Senior Project Research

Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORC) Project has Successful Outcome

Jewish Family & Child Service has just completed Round IV of the Administration on Aging's Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORC) project, which ended August 31, 2006. The project took apartments in the Beaverton Hillsdale Hwy area and "adopted" the seniors living in those apartments. The funding provided JFCS with the opportunity to conduct a needs assessment, which uncovered that many of the residents were refugees from the former Soviet Union whom JFCS had resettled in Portland over the years.

Most reported that they are low-income, in poor health, and are extremely isolated. They yearned for social and cultural activities offered in their native language and need assistance to access resources, communicate with landlords and utility companies, locate housing resources and benefits programs. Unlike their younger counterparts, it is much harder for them to learn the language skills necessary to get through the maze of government agencies and programs to get their problems solved. With the help of JFCS bilingual case managers, the seniors have been able to resolve these problems.

JFCS partnered with Cedar Sinai Park, Neighborhood House, Ride Connection and Multnomah County Aging and Disability Services to provide various needed services for these seniors. The project partners have collaborated on several additional funding initiatives, one of which has been partially funded and others that are still awaiting outcomes. JFCS received a $50,000 grant from Providence Health Plans to continue case management and service coordination. This will enable us to continue to provide these essential services and to meet the needs of an expanded population of seniors.

JFCS will be working with our partner agencies to increase private and public support for this project and others like it, as the general population is aging at an alarming rate nationally and at an even greater pace locally. The most significant promise of the NORC project is that it brought the key players together and created a collaboration of agencies committed to the welfare and improved services to the seniors in our area. JFCS is certain that this project is only the beginning of a creative and industrious expansion of services to seniors in the Portland Metro area.