City expects to learn soon on ‘age-friendly’ designation

The town of Los Gatos expects to learn any day now if it meets the criteria to be an “age-friendly” community. The town applied for the World Health Organization designation in May and, if approved, will join other Santa Clara County municipalities that have already received the age-friendly designation.

The idea behind the movement is to improve senior services county-wide, so the effort is being spearheaded by the Santa Clara County Department of Aging and Adult Services, which predicts that one in four county residents will be over 60 years old by 2030.

“One goal is to create a community collaborative to offer age-friendly and inclusive social events,” library director Dolly Goyal said. “Dances came up because people in our older community love to dance, talk to each other and get together..”

Another goal, Goyal said, is to offer more technology-learning opportunities for seniors.

“We have a lot of involved youth who want to do more,” Goyal said. “The age-friendly initiative will help kids learn what their parents and grandparents are experiencing.”

The technology example shows why programs across town should be coordinated: Both the library and LGS Recreation have technology programs aimed at seniors. So, having people collaborate on events could help eliminate redundancy.

Community and senior services commission chairman Tom Picraux said that even though the agefriendly initiative starts by identifying seniors’ needs, it will look for solutions that help everyone in town.

“It’s really intended to make Los Gatos more agefriendly for all ages,” Picraux said. “An example would be transportation. We know seniors find it challenging to get to places in town.”

He added that becoming an age-friendly community will enable the town to seek grants to improve services.

The town council is tentatively scheduled to receive an update at its Aug. 1 meeting.