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Bipartisan Caucus on Aging partners with the state's protection and advocacy system

Delaware Public Media

Delaware’s Community Legal Aid Society partners with the legislature’s Caucus on Aging, a bipartisan group focused on the rights and wellbeing of seniors and their caregivers.

The Caucus was established last year and is co-chaired by State Sen. Spiros Mantzavinos and State Rep. Kendra Johnson.

Senate Bill 150 – sponsored by Mantzavinos – was signed into law in August and works to increase staffing at long-term care facilities.

Other bills passed last session defined “dementia care service,” assigned regulations to those facilities and began requiring in-person inspections of assisted living facilities and nursing homes.

CLASI’s role is to encourage the caucus to address certain issues, not to draft legislation or call the shots for lawmakers.

Delaware Community Legal Aid Society advocacy director John Whitelaw said he hopes this year includes legislative action that can help seniors with consumer fraud problems, affordable housing and representation for homeowners in manufactured housing.

“Not everybody who lives in manufactured housing is a senior, but there is a disproportionate number of seniors in manufactured home communities in Delaware.”

Whitelaw says several of the problems he wants to see the caucus work to address problems that don’t have easy solutions and often disproportionately affect seniors.

“There's a huge shortage of affordable, decent housing… There are approximately 22,000 manufactured housing units in rental communities in Delaware, and there's not a lot of representation for homeowners.”

With degrees in journalism and women’s and gender studies, Abigail Lee aims for her work to be informed and inspired by both.

She is especially interested in rural journalism and social justice stories, which came from her time with NPR-affiliate KBIA at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo.

She speaks English and Russian fluently, some French, and very little Spanish (for now!)