In the past the churches took on the responsibility of taking care of the elderly who could not care for themselves, just as they provided for hospital care for the sick.
Many hospitals today are still known by their previous religious identities.
Both hospital care and elderly services have now entered the less religious domain of profit oriented services provided by the market place. Health and elderly care are now for profit. Some churches have established elderly care facilities even today.
In our free and innovative world we can do anything that the market permits.
I'd like to see the churches once again become interested in the care of the elderly, not directly but by using their good services and diplomatic efforts in cases like Shorewood to get the School system and the Village government to come together to see to it that the most appropriate care be provided the elderly.
Both of these agencies have the social facility to make this happen in mutual assistance. Concentrating on a project for group living would make it possible also for both these agencies to really work together in a meaningful way that might forever weld their social forces.
I believe that school districts in this country need to re-energize their functions by including the welfare of the elderly in the same manner as they assume responsibility for the development of our children. They can then become the service agency of the State and Federal government.
They are the only servicing agencies found in every community in the United States, the only organic entities to assume the functions, that were once the responsibility of the church. We can begin building that model right here in Shorewood.
The leaders in the churches here, even though some of them have their own schools can give support to the idea and then assist in the reality of community supported group living for the elderly here in Shorewood.
There are specific locations to be considered once the concept of group living becomes a generally accepted one. All the elements are here, what is needed is their assemblage.
