Tiffany Cantrell-Warren, bureau manager for Community Health, city of Long Beach, speaks during Aging Reimagined 2.0. The event brought together city of Long Beach, Long Beach State University, SCAN and FUSE representatives, to discuss the resources and gaps in services for the senior population. Long Beach May 1, 2018. Photo by Brittany Murray, Press Telegram/SCNG

Tiffany Cantrell-Warren, bureau manager for Community Health, city of Long Beach, speaks during Aging Reimagined 2.0. The event brought together city of Long Beach, Long Beach State University, SCAN and FUSE representatives, to discuss the resources and gaps in services for the senior population. Long Beach May 1, 2018. Photo by Brittany Murray, Press Telegram/SCNG

Kelly Colopy, Director of health and human services, city of Long Beach, speaks during Aging Reimagined 2.0. The event brought together city of Long Beach, Long Beach State University, SCAN and FUSE representatives, to discuss the resources and gaps in services for the senior population. Long Beach May 1, 2018. Photo by Brittany Murray, Press Telegram/SCNG

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A severe shortage of affordable housing is the greatest threat to Long Beach seniors, one that could possibly get worse as the city’s population grows older, according to an analysis released Tuesday morning.

The study analyzed gaps in the city’s services for residents older than 50; it painted, officials said, a “grim picture” of how many threats to their quality of life seniors face.

The analysis was released during Aging Reimagined 2.0, a seminar focused on creating better coordination and communication among city, academic, nonprofit and private organizations to improve senior care. During the seminar, the city’s health department also unveiled its new office on aging, called the Long Beach Healthy Aging Center, which will oversee the different programs to help seniors.

“Although we have this report with very grim statistics and there are things we need to wake up to,” said Tiffany Cantrell-Warren, the city’s bureau manager for community health, “we need to shift the narrative about how we talk about care.

“The gap analysis helps us get started on that work,” she added.

In the 55-page analysis, the city looked at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to providing care to seniors; it also homed in on five key areas: housing, health, transportation, safety and overall quality of life.

In Long Beach—where one-quarter of all residents are 50 years of age or older—many seniors are getting displaced by high rents, either becoming homeless or being forced to move out of the city, the analysis said. And there are not nearly enough affordable housing units available to seniors.

In fact, during a December 2016 count of affordable housing in Long Beach, officials found 31 buildings listed as accepting Section 8 housing vouchers, Cantrell-Warren said. Of those, four no longer accepted vouchers—thus losing its “affordable” designation—and among the other 27, there were three apartments available.

Financially, seniors are also vulnerable, the study showed. Seniors are more likely than other age groups to be victims of scams, fraud, physical and emotional abuse, and neglect. But the resources available to protect seniors are lacking, according to the analysis.

In Los Angeles County, for example, the Department of Children and Family Services has a 10-to-1 case-to-social worker ratio; the ratio for Adult Protective Services is 200 to 1.

“Older adults need advocates,” said Karen Doolittle, a businesswoman spending a year working for Long Beach as part of the FUSE Corps. fellowship that embeds private-sector leaders into government agencies.

But not all was bleak, officials said during Tuesday’s seminar. There are also opportunities to improve care.

“We need to understand the senior perspective of what it is like to seek services,” said Dootlittle, who worked on the analysis, “to design a better way to connect them to services.”

The new Long Beach Healthy Aging Center will oversee four working groups—on health, transportation, housing and safety—to find better ways to care for seniors. Kelly Colopy, the director of the city’s health and human services department, urged people to volunteer for the working groups, saying at Tuesday’s seminar, “We need the people in this room.”

The working groups—as well as other organizations, such as the SCAN Health Plan, and the recently relaunched Center for Successful Aging at Cal State Long Beach—will look at solutions such as cheap, prefabricated buildings to increase affordable housing; increased crosswalk times to make going across the street easier for those with trouble walking; and increased wellness checks when seniors are willing to let social workers in their homes.

The goal, officials said, is to increase the well-being of seniors, decrease social isolation and mental health issues, and tap into the potential seniors bring to the community; seniors.

“The findings of the gap analysis are sobering,” Cantrell-Warren said last week, previewing the report. “We can’t ignore the data. However, we must focus on what can be done. The data shows us where we are today, and we are making positive investments and championing an agenda of collaboration.”

BY THE NUMBERS

$7.6 trillion: the 50-plus age group contributes to consumer spending annually

648 people: aged over 50 experienced homelessness and sought help at the city’s multiservices center in 2017.

62 percent: of Cambodian-American seniors experience post-traumatic stress disorder.

40 percent: of LGBTQ seniors do not disclose their sexual orientation to health care providers

14 percent: of those 65 years or older live below the poverty line in Long Beach

Source: Establishing Care Systems for an Age-Friendly Community, Long Beach Gap Analysis