if they would like some help in signing up for Meals on Wheels or applying for SNAP.”

Connell even knows of a group in one Rhode Island community where “volunteering” means preparing an extra meal each week for someone in need.

For AARP Rhode Island’s John Martin, “I can only say it has been a privilege to become better educated about senior hunger in Rhode Island. Jody and I met scores of people making a difference. But we also saw the great need that is out there. Each step of the way, however, we kept questioning who we were missing. The sad fact is that isolated seniors – by definition – can be all but invisible. In fact, one person said that first contact with some hungry and suffering seniors is a response to a 911 call.

“A lot of talk about hunger is focused on people out of work who are trying to feed their families,” says Martin. But this project brings the issue of senior hunger to the forefront — a problem that may not change much even if the economy makes a healthy rebound, he believes.

Martin states, “It’s not as if a stronger economy means isolated seniors on fixed incomes are going to have more money to spend on utilities, prescription medicines and groceries. And it has always been true that when seniors are forced to choose among those three expenses, groceries likely will be last on the list.”

A Preview….

Aptly put, the problem seems simple but not the solutions, so says McPhillips in her first Web report.

Luz Navarro, a diabetic with part of her left foot amputated, has been on dialysis for four years. The 62-year-old former insurance agent is now housebound, living with her cat. The independently-minded Navarro, can barely stand to cook at the stove and must now rely on Meals on Wheels, delivering her lunch five times a week.

McPhillips illustrates how difficult it is for older person’s to get enough to eat. Navarro, like many of the State’s elderly who are homebound, can’t drive to get to the market, or to a food pantry when money is tight. Nor can she walk to a Senior Center to have lunch and socialize with others.

As McPhillips quipps, “while pundits debate,” Mrs. Navarro needs to eat. While some in Congress denounce the social safety net for creating a culture of dependency, others call for funding to provide food for the needy even with a huge federal deficit.

Senior Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) makes an appearance, calling for the continuation of funding to the state’s SNAP program to feed the growing number of hungry.

Also, Catherine Taylor, director of the state Division of Elderly Affairs, says she sees a future looking darker rather than brighter, for Navarro, and other homebound seniors.

In an era of shrinking budgets, it’s becoming harder to do the things necessary to help older people stay in their homes for as long as possible, admits Taylor.

She warns that federal funding for food programs may be slashed as Congress is forced to rein in the nation’s huge deficit. Food and gas price increases will hit older person’s where it hurts, in their pocket books, predicts Taylor, making it more difficult for them to purchase groceries.

Hopefully, House Speaker Gordon Fox and Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed, will get Taylor’s message at the conclusion of McPhillips’ fine investigative piece: “It’s up to us to picture the world we want to age in,” and to work to bring it about.”

Herb Weiss, LRI ’12 is a Pawtucket-based freelance who covers aging, health care and medical issues. He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.

Older Voters Talk Turkey to Congress

Printed October 26, 2012, Pawtucket Times 

            Even the Presidential election less than two weeks away, registered voters across the nation should exercise their Democratic right to vote.  Since the beginning of July local and state political candidates attended hundreds of public events scattered throughout the OceanState, passing out campaign literature, putting up signs throughout their legislative districts, along with distributing bumper stickers to promote their candidacy on their supporter’s vehicles. .

             During this current election cycle AARP moved to push Congress to address the major issues surrounding Social Security and Medicare, gathering opinions from millions of Americans in thousands of communities across the nation. 

            “People of all ages and across party lines believe Medicare and Social Security are critical to the health and retirement security of older Americans and yet all voters are hearing from the candidates about these programs are attack ads and 30-second sound bites,” says AARP Rhode Island State Director Kathleen S. Connell. “The next President and Congress could determine the future of Social Security and Medicare. Voters want and deserve to know where the candidates stand.”

Setting the Record Straight. 

            Last March, AARP, the nation’s largest aging advocacy group and its state groups, unrolled a new initiative to educate voters about the nation’s two largest domestic programs, Social Security and Medicare and to gather their thoughts to forward to decision makers inside the Washington Beltway.  

            Following its national headquarters’ lead, AARP Rhode Island geared up its final phase of its “You’ve Earned a Say,” initiative, an effort to gather grassroots feedback from “Outside the Beltway” to bring to Congressional lawmakers as they continue their heated debates as to how to bolster the solvency of the nation’s Social Security and Medicare programs.  The educational initiative was created to fuel conversations at the state and national levels to ensure that workers in every state, who have faithfully contributed into Medicare and Social Security Programs, had a direct say in the future reforms of these programs.

