Americans Act within Louisiana, we have established four priority areas: transportation, day care, homemaker or in home services, and nutrition service centers.

Senator JOHNSTON. If we had plenty of money or, to put it another way, if we were able to convince our colleagues to make these things higher priorities in terms of Federal spending, what would you do in terms of transportation? How can we solve that problem for older Americans?

My friend back here is correct when he said we need transportation. What do we do if we have got the money?

MS. SLAYBAUGH. Transportation has been a very real issue. I think at this point there is no real answer. I think, especially in Louisiana, you have to look at the difference in the population or the geographcal areas when you start looking at this problem. For example, I do not think that you could possibly resolve the transportation issues the same in the rural areas as you could, say, in metropolitan New Orleans, so you may have to look at a combination of methods; but I do think that much more needs to be done.

Senator JOHNSTON. Let me ask one unrelated question, if I may. What percentage of senior citizens, let's say 65 and older, own their own homes in Louisiana as opposed to rent their homes or otherwise live in a non-owned home?

Mr. MCKENZIE. Do you have any figures?

STATEMENT OF MR. MCGOVERN, A RESIDENT OF NEW ORLEANS

Mr. McGOVERN. Senator Johnston, I have been a resident of New Orleans and the West Bank for a long time, so I have seen a lot of politicians argue for and against various studies. Talking about transportation, one of our problems is a bridge, an additional bridge. Just this morning, I didn't think I would ever get here and there was no special rush or anything.

But in all honesty, and no names-the politicians start arguing and arguing and arguing and they get a research and a survey and another one while the transportation just does not get any place. A bridge is a necessity to both the East and West Bank, but the local politicians on both sides are interested in their welfare first.

If the politicians would get out there and have a moral conviction to do what is right for the people-and we have got to put morals in our life, not just money-then we could accomplish something. Once another bridge was there where we could freely travel in both directions, you could tie all kinds of transit and do certain things. Everything is money, and I hate to say it, but a lot of politicians say, "What is in it for me?" We have forgotten the Good Lord and what is good. We talk about humanity, but we really have got no inner good feeling for people.

Senator JOHNSTON. I appreciate those comments.

Mr. McGOVERN. We have got to have more than just money. Money is important, very important, but we have got to eliminate a lot of the politics. There is too much politics battling for "What is in it for me?" and I am not talking about the higher, it begins at the low level.

Senator EAGLETON. Thank you very much, sir.

Mrs. Boggs.

Mrs. BOGGS. Well, I agree with the comments that the gentleman is making because it gets back to what we were talking about a minute ago: the impact of certain programs on other programs. We can talk about transportation for the elderly; we can talk about all the new equipment that can be put physically on vehicles to aid the elderly; we can talk about alternative of programs of delivery, but unless we do have the means of coordinating metropolitan travel with bridges and roads and rail transportation, we certainly can't get people transported quickly and safely to the various centers where they can participate in the various programs.

The question you raised of whether indeed coordination should be first priority or whether there should be an alternative of having the programs in place and then coordinating secondary levels is interesting. Of course, this is an important issue. Mayor-elect Morial sug gests that perhaps we should look at the community development block grant programs as it applies to the programs for the elderly; that would be almost in reverse to what you are suggesting of hav ing everything lumped into a State payment and then a coordinated program from there in. Can you help us in this discrepancy?

Mr. MCKENZIE. These are just possibilities that I mentioned. I think with my experience in the Bureau of Aging, which has been only a couple of weeks, this is one of the things that I have been confronted with which has been very disturbing and that is the coordination itself in trying to implement various programs that the Bureau is responsible for. It is difficult to find standardization or uniformity. I think not only in the State programs, but also from the national level as they come down.

This is one thing that we feel that really needs to be considered and determined in the upcoming proposals that will be submitted for rewriting the Older Americans Act. It just seems that from the State's standpoint, of course, it would be much easier to operate and to administer programs if you did, you know, have that under one unit that way. I am not saying that this would be better, at this point I would not be able to say that.

