State aging commission asks Juneau seniors Oct. 29 what its next plan should prioritize

The Alaska Commission on Aging will ask Juneau seniors on Thursday, Oct. 29, what the state's next plan for senior services should focus on.

The listening session runs 1 to 2:30 pm at the Mendenhall Valley Public Library and is open to anyone 55 and older, according to the commission's notice. "Every four years, the Alaska Commission on Aging asks older Alaskans what matters most to them," the notice says. What seniors say will be used to set the state's priorities for the next State Plan for Senior Services.

The plan is written under the federal Older Americans Act and a state law directing the commission to develop it. The current plan runs through September 2027.

Last time, seniors surveyed by the state ranked access to health care as their top concern. That plan drew on more than 40 listening sessions from 2021 to 2023, with more than 500 participants, and 5,943 responses to a 2022 survey of Alaskans 55 and older, 887 of them from Southeast Alaska. Seniors also raised housing and assisted living, and a strong desire to stay in their communities, the plan says.

This year's session guide asks participants what went well over the past year, what challenges they or their families faced, what help they got and what would have helped more. It then asks which of 26 topics matter most in their community. The list includes caregiver support, housing, the cost of assisted living, transportation, help with Medicare, a loved one with dementia, food insecurity, raising grandchildren and emergency preparedness.

Transportation has been a focus of Juneau's own Commission on Aging, a separate city advisory body. Its chair, Deborah Craig, has told the Assembly that Capital AKcess, the city's paratransit service, must improve or the city should change contractors, Alaska News reported Oct. 13.