right. it takes building a lot of public will to do it. we have to do that. we just did a big study on the cost of affordable housing. and, you know, well, thank you. thanks for your partnership. we learned from all our partners on the ground what things are really escalating costs? and how do we do this differently? and the financial strains are very challenging. local zoning. all the things we've been able to talk about. we need to advocate for more resources to do what we can more officially. and built p public will to support the programs that we need. >> and rely on what we know works. we know some things that work very well. and let's not forget about those. >> thank you. we have quick, tiny little bit of time for one more question. sir? >> hi. i'm really encouraged by today. my name is louis tenenbaum. i have been working on the issue of ageing in placer for 20-some years.

i talk to colleagues, friends and customers. most of whom are ineligible. so we have a huge -- they have a great deal of trouble managing services for their parents, finding services for the parents, deciding about services for the parents and themselves. the largest share of the demographic is not eligible for anything. we need much better services between ccrcs and medicaid. there is a huge population that has a great deal of trouble. i want to encourage us to use the private sector or use encouragement to the private sector to better use private individual funds which is all we have for most people to improve services available to most agencies. really to work at making it possible for people with just some money to age in place easily and well. i think it will make a difference hopefully in individual lives, neighborhoods, communities and all of our levels of government.

please join me in giving a hand to our wonderful colleagues. more now from this panel on the housing needs of seniors. a study by the harvard joint center for studies released a report released at the beginning of september examining the consequences of housing cost 3wu burdens. the group's acting managing director chris herbert speaks about the report's findings. >> good morning. it's nice to see so many people

here today, the day after labor day weekend. when we set the date, we heard grumbling back that no one would come. i think this is a testament both to the importance of the issue and the fact that people are ready to get back to work after a good summer and a good labor day weekend. let me first start by sending my thanks to the hartfords for funding and to the aarp foundation. thank you. i also want to thank the folks we work with closely at the foundation. vivian and tyler who have been instrumental in helping marshall this through the process and have been certainly not funders but collaborators. they have helped put together a committee to shape the report and review drafts. i will not go through the process of naming them now but they are named on the website. their input was critical in terms of informing us and pointing us many the right direction. i would have to thank the joint center staff. a number of whom are here today.

i won't call them out. i think the effort that goes into the report, our state of the nation report and the american housing report is phenomenal. i think we under estimated to some extent the amount of effort that goes into learning the issues that intersect with senior and older american housing. so the amount of work that our staff did to get up to speed on that literature, all the data sets we analyzed was really quite amazing and been working very hard this summer, i should add. i have to give a special thank you to jennifer molisnski, sitting here in the front, who was the manager of this project and who is incredibly passionate about this issue and really put blood, sweat and tears into getting this report to be what it is today. so to the extenlt tht that the

report, if it passes, i think the credit goes to jen. let me turn to the report itself. obviously the motivation for the study begins with the fact that we are at a time of unprecedented growth in the older population. it's growing not just because of longevity which is increasing. because the baby boom generation has been crossing important thresholds. we have seen it growing for years. since 2011. beginning to accelerate and ten years from now, the oldest old population beginning to grow. it is a tremendous need to meet the needs of an aging society. the needs are great. there are challenges we face as we age. challenges to maintain our health and physical security. to remain connected to our communities. and to remain productive members of society. as lisa said in her remarks, i think if you look at it, housing is critical to so many of the elements of maintaining

well-being, and we use the phrase lynchpin. we have discussion if anyone would know what it is. i'm really grateful that you defined it. as we say in the report, housing is a lynchpin of well being. because it intersects with so many key issues. one is the financial security of households. housing is typically the largest item in a household budget. whether your housing is affordable or not will have a lot to say about whether or not your overall financial picture is in good shape. it's also the principal source of wealth. if you are a homeowner whether you have the nest egg or not is an important asset people can tap potentially as they age. in terms of physical security, whether the home is suitable to your needs as the inevitable challenges arise. does the house provide a safe and secure environment. as we learned more and more the ways if which the house is also related to health issues in terms of both the interior environment of the home and how it connects to communities. in terms of social connections,

where you live, what your housing situation is. does it facilitate you interacting with the community. do you have access to transportation options to engage with the community. the housing is central to that. finally in terms of links to long term supports and services, as we age when we needer more supports in the home, those are helping in situations facilitating getting the services so we can age in our communities and avoid the high costs of institutionalized care. in each of these areas we face significant challenges. in terms of financial security, older households are already facing high housing cost burdens. and given the situation of those approaching retirement, they may well worsen. more people are entering retirement with mortgage debt. in terms of physical security, there is a shortage of housing with accessibility features. there are important trade offs between spending on food and therefore hunger and health care and therefore health. in terms of social connections there are deficiencies in terms

of the house ing that's well connected to city centers and town centers and transit. there are deficiencies in pedestrian infrastructure that make it difficult to make those. there are ways in which the housing and health care system don't work well together and threaten the ability to get services you need. housing play as critical role in making the connections. we certainly are facing a number of challenges today as the list makes clear. we'll face more challenges in the future. this is a problem already but going to become a bigger problem. the issue or the good news is there is still time to prepare. most of the challenges will really accelerate when the population begins to grow. that will happen a decade from now. as lisa said there were a number of promising models and ways we know to address these things. if we are going to build infrastructure in terms of housing and systems to deliver

the services we have to start now. the goal is to raise awareness and understanding of the issues. to provide the data that's needed to document it and highlight areas where action is needed and can take place at all levels of government by the private and nonprofit sectors. most importantly at the individual and family level. there is a need for individuals to take stock of what's going to be the demands on them as they age. and begin to take steps now to prepare for that. also to provide the support needed for the policies and programs that are going to be needed to support an aging society. with that, let me now turn to the details of the report. as we say, these reports are always chock a block full of information. every paragraph is carefully honed. so i will be able to touch upon only a part of it. so i really do encourage you to read all of the report. let me turn to the highlights.

so the first portion of the this shows the population in 50 year increments. so this chart shows the population in 15-year increments. those are the categories you'll see. a preretirement group, 50 to 60. retirement into the first year's post retirement. 65-79. and then the oldest old, 80 and over. you can see that we have already experienced a huge run-up in the 50-plus population. when the baby boom turned 50 in the '90s, that group started to grow. from 1990 to 2010 we saw that population double from 30 million to 60 million. now we're at a point that the baby boom as of 2011 started to turn 65. we are just beginning to see the population grow rapidly. so between 2010 and 2030 we'll see that grow from 27 million to 43 million. and then up to 53 million by

2030. so by 2030, one in five americans will be 65 and older. a really astounding share of the overall population. the oldest old have been growing with longevity. and that group will start to rapid up again in 2026. that beginning at the 2020s and 2030s we'll see the oldest old population grow. and as we'll see, that's the group that really has tremendous needs for supports. while it's growing now, it will be growing much more rapidly a decade from now. so this chart illustrates the challenges that grow when you age, in terms of an increased risk of disability, isolation and financial stress. so we show here different categories of disabilities from cognitive issues with memory and decision-making, self-care in terms of bathing and dressing. independent living in terms of running errands and taking care of finances and mobility.

