A graduate-level class nearly 1,000 miles away recently got a lesson from the Town of North Hempstead on how to best to care for seniors. Former North Hempstead Town Supervisor Jon Kaiman remotely led a one-hour discussion on Oct. 21 in Professor Brad Winick’s Planning Communities for an Aging Population class in the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Winick said that he contacted the town after recently reading a featured article on Project Independence in the nationally distributed Planning Magazine.
“I thought a lesson from the Town of North Hempstead itself would be perfect for this class,” Winick said.
Kaiman spoke about all of the programs and services the Project Independence provides, as well as the thought process that went into creating the program.
“Today there is such a vast network of resources available to seniors, especially in the health care field, but it’s not always easy to navigate the system,” Kaiman said.
To address that concern, the town created an office of professionals at Project Independence that connects seniors to these services. By linking the program to the town’s 311 call center and the TownStat Performance Measurement system, there is a record of each request and just one number to call to obtain necessary information.
Winick touted the practicality of the program and said, “It appears that the success of this program was based on smart governmental decisions and not necessarily a massive investment of resources.”
He also said although he was aware of similar comprehensive programs offered in larger cities like New York City and Atlanta, but that through his research he did not find many in suburban areas.
The students in the class will now be responsible with selecting a random community and researching what measures would have to be taken in order to create an aging-in-place program in their community.
Winick also talked about one of the concepts he has been trying to get through to his students all semester.
“I’m trying to get my students past the thinking that senior housing is limited to complexes that say ‘senior housing’ on it,” he said. “I think North Hempstead has that part figured out.”
