Mail Carriers Keep Watchful Eye on Elderly as They Make Rounds

Like most mail carriers, Larry Martinez has learned to recognize the patterns of life in the Wilshire District neighborhood where he works.

Residents tell him when they will be away on vacation; he can spot someone who “doesn’t belong” in the neighborhood and, most important, he can tell when one of his elderly patrons is in trouble.

“We keep an eye out for the elderly, we’re protective,” Martinez said. “Some of them call me their son and I’ll call them my grandmother.”

When Martinez arrives at the Christ Unity Manor apartments on Manhattan Place, for example, he checks the mailboxes in the lobby. Almost all of the residents of the building are elderly, and if mail begins to pile up in any of the boxes, Martinez informs the apartment management or his supervisors at the post office, who will in turn call the city Department of Aging.

This simple observation, repeated by mail carriers throughout Los Angeles, helps ensure the safety of many elderly citizens, some of whom live alone and are in regular contact with only one person--their mail carrier.

Under the city-sponsored Carrier Alert Program, seniors who wish to have their mail checked regularly give the Department of Aging the name of a friend or relative to call in case of an emergency, said Andrew Gutierrez, a spokesman for the department. City officials in turn provide the seniors with a decal to place in their mailboxes, alerting carriers to check for unopened mail and other signs of danger, abuse and neglect.

“We’ll call a relative or a next-door neighbor, and ultimately we’ll call the police to make inquiries as to why they haven’t picked up their mail,” Gutierrez said.

About 200 Los Angeles seniors have enrolled in the alert program, most of them during the past year. The program was established in Los Angeles in 1982, but it was largely forgotten until city officials revived it last year. The program operates on a relatively low budget, its only expense being the purchase of a few stickers, Gutierrez said.

The program is sponsored nationwide by the National Assn. of Letter Carriers, and similar programs have been established across the country. Locally, Temple City, Westminster, San Juan Capistrano and Brea also have alert programs.

Post office spokesman Dave Mazer recalls many instances in which mail carriers, acting on their own or as part of the alert program, have come to the aid of their elderly patrons.

When one Los Angeles postman recently heard a radio playing loudly and found the door ajar at the home of an elderly woman who lived alone, he called out her name. When she did not answer, he notified a neighbor, who in turn called the woman’s sister. Paramedics later discovered that the woman had fallen in the bathtub and had been unconscious for several hours, Mazer said.

“He knew that woman and he knew she didn’t usually do that kind of thing,” Mazer said. “The carriers know their customers and they’ll look out for them, even without the little sticker being there.”

Placing decals on the boxes, however, helps substitute carriers identify seniors who are frail and isolated, Mazer said.

Indeed, when Larry Martinez came down with a head cold and could not make his regular rounds at the Christ Unity Manor one recent morning, postman Manuel Santos stepped in. And the alert program’s stickers enabled him to identify elderly patrons.

Although some of the building’s residents were disappointed that a substitute had come to deliver their mail, most said they trusted the men and women who deliver their Social Security checks, bank statements and other important letters.

Or as resident Edyth White said: “They’ve been nice, all of them.”