Mrs. BOGGS. Since income and housing and health are really outside of the administration of the Older Americans Act, the impact of these programs upon the Older Americans Act programs have to be recognized. I was curious about how coordination could take place without having this overall local level planning with the other areas because, of course, the local areas have to be coordinated.

For instance, a community center for the elderly, hopefully we are using some of the housing preservation acts in order to preserve landmarks that means something to the community and that are already in place and to adapt them to uses for centers for the elderly. You use two programs so you have money from both, hopefully, and at the same time you are really creating two good programs for the community.

I am interested in your observation and I wonder how we can really coordinate what goes on at the city level, while having a lump sum program go directly to the State agency.

Mr. MCKENZIE. I think that the concept itself is good and I think it is working, you know, in some places. However, in other places I feel that it is not working because of differences for some reason or other where programs coming down from the national level maybe go through the State level through the AAA's and on down to the local level. In some other cases with the same type of programs, it is not happening and this is the main thing that I was speaking to in terms of uniformity in that respect. So coordination could become easier.

Mrs. BOGGS. Thank you very much. Thank both of you for not only your excellent testimony but the remarkable work that you do day in and day out.

Senator EAGLETON. Let me propound this to you, Mr. McKenzie. I have been in the Senate 9 years and I guess I have voted for as many categorical programs as any other Senator during that time frame. As I say, some bills come along to do this, that, or another thing for the American people. For instance, one of the more recent items pertaining to America's elderly is legal services and a lot of testimony was taken about the needs in that area. Residential repairs are another problem. Indeed, there must be literally hundreds of thousands of homes in which senior citizens live and those homes desperately need some kind of repair in terms of better wiring, insulation, plumbing, et cetera.

Then on insulation, we are in the year of the energy crisis. Everybody is concerned, "Let's save energy, let's have more insulation and better use of energy in the homes," et cetera. So these things get tacked on.

Here is my problem, and it goes back to what Ms. Slaybaugh said, insofar as the Older Americans Act is concerned. She points out that there should be income, health, housing; these are not specifically under the Older Americans Act. You have got social security and SSI and medicare and medicaid, you have got HUD programs and section 8 and all that.

But the local priorities you defined were transportation, day care, homemaker, nutrition, and here we are at a nutrition site. I added on such things as I have said, home insulation and legal services. My question is this: And my thinking has really gone through a metamorphosis, I guess; Would we be better off having a fewer number of programs, but doing those better? More adequately funding a more limited number of programs rather than having a whole range of them. We have specific programs but we are putting a nickel and dime in each one of those and the impact is so thin as to really not have any direct bearing on the quality of one's life. Should we bite a tough bullet? That's sort of a mixed metaphor. And concentrate, say, on transportation and day care and then frankly say, "Look, legal service, we know that's a problem, but to set up the administration of that, to put a few dollars in that, it is not going to make it. Even the residential repair program, a few dollars in that nationwide amongst 220 million Americans. What kind of advice could you give us on that dilemma?

Mr. MCKENZIE. I would feel the same way, that if you spread too thin, it is difficult to be very effective in any one area.

Ms. SLAYBAUGH. Let me respond to several things you have said.

You have brought up the concept of priorities and I think when we start looking at priorities, we also need to look at the local areas and what are the priorities at the local level? For example, when we start talking about transportation, transportation may be a very real need in one area, but_transportation may not be the problem or priority problem in another area.

So while we are establishing priorities, we may want to look at the level at which the priorities should be established. I think this is something that the Older Americans Act was focusing on. They were focusing on the establishment of the priorities for services at the local level and this is something we may want to keep looking at when we are talking about the renewal of the Older Americans Act.

There are priorities for services, but at what levels should the priorities be established? Should we say the national priorities are these and all of our moneys go into these four priority areas or should we allow, like we have been doing, the local people to establish the priority services within their own given area?

