Washington, DC, April 02, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- More than 11 million older adults in the United States rely on locally provided aging services, including in-home assistance with bathing and dressing, home-delivered meals, transportation, healthy aging activities such as falls prevention programs, and caregiver supports. These and other supportive services enhance the ability of older adults to age well at home and in the community, thus avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations or nursing home care.

Older adults’ access to these essential aging services, however, relies on federal funding and leadership under the Older Americans Act (OAA). This base of federal dollars and technical assistance allows states and Area Agencies on Aging (AAAs) to leverage additional funding that supports an array of options that enable older adults to stay healthy as they age, to live at home and in their communities, and to remain engaged contributors to those same communities.

However, USAging is concerned that the Trump Administration’s recent reorganization of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) may jeopardize older adults’ access to these critical aging services. The HHS agency responsible for administering OAA programs and services, the U.S. Administration for Community Living (ACL), has been dismantled, with its functions moved to other HHS agencies. Unfortunately, yesterday’s firing of one-half of ACL’s staff raises urgent questions about how the OAA and other ACL programs that support older adults, people with disabilities and caregivers will be administered.

USAging’s questions include:  

• With the firing of all 10 regional ACL administrators, how will states and AAAs receive technical assistance and guidance from the federal agency that funds their OAA, State Health Insurance Assistance Program, Senior Medicare Patrol and other efforts?
• With the firing of all of ACL’s budget and grant experts, who will ensure that OAA funding is properly distributed to states? Any delays will have a swift negative impact on AAAs. A recent USAging survey of AAAs revealed that 38 percent of these vital agencies would be forced to reduce services within two weeks of being cut off from the federal funding that Congress has appropriated.
• If a AAA is unable to pay its community-based providers, services to older adults and caregivers will be reduced or halted, and their provider organizations’ ability to stay open would also be at risk. Such delays or disruptions will destabilize community efforts to support older Americans, ultimately creating situations in which they are hungrier, less healthy, less safe and less independent—and their family caregivers are more burdened and stressed.

“We are concerned that the severe and dramatic reduction in force announcement this week—in essence gutting the federal infrastructure that supports the OAA and other aging programs—could threaten the federal government’s commitment to meeting the needs of the millions of older adults who need in-home and community support to remain living well at home, as well as the needs of their caregivers,” said USAging CEO Sandy Markwood. “While we recognize that new presidential administrations often make changes, we fear the scale of staff reductions in this case will have a chilling effect on the ability of AAAs to deliver essential supportive services to older adults in communities nationwide. If that happens, this Administration will have abandoned the needs of millions of older Americans and stranded their critical caregivers.”

About USAging
USAging is the national association representing and supporting the network of Area Agencies on Aging and advocating for the Title VI Native American Aging Programs. Our members help older adults and people with disabilities throughout the United States live with optimal health, well-being, independence and dignity in their homes and communities. For more information, visit usaging.org and follow @theUSAging on Facebook, X and Instagram.

Bethany Coulter
USAging
202.872.0888
bcoulter@usaging.org