Aging population will put high demand on county services in
coming years
San Benito County is getting older. Anticipated to be the
fastest growing county in the region over the next few decades, the
real population explosion will be among the elderly, a
transformation that will necessitate change and could spell
opportunity. Ready or not, here they come.
Aging population will put high demand on county services in coming years
San Benito County is getting older. Anticipated to be the fastest growing county in the region over the next few decades, the real population explosion will be among the elderly, a transformation that will necessitate change and could spell opportunity. Ready or not, here they come.
“Getting changes in population groups where you’re talking about 50 percent, 100 percent, that’s a pretty significant shift,” said Art Henriques, director of building and planning for San Benito County.
By 2035, the population of seniors aged 65-84 is projected to increase by 124 percent, according to a report from Association of Bay Area Governments.
Adults ages 85 years and older will nearly double.
In 2000, about 4,7000 seniors called the county home. The projections would put the number of seniors at nearly 6,000 in less than 30 years.
San Benito County has historically had a younger median age than the rest of the state, said Mary Paxton, Hollister’s planning manager.
The county’s population is currently concentrated in children ages 0-19 and adults ages 30-45, according to the report. Those groups are expected to grow 54 percent and 64 percent respectively.
“It’s over a 25-year period,” Henriques said. “That’s all well and good, but you have to be planning for that shift.”
Positive outlook
The expansion could have a positive economic effect on the county, Henriques said.
“Seniors eat out,” said Marilyn Ferreira, a local real estate agent who specializes in senior housing. “Maybe they go for the early bird dinner, but they eat out.”
Nonprofits could reap the benefits of a population with copious amounts of free time.
“Seniors are one of the most important components of the community because they have the time to give and share,” Ferreira said. “I belong to Rotary. There are a lot of seniors that give up their time to raise money for the community. They volunteer at hospitals. You go down to the library, they’re there.”
Still, the expanding senior population will need special attention in the county’s general plan, Henriques said.
“The county may want to look at the type of housing it will be trying to promote in the future,” Henriques said.
Rosa Vivian Fernandez, chief executive officer of the San Benito Health Foundation Community Clinic, agreed.
The housing question
“We need to be looking at it in a cohesive manner,” Fernandez said. “We have a lot of projects planned as the moratorium ends. How do you plan communities in order to insure that every age group is able to live in the community?”
The last construction boom did not produce houses that are readily accessible for seniors, said Mary Anne Hughes, executive director of the Community Pantry, a nonprofit.
“In that whole growth period of the ’90s, we didn’t do any low-income stuff,” Hughes said. “We didn’t do any planned neighborhood stuff or planned senior stuff.”
There is already an unmet need for senior housing, Ferreira said.
“I’ve had a lot of people leave over the years because there wasn’t housing here for them,” she said. “A lot of them have had to go into condominiums in Ridgemark. Every community has independent living facilities except for San Benito County.”
Ferreira is one of the developers of a 166-unit independent living community planned for the Annotti Ranch next to Hazel Hawkins Hospital.
“Our citizens have been demanding it and wanting it,” Ferreira said. “We’ve had a tremendous following all these years. We need it.”
Some seniors need a little bit of help to remain in their homes.
Currently, 360 people per month receive in-home support services, a program for disabled seniors who need help with tasks such as cooking and cleaning, said Kay Gibson, assistant director of Health and Human Services.
Expansion of the senior population could mean more demand for in-home support, adult protective services and food stamps.
“It would probably mean an increase of staff, or it could just mean an increase in case load and no increase in staff,” Gibson said.
Infrastructure demands and emergency services
Lisa Rheinheimer, executive director of the Local Transportation Authority, said infrastructure might need to be improved for seniors.
“We may have to start investing in beefing up our sidewalk system for people who can’t get around as well,” Rheinheimer said.
People who are vision impaired might need crosswalks that use noise as well as flashing lights to signal safe crossing, she added.
The senior expansion could affect transportation patterns in the county.
“I think what we’ll end up seeing is an increase in the demand for our transit service as people begin to use their cars less,” Rheinheimer said.
There will be greater demand for Dial-A-Ride, a door to door service for the disabled and seniors, said Betty Li, a transportation planner for the county’s LTA.
“Hopefully funding for that will continue to go up as the senior population continues to grow,” Li said. “We’ll have to make sure that we have enough funding for our vehicles.”
The population in some counties is already getting older and residents are making more calls to 911, Henriques said.
“Depending on their health, they may increase demands on the public safety,” he said. “You can perhaps get more calls for heart attacks or things of that nature.”
In an emergency, seniors cannot always drive for help, Fernandez said.
“Two years ago we experienced a heat wave which is a concern because a lot of our houses don’t necessarily have cooling,” she said. “When you have a fragile population, they are affected exponentially.”
The county will need more doctors who specialize in geriatrics, Hughes said.
“We maybe have one in town who’s kind of geriatric,” she said. “That’s a problem for the whole town.”
Many people already leave the county for medical care, Li said.
“There’s probably going to be a lot more demand for out of county medical transportation, given that our hospital has limited resources,” Li said.
Nonprofit helping hands
With an increasing number of people living on a fixed income, tough economic times could get tougher, Hughes said.
“We’re going to see a lot more people,” Hughes said, of Community Pantry. “All the people who already come here are not going to suddenly not need us anymore. You’re going to have all the people who didn’t need us suddenly coming here because they’re on a fixed income.”
About a third of families served at the Community Pantry are seniors. In July, staff helped more than 580 senior families, Hughes said.
Social security will not be enough, Hughes said.
“For a single person who probably didn’t work too much in their lives, they’re living on $596 a month,” she said. “I don’t see how it’s going to work, unless families will take more responsibility for the other generation. I believe that if I were ever in dire straights, my children would let me have a back room somewhere. But not everybody has that.”
