White House Conference On Aging 2015: Elder Justice

As you likely sadly know, elder financial abuse is a tragic problem in America. As Richard Cordray, director of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said at the Elder Justice in the Twenty-First Century panel of the White House Conference on Aging (WHCOA): “Older Americans all too often fall prey to financial exploitation.”

In a recent Wells Fargo survey of 1,005 investors, 32% of respondents said they know someone who has been the victim of investment scams or financial abuse targeted at the elderly.

What you might not know: “Only a small fraction of elder abuse is ever reported,” said Cordray.

White House Conference on Aging panelist Lynne Person, Long-Term Care Ombudsman at the Office of the D.C. Department of Health Care, said “often, victims are fearful of reporting abuse from a caregiver because the caregiver is the one they depend on for the activities of daily living.” Another panelist, James Baker, director of Law Enforcement Operations and Support at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, added that “often they are embarrassed or there’s no one there to help them ask for help.”

Panelist Elizabeth Loewy, a former prosecutor and now General Counsel and senior VP of Industry Relations at Eversafe.com, an elderfraud prevention service, said: “We have blindfolds on with respect to the tsunami of elder fraud.”

The moderator of this panel, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Aging Kathleen Greenlee, who’s the administration’s de facto point person on elder abuse (“it’s in my DNA”) said: “It’s an outrage against humanity.” President Obama seems outraged, too. He railed against elder abuse in his morning remarks at the July 13th conference. It may have been the first time a president has ever mentioned “elder abuse,” Greenlee said.

Older people are attractive targets, Cordray and Greenlee noted, because they have money, homes or both; they may have impaired mental capacity and they’re often socially isolated.  (Continue Reading)

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White House Conference On Aging 2015: Elder Justice