Hello, Alameda. Welcome to the Island City Beat podcast. I'm your host, Angie Watson-Hajjem Today, we'll be talking to Caitlin Chan, who is the executive director of legal assistance for seniors.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:It's a nonprofit that provides a host of programs and services for our senior population. We'll talk about some of the challenges that our seniors are having and how her organization helps address some of those challenges. So with that, let me welcome, say hello to Caitlin. Welcome to our show. Welcome to the Island City Beat podcast.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Thank you for being here.
Caitlin Chan:Thank you so much for having me.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So I know your focus, your agency's focus is on seniors. Tell me about some of the challenges, the struggles that seniors that you're dealing with, that they're facing today.
Caitlin Chan:The challenges that seniors are facing today are similar in some ways to the challenges that I think have been exacerbated lately in the general population, that are kind of intensified because of, a number of factors and kind of unique needs of the older adult population.
Caitlin Chan:So I think a lot of folks in the Bay Area are really challenged to find housing that is affordable and meets their needs. That is also true of seniors and I would say to a greater extent in some ways because seniors are living on a fixed income and really have limitations. Many have limitations in terms of their mobility and transportation and other needs. A lot of folks have been in their apartment for, you know, decades and are being pushed out again, not something that the general population doesn't deal with, but has a number of these kinds of facets that make it that much more difficult for an older adult.
Caitlin Chan:Similarly with things like food security, you're kind of meeting basic needs, making those decisions about, do I pay for food? Do I pay for rent? Do I pay my utility bill and making those kinds of decisions again is much more difficult when you're on a fixed income. And I would say one of the other kind of big challenges is around healthcare. Already the kind of Medicare and medical landscape is very complicated.
Caitlin Chan:A lot of folks are really surprised to find out that Medicare is not free, even though you paid into it, there still are premiums and co pays. Particularly right now, you know, again, on other fixed income and in this economic environment and with the coming cuts and kind of changes to Medicare and medical, it's very scary for older adults for those reasons. Because of the kind of medical issues that older adults, have are more likely to have multiple chronic conditions. Lots of medications is just that much more exacerbated.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. You know, I was reading recently that the fastest growing population of unhealthy people of homeless people are people who are 55 years of age or older. And that just shocked me because you just don't visually that seniors are going to be out in the street, a 90 year old person not having a home. What do you think as someone who's working as an advocate for seniors? What can we do better in making sure that our seniors are housed, that they have the security of having a home?
Caitlin Chan:A lot of it is kind of the factors I just talked about actually. I mean, obviously a big piece of it is the availability of affordable housing. But that avenue of, housing folks who are currently unhoused creating more affordable housing is that you know, there it. The problem of homelessness is not going be solved simply by building housing. A lot of it is prevention to especially for older adults.
Caitlin Chan:So these safety net services, can really kind of prevent an older adult from becoming homeless. And I think of these these. These challenges in the ways they have been accelerated over the last few years have contributed to the increase in the older adult homeless population. I think there's a lot of hope, especially in Alameda County. I'm very hopeful with all of the plans for the measure W funds that are being kind of debated and deployed right now that that will make a big a big difference.
Caitlin Chan:But older adults do have unique needs when it comes to housing, both, in general and folks that are. Formerly homeless often needing a lot of obvious, often needing a lot of supportive services to maintain that housing.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah, you mentioned the word preventive. I think that we sometimes don't think about things we can do to prevent people from losing their housing, like having rental assistance when people get behind in their rent, helping them get into a place of deposit. So all that factors in. I want to talk about elder abuse, Kaitlyn, because I think that is an issue that we don't talk enough about when it comes to elders.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I'd love for you to just give us a definition of what elder abuse actually looks like. I mean, just not someone just getting married to your mom or having an argument with her. But really, when we talk about elder abuse, what does that look like? What are the signs that someone may be the victim of elder abuse?
Caitlin Chan:Yeah, it's really a spectrum. It can be physical harm. There's definitely emotional elder abuse as well as financial. So, and that kind of runs the gamut too from there's going to. There's also a neglect aspect too.
Caitlin Chan:So it obviously depends on the older adult of what that neglect is. If it really is someone that is dependent on you and you have a preexisting kind of relationship such that they are being neglected. It can also be, you know, it's a little hard for me to separate too, because there I think a lot about kind of if we're identifying when an older adult in our lives needs help, there's also the element of self neglect. I'm thinking of the criteria for adult protective services to get involved. And that also can include self neglect.
Caitlin Chan:I think your bigger question is how do we identify and help an older adult that we see is potentially in harm's way? It could be things like physical abuse and signs of physical abuse or kind of controlling without permission an older adult's finances. I would say what it's not is, you know, I think there's a tendency in American culture to infantilize older adults in some ways. So that doesn't mean I don't, you know, my elderly father is making decisions that he is fully competent and is making decisions. I don't agree with.
Caitlin Chan:He has a girlfriend I don't like, but he is consensually in that relationship. Like that's a very different situation. We do see, situations where there is this line of, you know, just because someone is older, if they fully have capacity, they can make all kinds of decisions on how they want to spend their money.