as you can see, there is an increase as people from go from their 50s and 60s to their 60s and 70s and a huge increase as they hit 80 plus. by then one in three have issues with independent living. one in five have issues with self-care. likewise with people living alone as people become widowers and widows, more than a third are living alone, increasing the risk of isolation. when we look at housing cost burdens we have less of an increase. this is more of a democratic problem with more than a third of people facing housing cost burdens in their 50s, 60s and 70s. and then it does rise in the '80s as incomes become more constrained. as we see people age, issues around disability issues, issues around isolation and issues around financial stress will grow. in terms of disabilities, age in

many respects is a great equalizer. so what these charts show is again looking now at incidents of disability. combining the likelihood of having the issue of hearing, vision, self-care, mobility and the likelihood of having an issue rises sharply with age. these panels show issues by race and ethnicity, income and housing tenure. and among younger people, we see higher income households are less likely to be disabled. but age over time takes a toll on all. so by the time you get to your 80s 70% of households of all demographic stripes are dealing with disabilities. so this is not an issue for some demographic slice. it's an issue for all of us as we age. in terms of income, the financial pressures also tend to converge. so this chart shows the median household income with different

age bands for different groups. that's the median income of people 60 to 64 and by race, tenure and family type. at that point it's a wide disparity in meeting incomes. much higher for whites and asians. much higher for homeowners. if you look at the red bars, those differences really largely dissipate. so most household types, regardless again of what your demographic stripe is have median income household between 20,000 and $25,000. the longer we live t fewer sources of income we have to rely on. so again, more financial stress across the spectrum. now turning to housing and financial security. one of the main issues we look at is housing cost burdens. this is the shared households spending at least 30% of income for housing, which is a typical

measure of affordability. we refer to severe burdens as people spending more than 50% of their income on housing. we always get a question when we do a report. what do you find surprising? this part of the analysis though it is one we may spend the most time on is one that really gave me pause. if we look at renter households, among older households, the differences aren't that significant from the overall population. people in their 50s and early 60s, about half have housing cost burdens, true of all renters and a little more than a quarter have severe housing cost burdens. they do rise with age. they're already pretty high. by the time they're in the 80s, almost 60% of renters have housing cost burdens. it's not a slice of data we often look at. if you look at it that way, you find people who have a mortgage who live later in life, are much more likely to face housing cost

burdens. among those 50 to 64, a third have housing cost burdens but by the time they age into retirement ages, it rises to 45% and then 60% of those over 80. and so really this issue about managing your mortgage debt while you're still working and trying to get to a situation where you're not facing those costs in retirement is really significant. as a 53-year-old mortgage holder of a 28-year mortgage this certainly gave me pause thinking about what i may need to do in the next ten years. if you look at homeownererers who own the homer-free and clear it really provides a dividend in terms of avoiding housing cost burdens. only 13 to 14% of homeowners under the age of 80 have housing cost burdens. it rises after 80 because incomes drop and property taxes and insurance can become more of a burden. but again, owning your home free and clear is really an important

dividend homeowners get and one that we'll see in a minute is becoming less likely the to be realized. another issue we look at is what are the implications of housing cost burdens? the way the joint center looks is to use the consumer expenditure survey and look at how typical households spend on a monthly basis. what we do is compare those who are facing either moderate cost burdens, between 30 and 50% of their income or severe burdens, spending more than 50%. this is just for households in the bottom expenditure quartile. that is basically a proxy for bottom income. and if you look, the green bars are able to find affordable housing. the yellow are moderate burden. the red are severe burden. and you can see across all the age group, the spending categories that takes the biggest hit are the other items that make up a portion.

and food is always a significant one. across a spectrum. the household facing cost burdens. severe cost burdens spend between 41 and 47% less each month on food. showing a clear link between spending on housing and whether or not you can get adequate nutrition. the next biggest is transportation. a clear trade off between how high your housing costs are and how much you spend on transportation. here, the differences are between two-thirds and three-quarters lower spending on transportation. the link between high housing costs and isolation. in terms of health care, we see there is a lower spending of about a half to two-thirds for those who face severe cost burdens. among those 80 plus it's 67% less on health care. the other area of spending that cuts back is retirement savings. it will be reflected in your situation when you retire. clear links between whether you can get affordable housing and spending on all other

categories. >> back to the mortgage issue, this chart shows the share of households who are homeowners with mortgage debt and the average amount of debt over time. just looking at the yellow bars for 65 plus going back to 1992, about 19% of people who are 65 and owned a home had a mortgage. by 2010 that share had risen to 40%. so much more likely to be entering your retirement years with a mortgage. if you look at the right-hand size, the average for the loans, it's gone from 28% to 45%. so not only are you more likely to enter retirement with mortgage, you're much more likely to have more debt. and if you think back to that cost burden chart, what does that imply about how well people are going to be able to manage their housing finances in

retirement, and then what the implications of that are for the other spending. so i think this issue about how we're managing mortgage debt going forward is really going to be important for the next generation of older households. the other issue for 50 to 64-year-olds is the toll that the housing crash has had on the home ownership rates. this compares rates in 2005 and 14 for different age segments. homeowner ship races have held up well. a slight decline in 55 to 79-year-olds and 80 plus has gone up a little bit. the 50 to 64-year-old group has seen the homeowner ship rate fall. and for that age, it's not likely to be made up in the remaining years before they hit retirement. so that group is going to go into retirement less likely to own their home. if we look at the overall net wealth picture between 2007 and 2010 the 50 to 64-year-old group saw their net wealth fall 32%.

so one other common theme in this report is that group of 50 to 64-year-olds and how much they've been suffering from the recession and other financial issues that we've been having, less likely to find benefit pension plans. as much as we look at today's older households, trying to extrapolate from the 50 to 64-year-old group forward it's not a pretty picture. in terms of wealth, there's a lot of figures in terms of the dribs of wealth. the bottom line is homeowners have about a quarter million dollars of net wealth with a typical median homeowner compared to $6,000 for renters. we think, too, about the situation for homeowners and renters as they retire. very different situation. it's sizable but not the lion's share. that will be an important issue going forward.

being able to get rental housing assistance is important to manage their finances. what this chart is showing is on the left-hand side using data from the hud the number of older 62 plus who are very low income which is a standard determination of eligibility for housing assistance programs. for older renters being able to get rental housing assistance is incredibly important to be able to manage their finances. so with this chart is showing is on the left hand side, using data from hud, the number of elderly households for housing assistance purposes defined as 62 plus who are very low income, which is a standard determination of eligibility for housing assistance program, and then the green portion is a share of that group that actually managed to get housing assistance that they're income

eligible for. if you look in 2011, there were about 3.9 million very low-income elderly households, which about a third were able to get housing assistance. slightly lower than about a quarter. but still about two-thirds don't get housing assistance or are eligible for it. of the group, the two-thirds who don't get it, 60% suffer from what's worst case housing needs. paying more than half the income for housing or living in severely inadequate housing or both. so that absence of housing assistance for the group has important ramifications for how well housed they are and what the financial situation is. what we have done is a simple exercise. perhaps naive. trying to where it is. that age eligible group is going to grow by leaps and bounds. what we project to be the number

of oh elderly renters. we do it constantly. if we assume the same share are low income then as they are today, what does that imply about the number of eldererly households for assistance. a lot of switches in there. i think in some sense you could say homeowner ship or renter ship might be too low. it might be too generous since the group is suffering financially. on the other hand, it could go the other way as well. based on that we project by 2030, 6.4 million, very low income renters, elderly renters eligible for assistance. just to keep the same one-third share that would mean 900,000 more assisted units for the population. we now have 1.4 million. we haven't add thad many in a long time.

if we don't keep pace with it we'll have more elderly renter households on their own in the housing market. already we see that results in 60% having worst case housing needs n. the short run this issue about rental housing assistance and how much support is required for that group is going to really become known over the next few years. turning to the issues of accessibility needs and the housing stock, one of the key issues is, as we talked about and lisa talked about, is how well suited housing is to meeting the needs of an aging population in terms of accessibility. as a starting point it's helpful to look at what types of homes older households are in already. this is a distribution os after 2011 in terms of the type of structure that households 50 and over are living in. 71% are living in single family detached housing. most of which is owner occupied.

the good news about being owner occupied is they do have greater ability to modify the home to suit their needs. but single l family housing may present more challenges in terms of multi-floor living and the like to be able to adapt to meet their needs. if you look at the share living in multi family ten plus to the extent multi family buildings with elevators may have greater accessibility it's a small share of the eldererly, older population. only 9% of older households are living in large multi family buildings. when you think about adapting housing to meet accessibility needs we are talking about adapting single family housing. we are talking about it because this is a population that doesn't move very frequently. as people age, the likelihood of moving becomes much lower. in their 50s, about 4% of the population moves every year. in the the 60s and 70s, it's down to 3%.

and as a result, if you look at many of them are living now, it's probably likely to where they'll be living as they age. this chart shows a share of households of different age groups who have been in their home for different period os time. the dark green bars show the share living in their home for 20 years or more. if you look at the right hand panel, those 80 and over, 60% have been in their homes for at least 20 years. if you look at the 65 to 79-year-olds, 47% have been in it for 20 years. another 23% for ten years or more. basically people are making decisions about the housing they will occupy. how can you get people to be aware for the choices they make now for the housing they're going to need when they're 75 and 80. and it's not easy.

