The Ocean County freeholders will award 35 contracts for senior services this week when they meet, officials have confirmed.
The contracts, all competitively bid, add up to about $2.4 million in expenditures, according to county officials. In all the Office of Senior Services will oversee a total of 42 Area Plan Contracts with 22 governmental and non-profit agencies in 2014 totaling almost $7 million. Late in 2013, the Freeholder Board approved six contracts for Community Services Inc. totaling $2,549,019 which includes the nutritional component of senior programs in Ocean County.
The contracts to be awarded this week will lead to over 522,000 "units of service" for seniors, ranging from meals to transportation, legal services, caregiver services, care management, benefits screening, chore services and others.
Outreach and care management sites plan to provide 20,205 older adults and caregivers with 65,796 units of information and assistance/assessments in 2014, the county said in a statement.
“We will continue to meet the challenge of the 10,000 'baby boomers' a day [in Ocean County] turning 65 with essential Medicare information and education,” Freeholder Joseph Vicari said. “We are first in the state for the number of State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) contacts, with more than 9,000 for 2013."
“Our guiding principle is to keep people in their own homes in their own communities for as long as possible.”
Ocean County is also participating in a new program for 2014 called the Sandy Assistance Relief Program for Seniors and Disabled. The program provides limited assistance to those individuals whose primary residence sustained damage during the storm for expenses not fully covered by insurance, FEMA, and other programs. The program will be administered through the Ocean County Board of Social Services (OCBOSS).
The Office of Senior Services is working with the OCBOSS to kick the program off in the very near future. For further information, please call the Ocean County Office of Senior Services, 732-929-2091, 1-877-222-3737.
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