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Pilot Program to Help Elderly

11/28/07

Accounting Aid Society Receives $60,000 from McGregor Fund
Funding for Pilot Program to Help Elderly Link to Food Assistance, Other Benefits

DETROIT  -- Accounting Aid Society has received a $60,000 grant from the McGregor Fund to support a one-year pilot program linking its free tax help with screening for food assistance and other benefits designed for seniors.  The goal is to provide convenient points of access and to improve participation in the federal Food Assistance Program and other public benefits such as Medicaid.

 More than 33 percent of Accounting Aid's low-income tax clients are seniors age 60 or older, and according to Elder Law of Michigan (ELM), the elderly have historically underutilized the federal Food Assistance Program.

 During the upcoming tax season, ELM representatives will be at three Accounting Aid tax sites in Detroit -- the neighborhood tax center in southwest Detroit, Detroit Main Library in midtown, and Focus:HOPE on the city's northwest side -- to screen seniors for eligibility in the federal Food Assistance Program and other public benefits. If eligible, ELM representatives will help clients complete and submit the Michigan Department of Human Services application form online through Michigan's Coordinated Access to Food for the Elderly (MiCAFE).

 Kathleen Aro, Accounting Aid Society president, said the pilot program will further leverage the benefits of tax assistance with additional federal and state benefits for low-income households with seniors.

"Although programs exist to reduce hunger and inadequate nutrition, many seniors don't know about them or are embarrassed to use them," she said. "This pilot program, in effect, will bring the Department of Human Services right to low-income elderly clients at our tax sites."