By 2035, more than 25 percent of the population in Clark County will be 60 or older.
That’s why the Clark County Commission on Aging, planning commission, county council and other community partners created a plan for this huge demographic shift.
Known as the Aging Readiness Plan, it outlines ways to support older residents and other vulnerable communities.
The plan recently earned a Judges Merit Award from Gov. Jay Inslee for its efforts to address deficiencies in public infrastructure, enhance social services, improve zoning and planning standards, and increase the quality of life for seniors.
As the age demographic shifts, the number of people who need care will outstrip the availability of caregivers, according to the Commission on Aging. The commission said this demographic shift will have many impacts on the county and should be planned for accordingly.
“We hope that this plan will be relevant for another 10 years, like the first one was. It’s improving the community for older adults, but ultimately everyone else in the community as well,” Community Planner Susan Ellinger said.
The county first developed the plan in 2012 to accommodate the growing number of older residents.
The plan was revised last year to address changes during the pandemic and include an emergency preparedness chapter, which outlines different ways older adults could be affected by natural disasters.
“We found that dealing with different groups that provide services to our aging citizens, like Meals on Wheels and so forth, they had to either curtail or dramatically alter how they deliver these services to our aging population,” Aging Commission Chair Franklin Johnson said. “One of the major issues we found is that aging populations felt very disconnected and isolated, so we tried to address that disconnect and isolation factor.”
Ellinger said that planning committees gathered input from Clark County residents through outreach groups to identify the most effective strategies.
The Commission on Aging collaborated with organizations, such as Clark College, NAACP Vancouver and the Council for the Homeless to gain insights into community initiatives and determine how to best serve those populations.
Johnson said the commission wants to periodically review and report on each suggestion to determine if any revisions are needed. Currently, the commission is working on going through each chapter, identifying the highest-priority strategies and how it can move forward with implementing those strategies.
“So we’re excited about the award, and we hope to use that as a basis of synergy and energy in the community to move forward and continue to become more of an active posture in the community,” Johnson said. “We want to do that, basically, by constantly asking the question, how does what we’re doing impact our senior community positively?”