we don't like to picture ourselves in that situation. and we don't think it's going to happen to us. i was just talking to my brother-in-law yesterday who remodeled his house and didn't do anything to make his house accessible. he said, my parents are 90. they're fine. i said, well, they're lucky. but no one in the process pointed out to them that this was an issue they need to be aware of. this is one issue that needs to penetrate their korksness you're making decisions now that you have to deal with for a long time. if you look at the bundle of the thing it is share of housing stock that has more than one of these things becomes quite limited. so they include extra wide hallways and doors to be able to

come accommodate wheelchairs. no step entry, accessible electrical controls so they're not too high or too low to be able to reach from a wheelchair and r single floor living. that's the most common one followed by accessible election call controls and no-step entry. but if you look at the bundle of these things. the share of the housing stock that has more than one of these things, it becomes quite limited. only 57% of the housing stock has more than one of these features. and only 21% has at least three. only one 1% has all five. we are talking about how accessible the existing stock is. there really are significant deficiencies. they vary by regions. the northeast tends to have more single family homes that lack single floor living or no step entry. and this chart shows they do

vary by age as well. new her housing is more likely to have accessibility features. but even though the slope is upward on these features. it's probably not as steep as it needs to be to make sure the new housing is adding greatly to the accessible stock. so it's an issue of how well suited they are to meeting the needs of an aging population. and this chart compared the likelihood of living in a home with at least three accessibility features versus the likelihood of having a disabled family member. for those households, one in five are likely to have disabilities in the home. and about one in five are also likely to live in a home with three accessibility features. these are not necessarily the same households, but just the the odds. and it goes up a bit for 65 to 79. but by the time you hit 80, the incidents of disabilities goes up in 60% of households, and the

likelihood if you're living in a house only goes up to 30%. there is some indication at that point if you move you will move to more accessible housing. again, moves are rare and not enough to offset the rise in disabilities. so a big mismatch between needs for accessibility and what the stock offers. so what does it take to try to make the stock more accessible. metlife has done a couple l of studies where they estimate what the expense would be for the most commonly needed investments in the the home. some of them are simple. some of them are not too expensive. they're getting increasingly complex and more costly as they go up. handrails in the bathrooms, they can done for less than $1,000. each door widened, $800 to $1200. for a wheelchair ramp, $1600 to $3200. stair lifts, more expensive, $3,000 to $12,000.

then when you talk about remodeling a bathroom to make it accessible, adding a bathroom, adding a bedroom, then the costs become more substantial. while some things can be done easily, other things take much more more expense. to give you an example of the potential scale of this, consider the the fact that as of 2011 there were 10.3 million households, 50 and over, who reported having some serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs. and of that group, 5.5 million report living in a house that requires that they climb stairs either to enter or exit the house. so then you say, okay, of that 5.5 million, let's say even a tenth, or half a million need to put in a ramp to be able to get to the house. t and meltlife's estimate of $2,400 adds up to $1.3 billion for ramps. okay. but these are where you slice it. that's a big market. $1.3 billion. and either it's a big

opportunity, or a big need for subsidy. when you multiply the millions of households facing the issues, even by modest costs it can add up to a big number. so how can we pay for this? how are we going to increase the stock? there's a number of policies and programs that are being used. one of them is visibility. it's been growing adopt of these over the last few decades. initially focused on housing being built with public funds that are having mandates to have visibility features. if of the features talked about in the earlier side. more an more there's an interest in expanding that beyond just publicly funded housing. and certainly tp incentives to have them start to add to the the stock over time. there's also examples of tax incentives being offered to homeowners or home builders who

undertake housing that has visibility features or accessibility features that provide that kind of subsidy mechanism to encourage people to undertake those improvements. there's also grants or low-interest loans from federal sources. there's ways in which -- cgbg is a program under funding constraints in recent years. but one that played a big role in pro viding grants and loans to homeowners to build their homes. other options include the potential for medicaid through home, the community based waivers. to be able to fund improvements to the home so people can age in place. either with ramps or changes in the bathroom or the like. there are a variety of ways to tap different grants and low interest loans to help homeowners make the investments. finally volunteer assistance may be an area, a question of whether we can bring toyota

whether we can bring it to scale. an interesting example is rebuilding america which has a model sort of like habitat for humanity. where they rely on volunteer assistance or donation of resources to go into homes of the elderly veterans and disabled households to make those homes accessible, and they do that in 2013. they modified 4,200 homes. so it's small scale. but it's the community level grass roots effort that if brought to scale might go a long way towards helping. >> social connection and community support. the the ability of the people to remain connected with their communities is important, not just for their own mental health and peace of mind, but algs fso the community to be able to take advantage of the expertise and the volunteer and the like that those households bring. and certainly a number of ways

in which the current layout of housing will become a challenge to maintain that social connection as households age. if we look at the distribution of where the 50 plus households currently live this is based on the american housing survey. it estimates that about 25% are in central cities, 50% in suburban areas. another 25% are in nonmetro areas. we have about three-quarters of older households living in areas that are not dense by definition. therefore may be constrained in terms of the transit options available to them. if we look at the distribution of households by their -- this is looking at the share that have no access to cars and do not have transit within a quarter mile of where they live. based on this measure you can see people in their 50s, 60s, 70s by that measure have good access to transit. if they drive or live near transit.

by the time you get to your 80s the share of households at that level have some deficiencies in their ability to connect with transportation opportunities. it becomes mucher more limited. particularly in suburban and rural areas. we struggle with how to present this information. living within the quarter mile of transit isn't a good measure of whether it is useful for you. a quarter mile is a long way if you are walking with a walker. you may have to cross streets that don't have good crossings, good sidewalks. when you get to the transit can you get into the station? does the transit take you where you want to go? there aren't good measures of how much transit serves the needs of people who have issues with mobility. the other issues in terms of having a car, even a question of whether or not you actually have broad use of the car. as people's vision is diminished

and reflexes and confidence are diminished very tlr survey that is say i don't f you missed out on activities because it was late, it was raining. there are ways in which the access to cars i think, overestimates people's real ability to connect with transit. as much as we struggle to capture it, there is no question as people age, particularly into their 80s they become more ice isolated in suburban and rural communities in particular. to enhance connectivity, certainly one way is through services that can help people being tied to their communities. senior centers provide activities for engaging with the community. agencies on aging are an important resource for a host of services including meal delivery, home care, adult day care.

there is a whole service infrastructure that needs to be there. both once people get into the community so they have places to gather and interact with people and also to deliver services to them in their home. part of it is a service system that needs to help plug the gap. beyond that, there is also a need to encourage broader housing options. people need to have options within the communities close to centers, close to transit. it may mean more multi family housing in places that were averse to that. more dwelling units. allowing for other forms of cohousing, other groups living together that may not be allowed by zoning. we have to think about the communities that may not have had diverse options that there bye-bye a growing need for them.

obviously improving transportation options. as i mentioned there are ways in which the mass transit system can have it accessible to people. there's a whole range of para transit, you know, taxi discounts and other options for making more transportation options that will take people from the point to point that they need in an affordable basis. and then in terms of pedestrian experiments. certainly need to think about increasing accessibility of sidewalks, adding lighting, adding buffers between traffic. making street crossing safer. all of these things that are helpful to make sure even if the destinations are within reach they can be safely traversed. put these things together. we are talking about making an age friendly community. that means it's not just for older households. it could work as well for young families and young people as for older people. having a better transportation. they are needed for healthier communities overall. finally in terms of linking

housing and long-term supports and services, as i point out at the beginning, the incidence of disability rises sharply with age. many people will be wrestling with the need to have long term services and supports to maintain residents in their homes and communities. that's important because folks clearly express a preference for that. because of the importance of the social networks and connections. it's also important because maintaining residence in your home saves society a lot of money from delaying institutionalization before it is needed. we do look. this chart shows the living arrangements of households or a population with disabilities by age. the slice that's pulled out is a share living in group quarters which is an institutional setting not in the community. and as you can see, that share

is fairly low. it's 5% of those under age of 80. it rises to 13% of those 80 and over. still the majority of people with disabilities are living in the community. this is a trend that's been increasing over time. the nursing home population has been declining. there's been more options like assisted living. more ways of providing support in the home. it's all been for the good. one way in which people are able to get -- probably the most important way people are able to get support in the home is from family members. either spouses or children. two-thirds of people getting long term care in the home are getting it from family members. that's an important means of keeping people in their homes. only 9% get care from nonfamily sources solely. one of the issues we are facing as a society are demographic

