Impact and Programs
Accomplishments
Metropolitan Area Agency on Aging, Inc. (MAAA) and its community partners served 18,407 older adults and family caregivers, of which 6,112 or 33%, were Native or minority, with meals, transportation, legal services, homemaker help, outdoor chore, case management, disease prevention and health promotion, respite, support groups, and caregiver consultation. These services aid caregiving and help older adults remain independent in their community homes and apartments. Services are targeted to people in greatest social and economic need. Also, MAAA provided 110,102 contacts via in and out-bound calls on the toll-free Senior LinkAge Line (a service of the MN Board on Aging and regional AAAs). Our social workers and other human services professionals staffing the Senior LinkAge Line helped people connect to community services and housing options, access public benefits including Medicare and Medicaid, obtain low and no-cost prescription drugs, and solve problems that impede independence at home. In addition, MAAA conducted 311 outreach presentations and events; held 931 Medicare counseling sessions at community sites, and assisted volunteers to contribute 5,540 hours of time, primarily helping older adults understand Medicare and health plan options. Other work included helping to form the Volunteer Driver Coalition, a group focused on strengthening volunteer driver programs across Minnesota. MAAA also partnered with others to co-host a forum on gentrification in north Minneapolis, created a web-based resource on hoarding disorder, supported communities seeking to become dementia friendly, and provided technical assistance to other nonprofit organizations on service development and funding of service expansion and innovation.
Current Goals
Core programmatic goals include supporting the independence of approximately 18,000 older adults and family caregivers through funding of in-home services, providing information and assistance on the Senior LinkAge Line to approximately 45,000 people, and supporting other nonprofits and communities to help older adults live at home with services and resources that support activities of daily living. Additional goals are to deepen relationships with the metropolitan offices of tribal nations to explore partnerships that serve elders living off reservation. We are working with a consultant to evaluate access by Native and minority elders to the home and community-based services we fund. To help communities become dementia friendly, we partnered with the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Dental Association to develop “dementia friendly dental practices” and are offering jump-start grants to support community action teams focused on improving support for people with dementia. In addition, we will launch “The Remember Project” in partnership with the theater arts community to help individuals and communities learn about dementia and respond in a supportive manner. We are also analyzing the Comprehensive Plans of cities in the metro to understand if and how they will support a growing older population over the next ten years. We will subsequently determine a strategy to accelerate promising practices. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest, we deployed new emergency federal resources to add telephone reassurance, grocery delivery, Halal home-delivered meals, and virtual caregiver support services in the metro region.
Community or Constituency Served
MAAA serves older adults, persons with disabilities and all those who care for them through an integrated system of information, assistance, education, services and facility-to-home support. MAAA delivers phone-based Senior LinkAge Line® services and provide data maintenance for the website Minnesota.Help.info® in partnership with the Minnesota Board on Aging.
Geographic Area Served
Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, & Washington
