Bringing senior services directly to older adults is a priority for a group of New Jersey lawmakers. In addition to healthcare services, a newly proposed mobile unit would help older adults with applications, food services, and internet access and use, among other services.
Deputy Majority Assemblywoman Angela McKnight (D) — along with democratic assemblywomen Carol Murphy, Shanique Speigh (D) and Gabriela M. Mosquera — introduced legislation earlier this year that, if passed, would establish a state-operated mobile senior citizen assistance program. The Assembly Aging and Senior Services Committee passed the legislation on Sept. 15; the bill is headed to the Assembly Health Committee.
The bill calls for “periodic deployment of staffed vehicles to locations at or near nursing homes and senior citizen centers, events, gatherings, low-income senior housing” and other locations. The recent committee amendments added low-income senior housing and other residences and forms of senior housing to the locations to be patrolled by mobile senior citizen assistance vehicles under the program. The state Department of Health would operate the unit.
“It’s important we explore every opportunity we have at the state-level to support New Jersey’s aging population. For too many seniors, lack of adequate transportation stands in the way of accessing important services that could truly make a difference in their lives,” McKnight told the McKnight’s Business Daily. “By putting these resources on wheels and meeting New Jersey’s seniors where they already are, we can help overcome these obstacles and uplift our senior residents.”
McKnight and Speight also are among the sponsors of a bill before the General Assembly that would require nursing home business owners and operators who lease their buildings to cap their annual rent increases at 4%.
If passed, an owner who violates the provisions of the bill with annual rent increases greater than 4% would be subject to a penalty equal to two-and-a-half times the monthly lease or rent payments for each violation. Collected fines would be deposited into a fund to be used to offset the cost to the courts of administering the provisions of the bill.