shifts. they will make that source of support more challenging. baby boomers got married later, had fewer kids. smaller families. if you look at the share of people by age who have -- who do not have children, people in their 50s, 16% do not have children compared to 6% of those in their early 70s. for those that generation is now approaching the older age, there will be fewer family caregivers to rely on. i think aarp has an estimate that as of today there is a ratio of seven family potential caregivers for every person 80 and over. by 2030 that will be 4-1. by 2050 down to 3 oh to 1. i'm one of five, thankfully. my mom was aging, the five of us were able to pull together our time and money to do that. we look at our kids and have two. they are teenagers. we look at them and say we are in big trouble. they certainly have to mature or they better get a better job. it's really the kals that we're going to have the family

caregiver ratio is going the wrong direction. and it's going to put more pressure on other sources of care. this chart estimates the cost of providing weekly assistance of different types. ranging from adult day care to a homemaker service. both of those assumed at 30 hours a week for a month. monthly cost goes from $1,400 to $2,500. assisted living is $3,500. nursing home care is about $6500. across that gradation, the costs go quite high. again, going back to the renter homeowner issue, in terms of homeowners if we look at their wealth, how long can they support themselves drawing down on the wealth in oo each of these situations, and it can go on for years if they don't tap their home equity. whereas renters, given that median health, they can last about four months.

by the time you get to the other issues they don't have the resources to last more than a month or two. while we have these growing options, the cost is high and while some people have the wherewithal to support it, many don't. and i do think that again the renter population is one we need to think a lot of time thinking about and how we support them. just briefly in terms of policies and programs to expand affordable housing, hud section 202 and there are processes going on now to try to revamp that and make it more productive, basically by removing capital grants, switching to long-term rental assistance and other sources of funding. and there's some hope that might help, and on the other hand, it's partly passing the buck to other development funding. the source of that which itself has been mentioned for cut backs and also relied on for hosting a range of rental housing.

we really need to think about given the faaccount that we haven't had a lot of that. the 202 housing unit are very old. this is really a critical area of support. there are a number of nonsuccessful models, taking existed housing and bringing in resources from the health care system to help support them. i think we do have to take advantage of the fact that we have a number of existing developments that have a constitution of older households and help to support those models as an important resource. and then finally, ways in which way can can look to enhance the re-entry of renters coming back into the community after institutionalization outside of the assisted housing space. if you were institutionalized and coming back out and whether it's accessible or not. whether you were able to secure that unit and it's successful, and being able to use other resources to be able to secure that unit, make sure that it's accessible to you and you can get reestablished. and there's some efforts, medicaid money follows the

person that have used for this purpose, small scale. but we need to think about since we're never going to have another assisted housing, how do i facilitate access to private market housing as well? is all right. so that's kind of the r run through the issues. the joint center is often referred to as the joint center for doom and gloom. we get up here and cite a litany of statistics about how awful the situation is. it makes you want to throw up your hands and abandon hope. the report does point to a number of really promising approaches. there's issues of scale and there's issues of funding. the other issue that i think we have to take comfort is in while we're wrestling with serious issues today, those issues are going to grow more profound over time. and so we do have time to

prepare. we do have to build more of a housing infrastructure. we do have to build more of a infrastructure for the support services that are needed. and we do have models that we can build to use that, but we have to start now to do that. as lisa said in the introduction, it's going to require efforts by all levels of the government. it's going to require efforts by the nonprofit sector, who have been so important to break down funding streams to deliver to their clients and the people they care about. and also in terms of the advocacy role in making sure the positions are brought to the floor. it's going to take the private sector. and the private sector has tremendous opportunities here. and i think one of the issues breaking through the consumer to make them aware of the issues so when they market their products that are designed for accessibility and the like they find a more willing clientele. and i think again it's going to come back to the individual. it's going to come back to individuals and their families recognizing these issues, taking

steps now to prepare themselves and recognizing the importance of their communities have to do to be prepared and supportive of the steps. ultimately the rubber meets the road at the community level. that's where the service struck has to be expanded. so there's a lot of pressure on the local governments, and i think that they're awareness and preeshts for this is important as well. as a final message, the issue is this is not an isolated problem, but a problem that's going to face most communities across the country. if you look at -- if you can get back to the powerpoint. this is a map showing counties and a share of the population in 1990 of 50 plus. so the red areas are places that had 40% of the population at 50 plus. and you can see there's places in florida. there's places in arizona. there's a few places in the

midwest with pockets here or there where the population is over 50. many areas that are green where the population over 50 was less than 25%. if we fast forward over 20 years, the red areas are growing they're in the northeast and those green areas are essentially gone. and so places -- again, to the aging place, they're going to age in that community where they are now. so, this is an issue that really is one that has to -- communities across the country have to face. i hope with this report we've raised awareness, pointed to some solutions and help that process of getting ready for what's going to happen to us as a country over the next ten years. thank you very much. also from this conference, former housing and urban development secretary henry

cisneros talks about housing needs for seniors. he talks about a new report examining the issue released by harvard joint issue for housing studies which co-hosted this event along with the aarp foundation. mr. cisneros is also a former mayor of san antonio, texas, who now co-chairs the housing commission of the bipartisan policy center. he heads citi view companies which works with urban home builders to create affordable housing. >> thank you very much. what an energetic presentation. it's not necessary to be mayor of san antonio to become secretary of h.u.d, but it

doesn't hurt. lisa thank you for your words. san antonio is now the seventh largest city in the country and there has never been a city larger than san antonio to have an african woman mayor, which we now do in san antonio. it's a very inclusive place. and even though the african-american population there is relatively small, ivy taylor succeeded julian castro and speaks to the kind of breath, if you will, of the city. and i'm very, very proud of what we've been able to accomplish. lisa, thank you. you're a pioneer in your own right. lisa, who has been the president of the aarp foundation for the last ten months was previously the president of a college for 20 years. wells college in upstate new york. thank you to you and the aarp foundation for producing this very important report for supporting this very important report.

and thank you to chris and the rest of the team at harvard joint housing studies with whom i have worked over the years. really one of the best absolute places for analytical work for hous houses. chris, thank you very much to you and your team for that good work. two organizations deserving the high praise. state of the nation's housing report and the aarp foundation and aarp for decades of advocacy, for establishing--long sustaining programs. really, iconic programs, insurance and so many other things touched the lives of seniors across the country. and very importantly, for sounding the warning bell for

decades of the work we need to be doing as a country to support older americans. this is a most important report. now, it's hard to break through the clutter of important subjects at a time when the news is full of worrisome crisis. isis advances in iraq, israel and the palestinians trade blows, russia threatens the ukraine. and domestically we face unaccompanied minors at the border, va care issues, congressional stalemate on vital questions. so, it's hard to raise a subject like this to the level of attention that it deserves. today's report on housing and supporting aging americans addresses a set of demographic and financial dynamics which have the power to profoundly impact our nation. and its people. these issues may not be in the headlines daily. and they may be slower burning

but they have the power to profoundly impact our daily lives. they may not affect us personally today but they affect some of us today. including people who are suffering deeply because of the way these issues come together right now as we speak, all across this country. and in time, the life of every american including every person in this room will be touched. the challenges of housing and supporting an aging population are not unique to the united states. japan is the oldest country in the world and aging most rapidly. in fact, japan is now, because it is not a country that has welcomed immigrants and has this aging dynamic, actually losing population. some of the northern european countries, scan that naif va and

russia are on a path to declining population. spain and portugal are on the same path in southern europe. and china, by 2040, will have more people over 65 years of age than the residents will have over 4 million people in china will have reached 65. the dynamic of what it means in china is impacted by their one child policy. so, this interplay of demographics is huge on the world stage. now, our aging problem as a nation, may be different. in some ways it may be more manageable because we have a growing population. we were 306 million in the census. in the census of 2050 we'll be over 400 million. in that time span we'll have not only a growing nation but a growing workforce. you have resources being

generated, taxes being paid, economy growing. that's hugely important largely a factor we have minority population and immigration. lest you think these are unrelated, they all come together in the national debate. but still, despite the fact that we'll be growing and despite the fact we'll be able to manage some of these issues, at least have the resources to do it, the absolute numbers of aging americans are stunning. chris cap sue lieses the key dimensions. but i want to reflect for a moment on what some of these things might mean. this is about housing and support systems but it is really driven by two fundamental realities. one of them is the scale of demographic change. the scale of an aging population. secondly, it's about money.

