May 8, 2025  by Marianne Mills, Martin Lange and Teresa Holt

Alaska has the fastest-growing senior population in the country. In order for this important group to continue living independently, avoiding costly state-funded care options, the state needs to step up. We need a $3 million increase in senior community grants so that senior centers can maintain basic critical services such as meals, transportation, family caregiver support, and information and referrals for older Alaskans in communities across the state.

Funding shortages have reduced meal programs to fewer days a week and put seniors on waitlists for this service. For many, their lunch at the senior center or home-delivered meal is their only daily meal and their one social contact.

Seventy-five percent of Alaska’s senior centers have reported they have critical staffing shortages due to non-competitive wages and 90% of them are facing critical funding shortages.

Keeping seniors living at home independently for as long as possible saves money for all of us. Having grants pay for services avoids the use of Medicaid waivers, which have a much higher cost than community grants (50 times more) or the Medicaid cost for nursing home care, a staggering 160 times more than the per-participant cost of community grants.

The time is now for the Legislature and Gov. Dunleavy to recognize that a $3 million increase in senior community grants will keep seniors in their own homes and keep senior centers open. This $3 million increase is not for any new programs; it is necessary to simply continue basic service demands, meeting increased costs and population. More than 22,000 seniors were served by senior community grants last year, ten times as many as any other state senior service.

This is the right thing to do for thousands of financially struggling seniors, their caregivers, and their families. It is the right thing, for Alaskans of all ages are served by responsible state spending. Let’s invest in Alaska seniors as they have invested in Alaska, save Medicaid funds, and maintain services for seniors as the right fiscal choice for all Alaskans.

We urge the Alaska Legislature to make the fiscally responsible choice to maintain the $3 million increase in the House budget for Senior Community-Based Grants for FY2026, which will keep senior services providers from having to further cut services stretched by food and labor cost growth. We encourage Alaskans of every age to contact their legislators and Gov. Dunleavy to tell them how important it is to keep seniors at home and in our communities by maintaining home and community-based senior services.

Marianne Mills is the president of the Alaska Geriatric Exchange Network (AGEnet), representing senior centers and other senior service providers across Alaska.

Martin Lange is the executive director of the Alaska Commission on Aging.

Teresa Holt is the state director of AARP Alaska.