            AARP Rhode Island reached out to 130,000 Rhode Island members and its Washington, DC headquarters, to nearly 40 million members to raise awareness of the “You’ve Earned a Say” initiative.  It’s website, www.earnedasay.org, provided both factual and straightforward information as to policies that are being considered and enabled a person to share their ideas with Congress and those running against Congressional incumbents, as how to strengthen these programs. 

            So far, AARP’s educational initiative brought over 3 million people into this conversation on Medicare and Social Security and held over 3,000 events.  At the local level, AARP Rhode Island staff met over 4,000 aging baby boomers and seniors who shared their concerns about the future of these programs. 

            According to Connell, AARP’s “You’ve Earned a Say” initiative was created to bring balanced information to voters — both the pros and the cons — about the policy options being debated during the upcoming Presidential and Congressional elections for both programs. 

            Earlier in this summer, AARP released a series of national surveys on the opinions of voters ages 50 and over, which found that these voters overwhelmingly think the candidates have not done a good job of explaining their plans on Social Security (67%) and Medicare (63%). Voters 50-plus – across party lines – say that getting more information on the candidates’ plans on Social Security (72%) and Medicare (70%) will help them determine their vote on Election Day on Tuesday, November 6, 2012.

            Through the reports and ongoing You’ve Earned a Say events, AARP worked hard to elevate the voices of Rhode Island voters and provide them with nonpartisan information about candidates’ positions on issues important to aging baby boomers and seniors.  In August, AARP launched the “You’ve Earned a Say: Vote for Retirement Security” 2012 Voters’ Guides featuring information from presidential, senatorial and congressional candidates – in their own words – on their own specific plans to strengthen Social Security, Medicare and financial security.

            This week, AARP Rhode Island volunteers delivered a 10 page report entitled “Rhode Islanders Have Their Say about Medicare and Social Security” to Rhode Island Members of Congress and congressional candidates.  The state-specific report conveys the opinions of over 2,100 Rhode Islanders who have participated in the AARP initiative.  National and state-specific versions of the report were also delivered to both presidential and congressional candidates in every state, as well as sitting lawmakers, so they could hear directly from their constituents about their views of how to strengthen these vital domestic programs. 

A Rhode Island Snap Shot

            Out of  2,182 respondents, 32 percent believe Social Security is “okay as is,” followed by 26 percent who only saw a need for minor fixes.    Twenty three percent of those responding believed that Congress must make major changes to the program with 19 percent seeing this domestic program in “a state of crisis.”

            As to Medicare, 26 percent of the respondents say that Medicare “is ok as is” followed by 28 believing that only minor policy fixes are need to keep it solvent.  However, a whopping 31 percent believes major changes are needed to fix Medicare, followed by 15 percent saying Medicare is in “a state of crisis.”

            Twenty eight percent say that they expect the benefits from participating in Social Security and Medicare will equal the contributions they paid while 28 percent will get less benefits.  Forty four percent believe that they might get more back from these two programs the same that they contributed.

            Thirty six percent of the respondents say that more funding is needed to maintain the same benefits while 13 percent fear that benefits will be slashed.  Forty percent expect more funding is needed to shore up the program, but expecting a cut in benefits.  Twelve percent have no opinion.

            Finally, ninety one percent of the respondents want their voice heard by Washington policy makers but 47 percent do not expect it will make a difference.  Nine percent are not interested in getting involved.

            The majority of respondents (51 percent)  called for some changes to be made now, but suggested that Congress should wait before making major changes.  They (35 percent) also believed that higher paid workers aren’t paying enough into the Social Security program and that the program should become solvent before bettered benefit are paid out (68 percent).

            Additionally, the majority (70 percent) also called for a balanced approach when making revenue and benefit changes to ensure there is retirement benefits to future retirees. Fifty five percent also supported upper income workers get higher benefits because they contributed more into the system.

            Most of the respondents (48 percent) also suggested that Congress move slow in making major changes to Medicare, only making small fixes now.   Thirty six percent  believe that the biggest challenge facing Medicare is rising health care costs.  Seventy five percent agreed that all future retirees continue to get guaranteed coverage and care as those get now.  As with Social Security, a majority (62 percent) also called for a balanced approach when making revenue and benefit changes to ensure Medicare is available to future retirees.  Forty four percent say that premiums and funding from the genera federal revenues should not be used to cover increased health care costs.

            Voting may be more difficult in this heated partisan political campaign where voters must learn to separate political rhetoric and negative innuendoes from the substance of issues.  AARP’s “You’ve Earned a Say” initiative is a successful attempt to give back power to voters, helping them become more knowledgeable about Social Security and Medicare in order to rise above negative campaigning.  Your vote must be made by understanding the facts and not be influenced by the fiction of negative attack ads.