Mr. MCKENZIE. But there again you would establish priorities rather than try to cover the whole water front with a little bit into everything. The point that I think Ms. Slaybaugh was referring to is also one which concerns us even in Louisiana as in New Orleans. In some of our larger metropolitan cities in the State have the advantage of having some better transportation than, say, in the central part of the State and some of the northern parts of the State. So to set that as a priority for, say, that area might be all right, whereas, in New Orleans it might be something else.

In other words, you will have different priorities depending on the section of the State that you are in rather than say this is a priority for the whole State. We would like to see it left whereby the individual localities could determine which one of the needs they need to have the most.

STATEMENT OF MR. CRAWFORD, A RESIDENT OF NEW ORLEANS

Mr. CRAWFORD. Senator Eagleton, don't you think that the individual priorities should consult the employee and then the employee decide on what they are going to do?

Senator EAGLETON. That was going to be my very next question. How do the senior citizens in Louisiana, or in New Orleans, participate in this decisionmaking process as to priorities? This gentleman here is very keenly interested in transportation services for the elderly. He is from New Orleans, I take it.

Mr. CRAWFORD. I am.

Senator EAGLETON. To him that is the No. 1 priority for senior citizens. That might not be true in Baton Rouge or Shreveport, but how do we hear this gentleman. What system do you have to take his suggestions into account?

Ms. SLAYBAUGH. Mr. Gates is on the program later in the day and I think he can speak to the specific procedures that they follow in getting the consumer input or the client input into the local planning of services within the local area and I think he can respond

to that.

Going back to the priority services, I did want to make one other comment. When we started setting up priorities at the Federal level in terms of the Older Americans Act, for example, we have said one of the four priorities is transportation and we have set a certain amount of money in terms of increase in funding under the Older Americans Act must go into those four priority services. I think one of the concerns many people have had in terms of this, and especially from the State government and I know some of the area agencies and local people have had the same problem, is, for example, maybe we have been able to utilize other resources, for example, to provide the transportation service.

For example, if we could get title XX money or if we can get urban mass transportation money to provide the transportation services, we may no longer consider transportation to be one of the priority services, that we should be using Older Americans Act money for. So, consequently, we want to look at the Older Americans Act as being able to do something else we see as a priority basically at the local level.

Mr. MCKENZIE. Provided we can get the funds from some other

area.

STATEMENT OF MR. TAYLOR, A RESIDENT OF NEW ORLEANS

Mr. TAYLOR. Senator Eagleton, what good is transportation if I cannot live to enjoy it? Really, what I need is the respect of the younger people and close cooperation of the police department to insure that whenever transportation is available, I can make use of it.

Senator EAGLETON. So your sense of priority is a little bit different for the moment than the gentleman

Mr. TAYLOR. The protection of the senior citizen. That is first and then come along with the transportation money. After you are transported to the various places, you know what to do with it. [Applause.]

Mrs. Boccs. Senator, I wanted to tell you that Mr. Taylor is not only named as an actor's name, but he is one of the better actors in our whole group in New Orleans. [Applause.]

Senator EAGLETON. Now, before yielding to Senator Johnston, Mr. McGovern wanted to say something.

Mr. McGOVERN. I think one of the problems, and I am referring to Mr. Taylor and I agree with him wholeheartedly, one of the things that confronts many citizens, and I am talking about locally in New Orleans, is that the elderly people that live in New Orleans is confronted with problems of fright. I know because I go around and see all the time and in the neighborhood where I used to live houses are now barred. barred just like police. People are afraid at night outside and inside and the elderly people, black and white are catching it.

There is no color blindness when it comes to robbing and mugging people and they are helpless. If we can curtail the crime and face crime as it should in this Nation, then in the older houses and the older neighborhoods, the people are going to live in peace, even in an old neighborhood. They want nice houses, they want everything,