that is to say, personal as seats people have or don't have to provide for their own housing and governmental budgets. we have a big problem because the scale of the change is big. today's population of roughly 20 million americans over 65 will grow to almost 40 million by 2030. so, our over 65 population will double. that's a mass of people. if you doubt the sense of it, then get off an airplane any day and see how many wheelchairs there are lines up and how many people need assistance. our soed is changing because of the size of the population that's aging. we're talking about doubling the over 65. that's because the first of the baby boomers born between 1946 and '64, an 18-year span, turn 65 in 2011.

that was 2.8 million people turning 65 just in that year. the number grows dramatically and impacts this doubling of the 65-year-old population. today's population of persons over 85 is 6 million, roughly. that will grow to 20 million people in the same time frame. so the over 85 population will triple. by 85 years of age, two out of three adults face cognitive, hearing, mobility or vision challenges. so, the scale of the real life impact, the scale of what this means for real people in massive numbers is huge. the second dimension that makes this an important issue is money. how do we pay for the needed housing and care? you could make a house that while this is a big issue, if we had the money, if we knew what the systems were by which we

would pay for it, it begins to solve itself because the market would respond and the government would have enough money available. but if you don't have the money and the scale is huge, that doubles the impact of the problem. many aging americans don't have personal savings. and governmental budgets are strapped. government -- in 2012, one-third of persons over 50 years of age, 20 million households were cost burdened. they paid more than 30% of their income for housing. so, 20 million people were paying more than the suggested 30% of their income for housing. half of those were severely cost burdened, which means they paid more than 50% of their budgets for housing. that's the number that chris was referring to earlier who paid 40% less for food than the average household and 70% less

for health care because they don't have it. they just don't have the money. they can't pay 50% of their housing -- i mean, of their budget for shelter and still have any money left over for these other things. those are people over 50. now, people over 65, of those, 6.5 million households have incomes under $15,000. imagine trying to live on $15,000. that's an increase of 37%. almost a third more than just a decade ago. and 77% of those are cost burdened at the 30% of their budget going to shelter. reality. chris made a point this morning about the distinction between owners and renters. we know that in our country those that have invested in homeownership have some net worth, have some assets. but it's hard to believe that among the elderly, those who are

owners, this is over -- people over 50 years of age, among that age group, those who were owners have a net worth 44 times that of renters. 44 times. and that translates into realities. among homeowners over 65, most have enough wealth to pay for about nine years of in-home care. and about 6 1/2 years of assisted care by cashing in on the equity on their home. but for renters, what they have available to expend on care is about two months so, the implications of those who are owners today and those who are renters in terms of what they can translate that into in terms of their care is huge. as chris said, two out of three older adults with disabilities rely on care from family

members. that is, spouses or usually adult daughters. and the ratio of family caregivers is declining, as he said, from seven to one to three to one by 2050. that's sort of personal budgets. governmental budgets are just as strapped. social security and medicare account for 41% of all federal outlays with the aging reality those numbers will increasingly drive the federal budget deficit. i served on a bipartisan policy budget deficit committee and it's abundantly clear that it is particularly, health care costs that will drive the budget deficit. so, as we confront these two realities, the scale of demographics and the financial dimensions, it's clear that we will need more housing that is age-appropriate for the various

stages of aging. housing that is accessible, affordable, well located, linked to services, with trained staffs, properly accessorized, healthy and safe. we must provide it because, first, it is the compassionate and responsible thing to do. it is consistent with our ideals that we don't leave people to suffer in their most vulnerable years. we never have believed that as a country. and it's consistent with our ideals that we not. so, there's a kind of first principle involved. secondly, it's necessary to make our communities and our society function or we'll be overburdened with the cost of care of people who are left behind. and because we can link housing and health to create a better sense of well being. at every step of the type of housing that's necessary, we can

do better. aging in place for the 90% of people who say they'd like to stay in their own home for as long as possible. new approaches to independent living. the first level of congregate care, new ways to pay for assisted living, which is the next level of care, more costly. more memory care units for the onset of problems related to dementia in its various forms, including alzheimer's, where we know brain science is not keeping up with other forms of science and people are physically okay but at some age, at some particular point they begin to lose cognitive capabilities. finally, we need new skilled nursing facilities for those at the end of life need that kind of care. let me say a quick word about each of these pieces of, if you will, the spectrum as we need

them over the span of life. first of all, aging in place. vast majority of people polled, over 90%, say they want to stay at home. indeed, something like 94% of elderly americans live at home now. it is a tight connection to health and peace of mind for many of them that they are at home. dr. james freese at stanford says if we can find ways to change the arc of decline over time, imagine an arc that begins around 50 or so. and then steadily declines over time. if we're able to change that trajectory to one that is on a plateau for a longer period of time, and then inevitably there

is a drop, but it is a sharper drop at the very end, then we save -- the end of life costs are the most expensive and the fact they come much later in the process would be huge. how do we keep that trajectory, if you will, stronger includes many elements, including fitness, eliminating things like smoking. dealing with diseases that used to be debilitating earlier in life but very importantly providing people the physical conditions in which they can stay strong. socialized, get exercise, et cetera, for a longer span of time. so, that's the significance of this whole issue related to the number of people who are going to be aging in place. it involves, as chris said earlier, renovations as well as new prototypes of renovations. fixes homes to put in ramps at

the appropriate time, lower kitchen cabinets, change bathroom fixture, different kind of lighting for security, accessorize with security devices for which caregivers can be called at the appropriate time. but a whole range of things related to renovations. and there's some very interesting work being done now on new prototypes of homes. there's a company in color called the liberty home that begins with zero step entrance and wider hallways and bathroom fixtures instead of knobs that make it hard for the elderly wrist to turn as strength declines and so forth. they're finding if they do it at the time they construct the home, it ends up being better than coming back in and doing it later. by the way, there's no problem having these in place for

younger generations so we can create the life span home that lasts over an entire lifetime. and as chris said earlier, there are things the national government and local government can do to encourage prototype. tax credits to builders as is being done in ohio to encourage the inclusion of universal features. grants and loans from states as is being done in massachusetts and h.u.d. and the federal government can play a major role in the community development block grant program, which has a great deal of discretion at the local level. i've always felt it may be time to be thinking about something like or adapting the existing weatherization program which has done such a good job in retro fitting homes for energy we need to begin thinking about retro fitting homes for life span capability. we did it for 30 years with the

weatherization program. we can adapt that program or modify it to do the same thing to create the life span setting. even programs like medicaid can be adapted so renovations are possible under it. and medicare as well. i'm vice chairman of habitat international and one of my commitments at habitat is to incorporate a prototype home for our volunteers. if they're going to be building, we ought to be building with some of these values in mind. habitat is going to be building 100,000 homes a year over the next several years. we're now about to finish the millionth home around the world. so, it's not an insignificant commitment that can be made from volunteer organizations. then there is the reality of not just changing homes, houses, but existing communities. the so-called norks, national occurring retirement communities. and the new communities that we

build. city planners have that phrase, nork. i recognize that places like that exist when i was married and i used to go to town hall meetings in the evening. and everyone in that community was older. it's a place like where my mom has lived until very recently. and the neighborhood that i live in now, actually, in west san antonio, and the -- i recognized, as i was listening to people discuss their problems, that the problems were different. they're not the same problems that you encounter in a younger neighborhood. they're issues of security and you think about it in a different way and the need for in-home care and nutrition assistance and a different set of problems. in communities. we have whole communities across america. as chris said earlier, when you saw that map, 5% in 1990 of those counties, 5% in 1990, had

population over 50 years of age that was at least 40% of the population of the county. 20 years later in 2010, that number was not 5% but 33% of american counties had at least 40% of their population over 50 years of age. so this is a national problem of importance. transportation is a huge issue. when we get to thinking about retro fitting communities, as i have done town hall meetings with elderly populations in these natural-occurring places they cite isolation as their loneliest fear. a sense of loneliness when their children move out. no way to drive any longer and the fear of getting out by themselves. so, providing, aging specialists to help them get to the doctor's office, to the grocery, very, very important.

