"Who’s Driving Grandma?" Fixing the Ride Gap for Seniors & Vets

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ABOUT THIS EPISODE

I had the opportunity to sit down with Stephen Kaminski, the mobility manager for Region 4 of Connecticut's "The Way to Go" program. Their goal is to promote and coordinate transportation options for people with disabilities, older adults, and Veterans in the state of CT.
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ABOUT THE SHOW MUSIC

You So Zany by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Artist: http://audionautix.com/

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ABOUT THE EPISODE GUEST

My guest on this episode was Steven Kaminski, mobility manager for Region 4 of Connecticut.  The Way to Go program is a division of transportation in conjunction with Amplify CT out of Glastonbury CT.  The Way to Go program offers resources to our Older Adult Community, Disabled and our Veteran communities.  In conjunction with the Kennedy Collective and Greater Hartford Transit District, The Way to Go program offers extensive help in connecting people with reliable and affordable transportation. Steven can be reached at 860-267-5439 x 100.

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SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Challenges -In just a few years (2037), our state’s population age 65 or older will increase by 12%. CT Life expectancy at birth is 81 Y.O. (National Average is 79) Access to reliable transportation has become a very pressing issue for many older CT residents.   In some cases, our older populations also have disabilities (Approx 1/3) This current generation (Mostly) has email but are not always as comfortable with the internet and navigating websites. Cost is, in most cases, a determining factor for mobility choices. Navigating public transit is intimidating and often too diicult to access. Some towns are rural and have limited access to medical appointments OR the primary care is in another town hard to access.  Talking points/Solutions Greater Hartford Transit District and CT DOT have taken into consideration the growing age demographic.  With programs like Dial a Ride/Associated often with Town Senior Centers there are some solutions for current and future needs.  

ADA Paratransit-Using a user-friendly online Application, if you have a disability, whether it is temporary or permanent, you can apply for the ADA paratransit status.  This opens several resources that can be free or at a low cost to assist in your mobility needs.  FREEDOM RIDE, M7 Taxi, oer reduced fares. CT DOT sets the rate.  Our Program is available to anyone with a disability and or Veteran status despite their age.   Currently, technology must appeal more to caregivers.  But most services still allow setting up rides via phone calls. Reduced fares for ADA paratransit and services like GO GO Grandparent.  Lyft also has a Price lock for commonly traveled routes. We do have travel training programs through the GHTD and the Kennedy Collective that will “Literally” guide you through every step of your public transit route. Part of any mobility resource identies the “Gaps” and through collaboration and the use of a steering committee, we can strive to create new solutions. Transportation for our Older Adults will be an ongoing need. So, it’s great we have resources in place, but it’s crucial we change with the times. 

