Experts on Aging Launch Task Force

A dozen experts on aging met at City Hall on Thursday, inaugurating a task force formed by Los Angeles City Councilwoman Laura Chick to devise policies and point out gaps in services for the city’s growing elderly population.

The city Department of Aging released a report Thursday that projected a dramatic boom in the number of residents age 60 and older. That number is expected to roughly double to more than 1 million people by 2020, the report said. It also noted that Los Angeles County has the largest number of elderly adults of all counties nationwide.

The task force chose Fernando Torres-Gil as its chairman; he is director of the Center for Policy Research on Aging at UCLA. The meeting reviewed challenges faced by senior citizens, including transportation, health care, housing and financial planning.

Peter Braun of the Los Angeles Alzheimer’s Assn., said advocates must address “not in my backyard” resistance to senior citizen facilities, an attitude he said surfaced recently in the San Fernando Valley.

In October, the City Council approved a controversial senior housing project in Sherman Oaks that supporters said was resisted because of intolerance toward the low-income elderly.

“As the population of frail elderly grows . . . we are going to be dealing with neighborhoods,” Braun said. “And we are going to have to build some kind of education program.”

Councilman Mike Feuer, former head of a legal aid clinic that serves elderly and poor clients, also attended the meeting.

Feuer, who introduced a motion Wednesday to help protect the elderly from abuse and financial exploitation, will oversee the panel’s work as chairman of the City Council’s Arts, Health and Humanities Committee.

The task force is expected to present its recommendations to the committee in May.