we thank area agencies on aging, their care in home versus institutionalization, in-home services, like those offered by mercy housing missions, creek community in san francisco, for example. we're seeing communities doing things like changing zoning. interestingly, one of the most aggressive creative cities in the country is new york city, which is changing -- first of all, it ranks very highly as a place for the elderly to live because it is so walkable. everything is close by. public transit is available. wouldn't have thought of new york city as a good place for aging but miliken did a study on best places for aging, and new york city ranked very high. accessory dwelling units as passed in davis, california, that make it possible positive

place a unit on a lot adjacent to an existing home to multigenerational families can live together. and the virtual village network which today tends to be a little on the upscale side, but they're working very hard to find ways to make it more accessible. then, we go to the other elements of housing and things that can be done beyond those who are living on their own. independent living, new approaches that involve co-housing and approaches to providing services through intercollaboration. the reality is that for most, and chris made this point earlier, that many, many people who need independent living or other forms of assisted housing can't get it because out of 3 elderly residents who are eligible for housing assistance

don't get it. the housing assistance is just not available. assistance care. medicaid requires spending down or disposition of assets for families, which ruin them. and medicare provides only short care after hospitalization. so, we have some new thinking we have to do about these critical programs and how they provide for assisted care. memory care, we need a lot more of it. my mom lived in the house she and my dad bought in 1945 where all of my brothers and sisters and i grew up until one month ago. she made it to 90 on july 11th. two weeks ago, had a fall, went into a facility, a hospital, and the doctor said, we would not be responsible if we let her go home because the disorientation,

the forgetfulness would only result in a situation like this again. we began to look, my sister and i, for a memory care facility. we looked for days before we could find a facility that didn't have a waiting list that was three, four, six months along. found a wonderful place in the end. the truth is, she doesn't want to be there. she wants to go home. it's a very sad thing for me to visit her because it ends with me crying when i leave and i want to go out to the car and cry myself before i drive away. but it's just -- it's a really difficult, difficult thing to find quality memory care and we need more of it. of course, skilled care nursing is the next step. the median age of skilled care facilities in the country is 36 years old. facilities are older. we just need more of them.

again, we need to find ways to help pay for this. the long and short is today's report should be heard as a wake-up call. it stresses why we must act. why? because i'll repeat, it is the compassionate and right. it is the civilized and responsible thing to do. we owe the generations that have gone before. the truth of the matter is the human body wears down. and it loses strength. and as frailties increase, so do disorientation and even depression. caregivers are saddened and frequently at a loss. i edited this book several years ago on the subject of independent living. i probably made 40 speeches on the subject and easily 35 out of 40 times someone in the audience, when we get to those questions, stands up and

describes a personal circumstance at which they're in complete despair. it's not unusual for someone to break down and cry in those sessions as they're describing the problems they confront. there's an article in today's washington post about a new book entitled with the "we are not ourselves," it quotes a doctor. i thought the quote was appropriate for today's presentation. this is what the doctor said about the interface, if you will, of the problems of cognitive disorientation and aging and housing. he said, this is a disease where you never win. it doesn't just take down the suffererer. it takes down the spouse and the children and friends. so, we're dealing with a reality of what the human body can do over time. it's a practical fact. and if we don't have good

housing solutions for people, then we're just not doing what we ought to be doing. when you overlay on top of these physical realities, chronological realities, the financial inadequacies, then we're courting family meltdowns. and the truth of the matter is, that we're also courting a vast breakdown of key societal systems because we simply won't have the rehorses or ability to dpeel with people and we cannot leave them on their own in their vulnerable state. why? communities can't sustain economic prosperity. we look at vast sections of the midwest. you saw the map. if you go to any communities in the rural heartland in america, you find the young people have left, the elderly are left behind. we look at those communities and we refuse to accept throwaway communities. why would we accept throwaway people?

so a commitment to deal with realities we confront as a nation is essential. finally, i would say, because we know from many other applications of housing policy, we understand the primacy of decent shelter. we understand -- we can't deal with homeless issues if we don't start with housing first. we have issues related to families and children. we understand the role that a safe, decent, stable place to live means. well, that same logic applies to older americans, too. housing has everything to do with the hope of staying independent and healthy for as long as possible. and that means social contact, exercise, peace of mind, familiar surroundings, linkages to health care, trained help and a safe and decent place to rest in the most vulnerable years of life. our country must face some basic

facts. today's report makes these facts clear. we are aging. we are not ready. we're not preparing well enough. we will reap the sad consequences and we will see many people suffer. it doesn't have to be that way. we can go to work now. we still have time. we're just at the beginning of the baby boom surge. the critical mass is when those who just turned 65 reach their 80s, which is 12, 17, 18, 20 years from now. we have some time. but who must think anew, plan comprehensively, act with determination and we must fulfill our responsibilities as the great and compassionate nation that we are. thank you very much to all involved in today's panel.

coming up today, a virginia house debate from the state's tenth congressional district in the washington, d.c. suburbs. republican barbara comstock and john foust. that debate can be seen starting live in less than ten minutes on our website, c-span.org. here are some of the candidate ads. >> barbara comstock mgs to make abortion illegal just in cases of rape and incest. they want to overturn roe versus wade. so does she. >> i think roe versus wade should be overturned. >> she even voted with right wing republicans to require women seeking abortions to undergo transvajal ultrasounds. that's all i need to know.

>> i'm john foust and i approve this message. >> trash-talking politicians from john foust. foust wages a desperate, dishonest and negative campaign against barbara comstock. sexist, bizarre, indifferent. barbara comstock is an award winning ledge later. brought better paying jobs to virginia. john foust talks trash. barbara comstock gets paid. >> i balanced seven budgets in fairfax county. we had to cut a lot of waste. we consolidated offices. shared print perz 7 with kept the monitors. they still work fine. we even discovered the phone company overcharged us by $3 million. i approve this message because congress doesn't need another right-winger. we need someone to balance a budget. we definitely didn't need so

many government studies. >> barbara is a devoted wife, mother and public servant. she was elected to the house of delegates where she wrote the law to protect women and children from human traffickers. barbara comstock gets results. her leadership created new jobs, saved taxpayers millions of dollars and helped restore millions more to her schools. barbara comstock was a trusted agent. she'll be a great congresswoman for all of us. >> i'm bash kra comstock and i approve this message. >> six weeks from today, the country will vote in chris cillizzas, yes, i'm still excited. he's joining us on the phone. thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> let's talk about the senate races. clearly, that's the issue that is going to captivate attention on election night. who will control the next congress. right now, you say it is still a tossup. >> yeah.

you know, i think that in some ways that is a story-d line, an important one. so, today it is a tossup. i think that you put a finger on the scale to the republican party but it's remarkable we're still talking about the fact that democrats still have a plausible -- not the most likely but a plausible path to maintaining their majority. you look at the raw numbers and you look at where some of these incumbent democrats were going to have to try to hold -- montana, west virginia, south dakota, louisiana, north carolina, none of these are places that are by their nature hospitable for the democratic party. that's particularly true given president obama in his approval rating. max baucus retiring to be

ambassador to china. they've had a lot of tough feeds from the start. they've had some breaks and the political environment is not anywhere close where they would like it to be. yet, it is not a slam dunk by any means the republicans win the six seats they need for the majority. >> one of those races that was under the radar going into this cycle was kansas. jeb bush will be in kansas, and senator dole in his home state earlier this week. sarah palin campaigning with him today. what's going on there? >> i mean, under the radar is -- the kindest way to put where that race was. this is not a race anyone, anyone thought that was going to be minorly competitive. it's kansas. a state a democrat has not elected -- has not won a federal race for the u.s. senate since

1932. what happened? good question. i think we saw pat roberts was one of the handful of incumbents. he wound up winning that race. by relatively unimpressive seven points. there was some nervousness he might not win. i think roberts assumed, i won my primary. didn't run television adds. didn't pay much attention. now he's in -- he has a real problem. greg orrman, independent, wealthy businessman. normally independent candidates we would normally right off but orrman has generated a lot of excitement. chad taylor, the democratic nominee, dropped out and got his name removed from the balance et. we're looking at a two-way race with orrman who not said if he would caucus with democrats or republicans if he won.