Caitlin Chan:Yeah. It's their own life. So we do get, you know, hear from family members that are not pleased with what's happening, but that doesn't mean necessarily that it is abuse.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:So as we, just people in the community suspect that an elder, whether it's a neighbor or relative or, you know, that is being abused, what should we do? What would our role be in that situation?
Caitlin Chan:Yeah. Anyone can make a report, including a confidential report to adult protective services.
Caitlin Chan:And they have an amazing team of social workers that will go out and investigate. And, you know, if they find can either Really investigate and identify what's happening. It may mean that that older adult really needs to be connected to some other kinds of services. It may be that they'll be referred to us and our elder abuse team will help them get a restraining order. But it really kind of depends on what the situation is and what the worker finds.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I know you guys also do work around public benefits advocacy, so does that mean if someone was having a hard time gaining social security or, you know, they were trying to get on snap and couldn't. Are those are the things that you could help a senior navigate through?
Caitlin Chan:Yeah we primarily do social security and SSI. So we have. There are actually a lot of legal services organizations in Alameda County, and we've tried to tailor our services to issues that are either, exclusive to older adults or disproportionately affect the older adult population. Or are not already being covered by another organizations. There are another number of organizations that do help with, with snap issues and a wider range of public benefits.
Caitlin Chan:We primarily assist with social Security retirement and SSI issues.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:And just for people to know, SNAP is food stamps. Maybe not everyone knows that. So, also, I know that you you can help a a senior get custody of like a grandchild, grandchildren. You also do that. Tell us about that.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:That's really interesting.
Caitlin Chan:Yeah. When an older adult, when a parent is unable to care for their children for any number of reasons, there's often an older adult family member or friend of the family that will kind of step forward to provide care for that child and provide a safe and still stable home. So there is a court process that needs to happen for whoever that is to get guardianship. So guardian, it's called guardianship of minors. That legal process needs to happen before this guardian can do things like access, help that child access medical care, enroll them in school and do all of these things where you need this official guardianship over the child.
Caitlin Chan:We will, it is a very intensive court process. And so there's a lot of forms. Sometimes there's a parent that can test it. And so that's where our attorneys and advocates get involved.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I'm sure it's a very emotionally draining process when you have a, you know, older, you know, parent, grandparents trying to get a minor child. Sure there's a lot that goes into that. I can imagine it's tough. Yeah.
Caitlin Chan:There is, you know, I think the older, especially in the kind of more, it's not always a grandparent, but the class that is the class situation and the majority of what we see, you know, I think the grandparent doesn't want to be in that.
Caitlin Chan:They Want to care for the child obviously, but they would love for the, their child or their child in law or it is to be able to care for them. And they usually a lot of the reasons they might not be able to our mental health issues, substance abuse issues. And so it can be a very emotionally fraught process.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:I can imagine. I want to talk about scams because I know all of us can be victimized by scams. It's so prevalent today. But I think especially for seniors, they are especially vulnerable.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Talk to us a little bit about some of the scams that are very common that you see. And also, how do we help protect our older loved ones from being scammed?
Caitlin Chan:They are so prevalent these days. I would say that AI has made all of the scams that much more difficult to detect because they can, you know, these scammers can now scrape all this information off of the internet. If they're able to hack email accounts and get all this very nuanced information from us that can make it seem very much like we are the person that they're impersonating, or, you know, we'll get letter, you can get a letter that's on the exact letterhead of your bank. You know, the things that look very, very official through technology has really made it very difficult. So a lot of the things.
Caitlin Chan:We see, you know, it's not that different from what other folks see. There's tech scams. There are a lot of impersonations of government agencies or, you know, AT & T or these kinds of official entities and things that pertain to services or, issues that are very important that you want to attend to. Some of the tactics are around like, you know, you need to provide this information now, or, you know, your bill is going to be sent to collections, or you're going to lose access to this, or there's often some kind of urgency to make, which also kind of inhibits people's decision making capabilities and kind of gets them activated. A lot of them, or it could be around Medicare.
Caitlin Chan:There's a whole area of fraud around Medicare where, there'll be different types of impersonations, whether it's through text or email or over the phone of impersonating Medicare or a medical provider to try to get Medicare numbers. They can do improper billing and get money that way. So it is, there are some nuance yet social security, same thing of older adults have more of these interfaces with some of these official systems and not always, but often are a little less tech savvy and it makes it harder to see when it is a scam. That's a lot
Angie Watson-Hajjem:More trusting. I think older people tend to be maybe more trusting than younger people. And it seems like, you know, what I've been hearing is that if anyone calls you, this is for anyone, any age, and they say they're from the IRS or your bank and they call you, it probably is a scam because usually you're not going get a phone call. You're usually going to get a letter in the mail. I tell my mom, she gets things on her cell phone.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Oh, you want this price? Or, Oh, Amazon just got shipped and she doesn't even have Amazon. So just ignore it. Just don't even pay attention to it. Yeah, just so much out there.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:This is crazy. So I know that you have been for fifty years now. Your organization has been around. Congratulations. Next year will be fifty years.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:What are your future plans for legal assistance for for seniors? What are some of the things that you are looking to expand, new things that you want to add to your already vast number of services that you offer?
