Baby Boomers Want To Redefine Senior Services

By LINDSAY WILKES-EDRINGTON The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jun 27, 2007

TAMPA - Enough is enough.

That's the message Barbara Kazanis wants to send to those who don't realize that the area's aging baby boomer population deserves more than the senior citizen activities and programs already in place.

"Nobody is asking us who we really are," she said. "We came through in the '60s during a period of social advocacy. We've spent our whole lives redefining the paradigm. Why should we now be reverted back to an old one?"

Kazanis and others from the community came together Tuesday to brainstorm on how to make Hillsborough County more livable for a new generation of seniors.

Held at the Museum of Science & Industry, the discussion was the first of six planned across the nation as part of an "Aging in Place" initiative sponsored by the MetLife Foundation, Partners for Livable Communities and the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging.

The number of people 65 and older is expected to double in the next 25 years, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and those citizens are healthier and more educated than any generation before. Florida has the most residents older than 65.

Hillsborough County recently implemented several projects intended to better serve seniors, including creating an aging master plan, establishing "senior zones" for traffic safety and expanding transportation services. But County Administrator Pat Bean says she wants the county to take its efforts to the next level.

"There are people at Sun City Center, for instance, who were top-level executives," Bean said. "It'd be ideal for us to identify those with expertise and get them to help us."

Larry Polivka, director of the Florida Policy Exchange Center on Aging and associate director of the University of South Florida's School of Aging Studies, thinks seniors would benefit from better access to services, but he says society has to acknowledge deeper issues.

"One of the greatest mistakes we're making is to think that aging is the problem," Polivka said. "The real crisis is the rewiring of the central structures - affordable housing, fragmentation of the health care system and growth in inequality. All the programs a community offers, they're going to do nothing unless you address what's really going on."

Reporter Lindsay Wilkes-Edrington can be reached at lwilkes-edrington@tampatrib .com or (813) 259-7621.