>> we're talking about chris cillizza with "the washington post." kay hagan she is still slightly ahead of republican tom tillis. another race going to get a lot of attention in the next six weeks. >> if we had gone over the map a year ago or 18 months ago, i would have said kay hagan, mark begi begich. kay hagan beat elizabeth dole six years ago. obviously, very good year to be a democrat in 2008, particularly one in north carolina. relatively ill-defined. people didn't really know her. and yet she has withstood tens of millions again her. this is where americans for pros

pair take, the koch brothers, and her numbers continue to sustain. i think a large part is tom tillimplt s. he has to own what has been a conservative state legislature over the last few years. this is one of those races i tend to think most races, federal senate races r dominated by national issues. this is where some state issues in terms of how some people view the state legislator, the republican, democratic branch and they play more of a role here than in other states because of tillis as a nominee and because of the controversial things the republican-controlled state legislature has done. >> chris cillizza is writing about election day six weeks from today. safe to assume that the president will not be traveling to arkansas, kentucky, north carolina, alaska or other key states. how unpopular is he for democrats seeking re-election?

>> deeply. i think a lot of people focus on the national poll numbers. that's a worth while endeavor. his numbers are typically in the low 40s. i haven't really seen him below 40 in any national poll. i haven't seen him above about 43. he's in that small window. in the plays where this goes back to my point about the map, in the places where democrats need to win, he's well below 40. kentucky poll, connell up a few points, had obama's approval at 31. even in north carolina, a poll came out last week that had president obama's approval at 38. i would say, remember, he won north carolina in 2008. he came pretty close to winning in in 2012. his numbers are better than they are in many of these states. it's a very easy argument for many republican candidates to make which is, look, mary

landrieu, mark pryor, kay hagan, mark udall, bruce in iowa, these are people with barack obama. at the moment, in most of those states that's a pretty powerful message. >> in a year that'stically a good year for republicans as the president now in his sixth year of his administration, a lot of republican governors in trouble. we covered the first debate last night with tom corbett, being challenged by tom wolf. some have him down by 20 percentage points. as you point out, governor scott of florida, scott walker of wisconsin, rick snyder, nathan diehl. all facing challenges. >> governor's race is different. in the senate and house race it's hard to get away from your party nationally. it's like kansas, for example.

kathleen sebelius. in some states you see governors if you look at the partnership of the state, should be in perfect shape and is not. sam brownback, former senator, another republican of the state enacted a very conservative agenda in that state. basically split the party in two between moderates and conservatives, and now is behind a state rep in connecticut, my home state. dan malloy. connecticut is a state where df'ing your name if you ampbt scandal-plagued, you should win. malloy is in a dog fight to tom foley. foley lost by 3600 votes, under 10,000 votes. what's interesting is malloy is being attacked by foley, for of

all things, his push to pass a lot of gun control measures post newtown. foley saying that was too much of an overreaction. pat quinn, illinois is a pretty democratic state, president of the united states and yet pat quinn, so in addition to all those people you listed, many of these people who are not what you would call swing states, they're in states they should win are really struggling. >> we will look for your work online at washingtonpost.com. thank you for joining us especially as you battle an early autumn cold. >> i'm on the good end of it. i'm coming out of it. thanks very much is. >> thanks for being with us on c-span radio. today's live debate in virginia's tenth congressional district is one of over 100 house, senate and governor's debates we'll be bringing you during the campaign season on the c-span networks.

president obama will be chairing united states security council as it meets to discuss foreign fighters traveling to conflict zones and joining terrorist organizations. live coverage of the security council session starts at 3 p.m. eastern time on c-span. the house oversight and government reform committee held a hearing on security and privacy aspects of the health care exchange website. centers for medicare and medicaid services at minimum strart marilyn tavenner testified announcing 7.3 million people have signed and paid for health care coverage as of mid-august. >> the committee will come together without objection. the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time.

the oversight committee has to fundamental. the money washington takes from them is well spent. second, americans efficient, effective government that works for them. our duty on the oversight and government reform committee is to protect these rights. our solemn responsibility is to hold government, government accountable to taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government. it's our job to work tirelessly in citizen wash dogs with american people and bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy. over the past four years the oversight and government reform committee has conducted vigorous oversight of the implementation of the affordable care act often called obama care. including design and launch of health care of healthcare.gov. today the committee focuses on the interconnected issues of

security of the website, accountability of the administration and most of all transparency to the american people. the government accountability office released a report this week on security of healthcare.gov. they found the administration failed to take appropriate and sufficient steps to protect healthcare.gov and associated systems against security and privacy risks. more importantly, the jao reported strong -- report strongly asserts that security testing is not complete and security weaknesses continue to plague the website. one of the principle authors of jao report will testify before us today. the committee has released a report detailing several breakouts in both accountability within the administration and

transparency to the american people during the design and implementation of healthcare.gov. it is important to understand that with private sector, high profile losses of information due to hackers, there are huge repercussion and the company often comes in and further victimizes the company who have been victimized by hackers. and yet when the government fails to protect involuntarily taken personally identifiable information, there's nobody but people on this dias to hold government accountable. documents show factions developed within the agency in charge of implementing obamacare, the center for medicare and med kate kad services, or cms, these factions fought over several issues including over website security.

cms often fought to keep information from their colleagues within the larger department of health and human services and additionally they endeavored to keep the truth and the true nature of the website's problems out of the public eye. following the collapse of healthcare.gov, administration officials refused to admit to the public that the website was not on track to launch without significant functionality problems and substantial security risks. last month krvment ms denied associated press access. even more recently, cms refused to provide government accountability office documents related to the 13 incidents we're going to hear about in vague detail here today. i want to make something very clear.

refusal to cooperate with the jao, a nonpartisan government created, accessible of whistle blowers and refusal to cooperate with even inspectors general, something we saw here just a few days ago with 47 inspector generals out of 73 complaining with a lack of access even within the executive branch, this is not the most transparent administration in history and certainly the transparency we see here today was only done under subpoena. we will probably hear today that cms has offered to brief jao on these 13 incidents. it is not accept anl after the public scrutiny reveals they exist and they've been denied on on the eve of a hearing and only after an audit is completed to

then say we'll brief you. that's one of the most disingenuous things i've seen. there were five months during the audit to comply with a reasonable request by the general accountability office and it wasn't done. questions of security can no longer be easily dismissed by the administration. in late july healthcare.gov suffered a malicious attack from a hacker and it took nearly two months for cms to identify the intrusion. cms add mirn strart, marilyn tavenner, is with us and will testify in addition to the jao report. i'm sure we'll hear there was no loss of data, this was not the main site and so on. that doesn't change the fact that security risks exists whenever you fail to secure not just the main site but back

doors. too often back doors have been what we discovered. in the case of another investigation of this committee, we discovered the back doors were something as simple, in one case, as a stolen laptop on which those who stole it later added peer to peer software, which then made information on that database available to the public potentially. the federal trade commission opened an investigation and a plaintiff's trial lawyer sued and won money on behalf of people whose information was never actually released but, in fact, both the government and plaintiff's bars thoroughly enjoyed going after a nonprofit aids clinic. i cannot and will not allow our government to put itself at a different standard of accountability. last month the center for medicare and medicaid service informed the committee that once again there were lost e-mails

responsive to committee subpoena and documents relative to healthcare.gov. this is a pattern of predictability. this administration has not complied with nor caused their key executives, including political appointees to comply with the federal records act. administrator tavenner admitted to deleting per own e-mails during the time period of obamacare implementation. madame, your actions hinder congress's investigation. and also prevent the public from accessing information under the freedom of information act. it appears as though this administration holds itself to a different level of compliance with historic federal documents than the last administration or any administration since the passage. we're all joined by department of homeland security readiness

team. the administration has already spent $1 billion on a website that is still not fully operational and fully not secure. the same government officials responsible for the lack of transparency and accountability a ago remain in position of authority. it goes beyond whether or not you support the president's health care law. many issues are not limited to health care and mirror the transparency and accountability concerns raised, again, by 47 out of 73 inspector generals in an unprecedented letter to this and other committees of congress in august. minutes before hhs announced publicly on september 4th that healthcare.gov had experienced a

malicious attack in july of this year, an hhs official contacted my office to give them limited details of the successful hack. during the brief call, hhs gave my staff the name and phone number of a contact at the department of homeland security and suggested my staff contact dhs for more information about the hack itself and the government's response to the hack. my staff reached out to hhs's suggested contact at dhs on monday of last week. followed up on tuesday and were told that dhs was running, in pa republican thisz, the request back with hhs to see if we can all jointly -- jointly get on the phone, seeing if seeing if tomorrow will work. however, my staff followed up on wednesday and friday and then on monday and tuesday with no response from dhs.