Caitlin Chan:Thank you for that question. I have a very different answer today than I might have a year or two ago, which is it's, it is a very hard to, it's a little hard to dream and it's a little hard to plan right now, given all of the funding cuts quite frankly. So we are, majority government funded. We also have some foundation support and receive support from individual donors as well. But, we are primarily concerned with really strengthening the organization and making sure that we are sustainable, especially over the next three to four years. You ensure that we can continue to provide these services. It's where we are. I, this is not of course individual to LAS, but it's something that lots of nonprofits are dealing with right now of being kind of squeezed from both sides of the community needs more support. We want to increase services.
Caitlin Chan:There are, have always been more older adults than we can serve and even more so now. There is a lot more, you know, actual legal issues, actual problems for us to solve. A lot of calls that we have that are, primarily informational because there is so much anxiety and fear right now that we are serving more people with the same staff to try to meet that demand. But in terms of the funding that we receive, it is very, it is very tough. I don't know my I'm concerned with our sustainability and, making sure that we can not only maintain, but grow our services during this time when the community is really struggling.
Caitlin Chan:So I wish I could say that we have some shiny new project planned, but that is the reality that nonprofit are facing.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Absolutely, Yeah. What are the other things that you'd want to share about legal assistance for seniors? Any other things that you'd like our audience to know about your work and what you do in a community?
Caitlin Chan:Thank you for that question. I would love to, give a, just a quick little overview of some of the other areas of all that we practice in our other programs. So I know we already talked about elder abuse and guardianship of minors. But we also assist in, areas of housing and health law and consumer protection. And we have a small naturalization practice.
Caitlin Chan:We also provide Medicare counseling. So we have, it's called high cap, the health insurance counseling and advocacy program. There's one in every county, but we hold the contract for Alameda County high cap and it is exempt, you know, Medicare counseling. So we have a team of over 30 highly trained state registered volunteer counselors that meet free. I should sort of said that at the beginning, all of our services are free.
Caitlin Chan:But this is another one of our free services. So we provide free one on one counseling on Medicare. So all of your Medicare rights and options. Helping people, you know, pick your part D plan, pick your Medicare advantage plan, enroll in different cost saving programs. And right now I should say is the annual election period for Medicare.
Caitlin Chan:So that's, that's what they call it, but it's essentially just open enrollment for Medicare. So anyone that's on Medicare, all of the plans, the part D prescription drug plans and Medicare advantage plans, change their benefits a little or a lot every year. The 2026 plans were just released and from October 15 through December 7 of every year, Medicare beneficiaries have this opportunity to look over the plans and see, you know, maybe the formulary has changed and my drug's not covered anymore, or maybe my provider is not in network and just have that review and make sure that your coverage is still going to work for you next year.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:It's a wonderful service. Now you mentioned housing. Do you help prevent evictions for seniors that they're facing the possibility of losing their housing or have issues in their homes?
Caitlin Chan:Primarily help on the prevention side there again, because there are a number of folks that will organizations that only help post like when the eviction process is kind of started that notice. So we have also found for that reason. And also we have found it to be more effective to kind of go upstream, especially with older adults and try to resolve habitability issues, look at fair housing and really try to resolve issues before it escalates to eviction.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Yeah. Wonderful. Wow. So much, Caitlin, you have, I'm just love what you guys do. How do people get ahold of you?
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Is there a senior out there or a person who has a senior in their lives that wants to, you know, get more information or get help from you? How do they get ahold of you?
Caitlin Chan:You can give us a call at (510) 832-3040. We are. Excuse me. We are.
Caitlin Chan:We do have an office in Oakland, but unfortunately don't have the capacity to take walk ins. Giving us a call will really give you the best chance of having us be able to do that assessment and make sure that we can assist you and get you an appointment scheduled or figure out how to best serve. But even if we, issue falls outside of our, Any of our areas of law for whatever reason we are, again, we've been here for fifty years, so we have a lot of referrals we can give or warm handoffs we can do to other organizations in Alameda County.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Can you repeat your phone number one more time for our listeners?
Caitlin Chan:Of course, it's (510) 832-3040.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:We also have a website as well. People can go and I guess they could just Google legal assistance for seniors and get your website and get a lot of information from them as well.
Caitlin Chan:I'm happy to read it but it is a little, I don't have the, you know, alpha bravo, but it's, it is www.lashicap.org. So lashicap.org.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:We have a resource page on our website, so we'll also put that out there for people. Yeah. Caitlin, it has been wonderful talking to you. I love your organization. I love what you're doing in the world for our seniors.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:It's such an important, important, valuable work. So thank you and your whole staff for all that you do. Thank you for coming on our podcast. Really enjoyed talking, listening to you.
Caitlin Chan:Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity to get the word out and talk about our organization.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Wonderful, wonderful. Well, that is it for this edition of the Island City Beat podcast. I hope that you enjoyed the show. Hope you come back and hear our next episode.
Angie Watson-Hajjem:Until then, I am your host, Angie Watson-Hajjem Take care, everyone. Goodbye.