            Herb Weiss is a Pawtucket-based freelance writer who covers aging, health care and medical issues.  He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.

Gray Power Can Turn a Campaign Sour

Published in Senior Digest on October 2004

After 24 years on Smith Hill that included a 10-year stint as House speaker, John Harwood’s career came to a surprising end recently when 33-year-old former prosecutor J. Patrick O’Neill’s grass-roots campaign brought home the votes.  The lopsided victory, 758 votes for O’Neill to 352 for Harwood, propelled the political novice into the district 59 House seat.

Two years ago, Harwood barely kept his long-held House seat after a vigorous political campaign by write-in independent candidate Bruce Bayuk.  According to Joseph Fleming, of Fleming & Associates, a Cumberland-based polling and political consultant, seniors casting votes for Harwood at the polling place in Kennedy Manor on Broad Street, played a key role in his victory in that election cycle.

Fleming, who also serves as a political analyst for Channel 12 News said that senior voter support for Harwood was almost nonexistent in the recent Democratic primary.  Senior voters joined with anti-Harwood voters throughout the legislative district to give the former House speaker the boot.

“Harwood lost better than 2-to-1 at the polling place in Kennedy Manor,” Fleming said. “Seniors decided it was a time for a change.”

Over the years, political candidates have made pre-election day pilgrimages to Pawtucket’s senior high-rises.  In District 59, both Harwood and O’Neill courted voters in high-rises, providing food during meet and greet events.

“It’s a myth that a good meal at a senior high-rise will ultimately equate to a vote,” quips Fleming. “Seniors may go down to eat the food, but it doesn’t mean that you’ll get their vote.  Everyone feeds them, but they can’t vote for both sides.” Moreover, he said, the majority of older voters don’t reside in senior high rises.

“Seniors read campaign materials look at the campaign issues and vote for people who reflect their views on these issues,” Fleming says.

Darrell West, a Brown University professor and political pollster, notes that seniors are the biggest voting block in Rhode Island. “Not only are they a sizeable group in numbers, they also are more likely to exercise their franchise to vote,” he says.

Ken McGill, registrar for the City of Pawtucket, agrees with West’s assessment.  McGill says that in any election, political candidates can count on senior voters to turn out in high numbers.

“Seniors were brought up respecting the right to vote and how important it is. They know what is at stake and pay careful attention to the issues that not only affect them, but  issues impacting on members of their family, McGill says.

“Compared to young people, seniors are 30 to 40 percentage points more likely to vote, West said. “Seniors vote because they are invested in their community and come from a generation where it was considered any honor to vote,” says West.  He added that young people tend to be very cynical about politics and more likely to feel their vote does not matter.

West said that seniors voter as a bloc only when they see their issues directly at stake in an election. “If an election centers on Social Security or Medicare, they are more likely to overcome differences by gender, income and ethnicity and cast a ‘senior’ vote,” he says.

Adds Kathleen S. Connell, director of AARP-RI, “There are many reasons why candidates look to the senior citizens for votes. One of them being, the issues that affect the concerned seniors are the same issues that will also affect the candidates and their families now or in the future.”  Also, candidates know that seniors are the most reliable and informed voters, she says.

One of the questions surrounding the upcoming election is whether seniors will support the Rhode Island GOP in its efforts to increase the numbers in the General Assembly?

“Seniors lean Democratic because the elderly typically has seen democrats speak out most forcefully about the need to take care of seniors and protect Medicare and Social Security,” says West. However, Republicans have made in-roads with moral or ethical issues, he says.

Aging groups are gearing up for the upcoming November elections to send educated voting seniors to the polls, Connell says.

“This year, some of our volunteers are participating in presidential debate watches with Rhode Island College, and we are distributing voter guides for them to track the candidate responses to issues of importance to AARP members.  They can use these guides to further study the issues before going to the polls.”

Richard Bidwell, executive director of the Rhode Island Gray Panthers, also sees the value of getting educated senior voters to the polls. With the backdrop of the upcoming elections, the Senior Agenda Consortium (SAC), founded by the Gray Panthers and now comprised of 20 aging groups, is working to improve seniors’ knowledge of issues and develop strategies to pressure candidates to support SAC’s legislative agenda.

 As it did two years ago, SAC, which is funded by the Rhode Island Foundation, will organize three regional forums, to prod the candidates to support its legislation positions on issues ranging from ensuring access to low-cost prescription drugs, better funding for community long-term care services and protecting RIPTA bus routes.  The results will be released to the media.