i would like to note that despite a week of persistent e-mails from my staff, dhs was unable to make -- time to brief our committee even by phone. however, two days ago the minority staff notified me that they were asking for our witness today, dhs, to appear as a witness at today's hearing. i accepted it even though clearly this is a witness from an organization that has refused to answer questions or cooperate with the investigation. when the minority staff reached out to ask if dhs would appear as a witness, dhs was able to produce a witness prepared, apparently, in detail to provide testimony before this hearing today. however, dhs has still not arranged to properly brief our staff or to answer questions that we will be asking here today. i would like to introduce into the record at this time the

correspondence between the staff and dhs has an example of what appears to be a very different treatment from this administration to a request from the majority staff versus a request from the minority staff. without objection, it will be placed in the record. let's cut to the chase. i have with me three witnesses. two are very clearly not part of transparency in government. i have no doubt your organizations have worked diligently with the minority to try to make this hearing good for you. it is want our job to try to make this hearing bad for you. but the american people deserve the truth, not a cozy relationship between the people of your president's party in covering up the ongoing failure to secure a website that costs

over $1 billion. with that i'm pleased to recognize the ranking member for his opening statement. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. first of all, i want to apologize for running late. the speaker asked us to be at a joint session of congress to hear the president of the ukraine. many of us were there. one of our most important jobs in congress is to help protect the interests of the american people. they demand a government and private company safeguard their personal was in, safeguard their social security numbers. their credit cards and their health information. nobody wants to get a call from a credit card company saying your personal information has been compromised. it can up-end your entire life and it can cause serious financial problems for years. i believe our committee has the

potential to perform air very valuable function in this area. with our extremely broad jurisdiction over multiple federal agencies and corporate entities, we can help promote robust security standards across the entire government and security sector. to date, however, we have not fulfilled this potential. today's hearing is our 29th on the affordable care act and our sixth on healthcare.gov. i completely agree that the aca website must be secure. that is why i'm so hardened that despite all of the challenges with the rollout last year, nobody's personal information has been compromised to date as a result of a malicious attack. nobody's personal information has been compromised to date. as a result of the malicious

attack. now, that could change, so we have to remain vigilant. after all, this is our watch. but so far they have been success nfl that regard. there have been attempts. last year the centers for medicaid and medicare services reported hackers uploaded malware onto a server. there are several key facts to know about the attack. first, it was not directed at healthcare.gov alone. but a much wider universe of target's. second, the server that was attacked was a test server that had no personal information on it. third, most important, nobody's personal information was compromised as a result. that incident was investigated by the united states computer emergency readiness team and

department of homeland security. the director of that team in her written testimony for today reports, and i quote, there is no indication that any data was compromised this intrusion, end of quote. although our committee has spent a tremendous amount of time focusing on the affordable care act and its website where no cyber attacks have compromised anyone's personal information to date, we have been disregarding much more serious attacks that have actually compromised a massive amount of personal information of our constituents. we are talking about hundreds of millions of people -- hundreds of millions. for example, on january 14, more than eight months ago i sent a letter requesting a bipartisan hearing with senior officials from target. as i wrote, up to 110 million

americans were subjected to one of the most massive information technology breeches in history when their credit, debit and other personal information reportedly was compromised, end of quote. on september 9, i sent a letter requesting a bipartisan hearing on a major data security breech at a community health systems, the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain. i explained that, quote, hackers broke into its computers and stole data on 4.5 million patients, end of quote. as i noted, this was, quote, the largest hacking related health information breech ever reported, end of quote. on september 11, i sent a letter requesting a bipartisan hearing to examine the recent security braes at home depot where our

constituents shop. i explained to home depot, quote, has more stores in the united states and a higher total annual sales volume than target, end of quote. and, quote, it appears to have experienced a data security breach for a longer period of time than the data security breach that occurred at target, end of quote. monday, i sent a letter requesting a deb decisiposition of usis that conducts more background checks with the government which had its own breach this summer. i wrote, and i quote, although press accounts have reported that the attack may have compromised the personal information of up to 27,000 federal employees, government cyber security experts now

believe this number is a floor, not a ceiling, end of quote. i'm talking about the people who work on capitol hill. i'm talking about the people who work for the federal government. up to possibly 27,000. in response i received a letter back from the chairman yesterday thanking me for my request over the past year and acknowledging, and i quote, these serious incidents merit further review, end of quote. chairman, i thank you for that. i hope we can start on this right away. after all, these are our constituents. let me close by highlighting that this is much broader than healthcare.gov. go, represents here today, warns that the number of cyber attacks is increasing against targets across the federal government. and obviously the same is true of the private sector. so oversight is called for.

and i hope that our committee ceases the opportunity and rises to the challenge. with that, i yield back. >> i thank the gentleman. at this time i would like to place in the record examples of state attorney general's prosecution and relief on private sector and even public sector entities and the history of their going after entities for financial damages that allow breaches. >> can i get a copy of that? >> we will make copies available to all of you. it's all public information. we did include both your massachusetts attorney general, vermont attorney general and maryland's attorney generals on behalf of your constituents. >> i appreciate that. >> members have seven days to submit opening statements for the record. we welcome our witnesses today. mr. gregory wilshuzen is the

subject of frustration before he got here. marilyn tavenner is theed aminute straiga -- is the administrator for medicare and medicaid. miss ann barron is the director of the u.s. computer emergency readiness team at the department of homeland security, here after probably called sert. pursue art to rules, all members are to be sworn. please all rise, raise your right hand to take the oath. do you swear the testimony you are about to give today will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? let the record reflect that all witnesses answers in the affirmative. in order to allow time for your panel and then what i suspect will be a robust series of quos,

i would ask that you limit your opening statement to five minutes. although, your entire statements will be placed in the record. without my talking point, it's really hard. police continue. >> thank you. chairman issa, thank you. i am pleased to be here as you examine the implementation of patient protection and affordable care act. as you know, the act requires the establishment of a health insurance marketplace in each state to assist consumers and small businesses in comparing, selecting and enrolling in the health benefit plans offered by participating private insurers. cms is responsible for creating a federally facilitated marketplace that for states that do not establish their own. this marketplace is supported by an array of i.t. systems including healthcare.gov.

my statement today will summarize the key findings from our recently issued work on the security and privacy protections of the systems supporting healthcare.gov. before i proceed, if i may, i would like to recognize several members of my team who were instrumental in protecting -- in performing this work. with me today is john deferraro, justin palk and mark kanter and members of the security lab. . >> could you please stand so we can all at least for a moment realize your contribution? thank you. you may continue. >> thank you. healthcare healthcare.gov systems and federal data services hub represent a complex systems

asis -- a system that interest connected a broad range of federal agency systems. state agents and their systems and other entities such as contractors and issuers of health plans. insuring the security of such a system poses a significant challenge. to meet that challenge, cms has undertaken a number of activities to enhance the security and privacy of systems supporting healthcare.gov. they have developed policies and procedur procedure. it created interest connection security agreements with the federal agencies with which it exchanges information. and it instituted certain required privacy protections such as notifying the public of the types of information that will be maintained in the staple. however, cms did not fully or effectively implement key

technical controls to safeguard the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the federally facilitated marketplace and its information. for example, cms did not always require or enforce strong password cross, did not restrict systems from accessing the internet and did not implement patches in a timely manner. cms also had shortcomings in its information security and privacy management program. for example, systems security plans for the federally facilitated marketplace and data hub contained most required information but each plan was mississip missing key security information. cms had undertaken a series of activities that began in 2012, yet the control assessments did not fully identify and test all relevant controls prior to deploying the systems. in addition, cms did not fully assess privacy assessments and

did not establish a processing site for healthcare.gov systems to ensure they could be recovered in the event of a disaster. to assist cms, we made six recommendations addressing the shortcomings with the information security privacy program and 22 recommendations to resolve technical security weaknesses related to access controls and configuration management. cms concurred or partially concurred with all 28 recommendations and noted that it was taking actions to address each of them. while cms has taken important steps to apply security and privacy safeguards to healthcare.gov and its supporting systems, weaknesses remain that put these systems and the sensitive personal information they contain at an increased and unnecessary risk of compromise. mr. chairman, ranking member cummings and members of the committee, this concludes my opening statement.