SOUTH PORTLAND – This week offered a special opportunity to focus on the special needs and interests of Maine’s older residents, including safe housing, public transportation, employment, health care and Social Security reform.

“At the Crossroads: Aging Policy in Maine,” a two-day conference in South Portland on Wednesday and Thursday was organized to consider an array of public policy issues in the state as well as to craft recommendations for consideration at a national conference in October in Washington, D.C.

One in every eight Mainers is now 65 years old or older, and because of the slow growth of the general population and the tendency of younger folks to leave the state, the number is rising rapidly. By the year 2020, public officials predict one in every five Mainers, or 20 percent of the population, will be 65 or older.

The growing population draws heavily on the state’s social service programs, contributes to community and workplace vitality, and packs a punch in the voting booth. Those are powerful incentives to renew the state’s commitment to the programs and policies that safeguard the interests of seniors and their families, said Lenard Kaye, director of the Center on Aging at the University of Maine.

It’s not enough to offer support services to Maine seniors whose health is failing, Kaye said in a conversation between small-group workshops at the conference attended by about 200 professionals from around the state.

“We must be prepared to intervene earlier, promote wellness, prevent disease and safeguard the productive lives of our older citizens,” Kaye said.

It is not only state aging policy that stands to benefit from the collective energies of Maine seniors and the organizations that support their well-being. As an officially designated precursor to the White House Conference on Aging, scheduled for October, organizers of the Maine event called on attendees to make specific recommendations to national policy-makers. Not all states contribute to the national debate in this fashion; in New England, only Maine, Connecticut and Rhode Island are hosting preludes to the White House conference.

“Maine is a rural state with scarce resources and isolated communities,” Kaye observed. “It’s exciting that our perspective will be considered and our voice heard in Washington.”

The national conference takes place about every 10 years. According to Gene Brown of the regional office of the federal Administration on Aging in Boston, issues that rise to the surface at the White House conference guide federal legislation and regulatory changes. For example, Brown said the last White House conference in 1995 targeted the needs of family members caring for their elderly relatives, and subsequent policy changes have provided support in the form of funding for respite services, direct payment to family caregivers and other measures.

This week’s event, organized by the Maine Gerontological Society drew together health experts, educators, policy-makers, service providers and others involved with Maine seniors.

Gov. John Baldacci opened the conference and speakers included Jack Nicholas, commissioner of Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services. Nicholas spoke of the need to serve seniors in a “holistic” manner and said the in-progress reorganization of DHHS will make it easier to access a range of services.

Several in the audience, however, objected to a proposed organizational chart of the agency released earlier this week that recommends a new Office of Elder, Adult Behavioral and Disability Services to administer services for aging Mainers. Aging is not a pathological process, audience members reminded the white-haired commissioner, and should not be linked either administratively or in the public’s mind with mental illness and disability.

Also speaking at the conference was Robert Blancato, a member of the policy committee organizing the White House conference. Blancato said a total of 1,200 delegates from all 50 states would be present at the October event. They will be charged with formulating recommendations to guide national aging policy for the next 10 years. Each member of Congress will select a delegate and each state’s governor will name at least two more, he explained. In addition, the policy committee will choose another 400 delegates, striving for a political, professional and demographic balance.

“As far as I know, there is no litmus test on how delegates feel about Social Security reform,” Blancato quipped, referring to President Bush’s controversial proposal to reform the national retirement and disability plan. The president’s vision of an “ownership society” was a popular topic of conversation throughout the two-day event.

A number of organizations from northern and eastern Maine were represented at the conference, including groups from Aroostook and Washington counties. Roberta Downey, director of the Eastern Maine Agency on Aging in Bangor, said the high turnout from the state’s far-flung rural regions indicated the seriousness of the challenges faced by Maine’s older residents and the agencies that support them. Downey predicted that transportation services would emerge as a key issue in Maine.

“We are really the first generation that has grown up with the expectation that everyone would drive and everyone would have a car and the freedom and independence that represents,” she said. “As we get older, we need to be thinking about what it means to give up driving, especially in rural areas where alternatives don’t exist.”

Veronica Sheehan, director of Wardwell Assisted Living Services in Saco, said there is a four-year waiting list for the limited number of residential units her company manages for lower-income seniors. Assisted living programs provide a small number of support services such as medication management, on-site activities and group meals. “We’ve found that with the elderly, if they can keep their medication straight, be social and have a healthy diet, they can keep their independence for a long time,” Sheehan said.

Among the few nonprofessionals attending this week’s conference was 55 year-old Jerry-Ann Yoder of Yarmouth. Yoder, who grew up in Dedham, said she convinced her aging parents to move in with her and her husband in 1999. Her father, afflicted with Alzheimer’s syndrome, died a few years ago, and her mother recently suffered a fall and now lives in a southern Maine nursing home.

Yoder said it’s important to involve “real people” – not just professionals – in the discussion of what’s needed to keep rural elders at home in their chosen communities.

“I really wanted to be able to keep my parents in their home in Dedham, and, of course, that’s where they wanted to live,” Yoder said. “But there was no Meals on Wheels, there was no transportation – the family was involved and the church was caring, but it just wasn’t enough.”

For information on support services available to Maine’s senior citizens, contact the Area Agencies on Aging toll-free at (866) 456-2322. Information on education and public policy is available on line at www.umaine.edu/mainecenteronaging. Information on the White House Conference on Aging can be found at www.whcoa.gov.