Chicago now has a Senior Bill of Rights for its elderly residents that enshrines their right to safe housing and access to city services.
Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order Friday in front of a packed room of about a hundred seniors on the South Side. The order spells out the rights that the city’s more than half a million seniors have regarding housing, healthcare and other services.
“Too often, our senior residents are overlooked, left behind, and left out of important
conversations about our city, the city they call home, the city that they have built,” Johnson said.
The executive order establishes a Mayor’s Office on Aging (MOA) and creates a working group to explore how to re-establish a Department of Aging in city government. That agency merged in 2009 with the Department of Family and Support Services.
Johnson said he would include money for a new director of the Office on Aging in next week’s budget proposal.
“The ultimate goal, much like we did with the Department of Environment, is to gradually move towards a fully standing department,” he said.
The Senior Bill of Rights states that seniors have a right to safe, sanitary and accessible housing, as well as to receive information about city programs and services in an accessible way. It enshrines their right to organize and advocate around housing and other issues without retaliation, and seeks to provide ways to report problems to the city.
Ald. Jeannette Taylor (20th), who last year introduced an ordinance to establish a Senior Bill of Rights, said, “We have a responsibility to make sure [seniors] are not forgotten, isolated or left to navigate a complicated system alone. Caring for our seniors is not charity, it’s a responsibility.”
Taylor said the executive order comes after years of advocacy by groups like the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, Access Living, and People Matter.
Wilma Pittman, 64, a senior who organizes with Northside Action for Justice, said the Senior Bill of Rights is “a monumental step forward for the city. Seeing this [executive order] signed makes our seniors feel significantly safer and truly cared about and valued by the city.”
City officials say there are more than 542,000 Chicagoans who are at least 60 years old. They make up about 19% of the city’s population.