2003 Senior Summit - A Project of Oklahoma County Government
The Senior Summit was held on Tuesday April 8, 2003 at the Clarion Convention Center in Oklahoma City.
The Summit brought Oklahoma County elected officials together with over one
hundred senior citizens and more than 120 people representing approximately
sixty agencies working with seniors in Oklahoma County. The goal of the Summit
was to hear from seniors about the challenges they are facing, and listen to
the seniors and the service providers suggest possible ways that Oklahoma County
government can help with these challenges.
There were five "Issue Forums" covering major topical areas of concern to seniors.
The sessions ran in the morning, and again in the afternoon. After coming up with
ideas of ways Oklahoma County might help address the issues faced by seniors,
attendees were able to "vote" by placing adhesive dot labels next to the ideas that
they felt were top priority. Those identified as top priority in the course of these
sessions were then brought into a final session, where everyone voted again to prioritize
the most critical areas of need.
The topics covered in the Issue Forum were Transportation, Health & Physical Safety,
Housing & Financial Matters, Food & Nutrition, and Speak Out (the Speak Out forum was
available for those whose concerns were not addressed in one of the other four Issue Forums).
The purpose of this report is to share publicly the process and the information that was
collected from the Senior Summit, and to provide some general information about the state
of senior citizens in Oklahoma County.
What We Learned
The top three issues identified as the most critical were as follows:
- Eliminate or decrease property taxes for seniors.
- More transportation for home delivered meals.
- Central information clearinghouse for all senior services with a live person answering the telephone.
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