Transcript

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Public transportation is vital for seniors offering independence, mobility, and access to essential services like medical appointments and grocery stores and social activities. Now, for those who no longer drive reliable transit options, help reduce isolation and promote a higher quality of life by keeping them connected to their communities, safe, affordable, and accessible. Public transportation empowers our older adults to remain active and engaged and supporting their physical and emotional wellbeing On the show with me today, I have invited Steven Kaminsky, who's the mobility manager of Region four in the state of Connecticut, and the program is called The Way to Go Program. It's a division of transportation in conjunction with Amplified Connecticut out of Glastonbury, Connecticut. Welcome to the show. Thanks for being here, Steven. Thank you for having me. All right, so we know how important transportation is for seniors. The first thing that comes to mind is how do they take advantage of this? Is there an eight number? Do they call for our seniors? We need to make instructions very clear for them so they can know what to do. What do you tell people. By umbrella? The way to Go program is a specific facilitator. There's a number they can call that is on our website. What that does, it puts them in touch with me as the mobility manager for the North Central region. We have numerous resources. We do an intake. We try to understand all of their needs specifically so that we can put together some very important solutions to either a long-term problem or short-term fix. That's how we facilitate that initial thing. But yeah, we do have a call center that they can contact us. So it sounds like you're tailoring the transportation by the person depending on where they located, what they need it for, correct. Yeah, yeah. It's very case specific. It's not a cookie cutter solution, so we take the time to really listen to the individual. It may be a caregiver, it may be a family member, it may be a social worker trying to help one of their clients try to take as many details as possible because it does have an effect on what the outcome is or what resources we can come up with for them. So I understand the people who are qualified for this have to have senior citizen status, 60 and older or a A certified with the Greater Hartford Transit for Disabled Status, and veterans also can take advantage of this, correct? Yeah. We serve our older adult community, usually 60 plus people with disabilities and that can be 18 or up. We can help them. We have specific programs for our veterans and in some cases, some individuals might be all three of those tiers, but if they do have a disability, even if it's temporary, like they had surgery or something and they know for the next three months they're going to need some help, they can also apply for the a paratransit application. It can be a long-term thing, it can be a permanent thing, could be a cognitive disability. So we try to serve many, many facets of our community in that regard. Well, working in the field of senior services, and I hope I'm going to put you on the spot here. One of the problems that I hear frequently is they can take transportation to the shopping center or to the pharmacy, whatever, but getting back is the challenge. So anyone who's concerned about that getting a one-way ride or getting the return ride, what do you tell them? Well, even though the dial aide system is very youthful, it has some limitations in terms of scheduling. That's been the biggest thing that I've come across as well, where there's long wait times perhaps to get back. Once you've, like you had mentioned, so you're dropped off at the grocery store at 10, but they're not coming back till three. That's just how their schedule works. There are other, I call'em B plan solutions. There are some reduced rate voucher programs. There are some, Lyft and Uber are getting in on the business of serving our older adults because it's a growing population, so they offer some type of price compensation. There's a thing with Lyft that if you go to the same destination back and forth, you can buy what they call a Lyft price lock, and that can help reduce cost greatly. It's a small membership per month, but yeah, you have to kind of pizza meal your solutions together for hours and hours. Now, Ken, if some seniors have a caregiver, can the In some cases, yes. That is not a problem. So if they have a caregiver they like for a Lyft or an Uber, they would just be part of that and part of that transportation so they can go along. Is there anything about the veteran status that's specific for them to use this? Because I know whether the veterans are retired or they were in a campaign or anything. Is there anything veteran status, I have a DD two 14, or does it break down into different types of qualified people? I have done some of the veteran affiliations, but for the most part, if you've served in our armed services and are of a veteran status, you fall under that umbrella. And so people who with a disability can be 18 and up and they have to apply to qualify for the rides, correct? Correct. There's an old fashioned paper application, but if you go online A-D-A-C-T, you can fill out the application in about eight to 10 minutes. It's pretty user-friendly and then it gets processed quicker that way. If it is a medical disability, they generally will do a follow-up. They may contact a physician just to verify that, but it's around I think the long and about 30 days, 21 to 30 days to process to get everything buttoned up. How long has the way to Go program been around? And it's just the state of Connecticut, correct? Yeah, there are five regions in Connecticut. We are region four, so the Way to Go program was formed in 2013 because of these needs. It's a little over 10 years now that we've been building and growing and kind of figuring it out as we go along in the sense of things change so quickly today with new technologies and new ways to get to people. The good news is technology is really speeding things up. The older generations may not be as adept at the internet because that's not part of their formation, so to speak. Their caregivers, their family members, children of the older adults may be more adept, but the actual clientele usually needs some assistance and are still favoring the old fashioned paper or a phone call if we're dealing with them directly on most cases I've experienced. Is there, and I know you probably don't know out of state, but if someone's listening from a surrounding state, where would they begin to look for a program like this? Any idea who they would call? Well, the first one would be the Department of Transportation, like their state Department of Transportation. We just had a meeting, oh about a month ago where one of the members of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation sat in because they're trying to implement a little bit of what Connecticut has. They want to model what we have in our five regions. There are five mobility managers, one for each region. Most of them are managed by the Kennedy Collective, which is a group out of Trumbull, but our group is under the Amplify Connecticut umbrella, so to speak. But yeah, that's probably a good place to start because they would either know of the programs that exist or I think they would have a good referral to give them some idea of how they may access either better foot transportation or maybe volunteer services. That would be a good resource. Lastly, before I let you go, as you said, a lot of seniors don't know how to get onto the internet and go searching for stuff, so they're someone who's not internet savvy. Where would they begin in the state of Connecticut? Where would they start right now, just to start inquiring? Well, the best thing to do is to go to call me. If you're in my region, you would call me at an old fashioned phone call and I'll talk it through with you. In those regards, what I do is I put the same resources together, but I'll call the individual back and I'll go step by step over each possibility with phone numbers so that they can call if they're not web savvy. Do you have a number that we can give out? Yes. And if someone calls from outside your region, if they call your number, you could direct them to their proper region when you find out where they're calling from. Correct? Yes. I will refer them to a mobility manager. So to contact me directly, I can give you the number. It's 8 6 0 2 6 7 5 4 3 9, and my extension is 100 that comes right to me. Okay. So that's 8 6 0 2 6 7 5 4 3 9. Extension 100 comes right to me. And you say you're region four approximately in the state of Connecticut. Where's Region four? What makes up Region. Four? Region four is North Central Connecticut. North Central? Yep. It's just Hartford and Tolin Counties and there's about 37 towns. We cover pretty big chunk of our state. Okay. Alright, terrific. Well, we've been talking with Steven Kaminsky with Way to Go program in the state of Connecticut. Appreciate your time and even if we just got the information for one senior, we've already done what we really want to do and that's to help them with their mobility around the state of Connecticut. I hope we can help. Even if you said if it's one individual, it's a big problem sometimes for people and we want to help them through that process. Well, this is excellent. Thank you very much for being on the show and we'll get that information out to everybody who needs it. Thank you again. Thank you, bill.