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by their relatively greater numbers in the population (probably swelled further by earlier retirement ages).

Moreover, they will increasingly have lived habitually in housing that is "congregate" in the literal sense, that is, in apartments or condominiums. As a consequence, they will also be accustomed to receiving some services and amenities along with shelter. New forms of housing for young adults and families typically include yard care and the maintenance of building exteriors, a variety of recreational facilities and services, and often a place to buy meals. Therefore, what we consider today as a novelty in the way of living environments-and what is a novelty to many older people todaywill be "oid hat" to those who retire in 15 or 20 years. They will be accustomed to the provision of basic services along with shelter; they will no longer belong to the tradition of the "do-it-yourself" householder with his separate yard and individual maintenance problems. Due to these life style changes in younger cohorts, what we plan today as a goal may be quickly outmoded, and a much richer assortment of services may soon be viewed as basic and necessary.

Summary and Conclusion

The need for shelter and a variety of services is admittedly great and probably much more extensive than any estimates to date. All indications are that it will continue to grow and diversify. Estimates based on the characteristics of re-housed elderly persons are unrealistically low because of admission policy requirements that call for the capability of living independently without services. Population projections indicate escalating service and shelter needs. A solution to this gargantuan problem will require the development of a wide spectrum of "models" for meeting these human needs through fiscally sound programs. Congregate housing-the provision of services in conjunction with grouped shelter-is one model, or rather, one set of models in that spectrum.

While local areas must select and devise "best solutions" for their own populations and circumstances, it is essential that "natural experiments" of a potentially wider relevance be studied, using the most sophisticated research designs, and that exemplary solutions be disseminated. Evaluations must be made in terms of supporting human capabilities, meeting human needs, and meeting sound financial considerations, and they must be sufficiently broad gauged and farsighted to provide accurate cost/benefit data.

The financial cost will run high, and it is essential that its payment be made equitably. Voters will not "foot the bill" out of tax dollars unless eligibility is determined by a means test. Perhaps it should be considered that many people need shelter and other services in one package-and are able and willing to pay for them. There is always some inequity at the "edges" of public programs, where people have too much income to be eligible for benefits but too little to purchase them in the market place.

Sometimes congregate housing is not available at any price. Experience with the rent supplement program suggests that the "mixing" of clients in programs for the elderly may take place without undue friction. Participation of those who pay "full fare" and those who make partial payment may enable programs to function with fewer tax dollars. At least it seems wise to pursue the possibility of both the humane and the financial advantages of a "pay as you can" approach.

References

1. U.S. Congress. Senate. Special Committee on Aging. Housing for the elderly: a status report. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1973.

2. International Center for Social Gerontology. Recommendations on the financing of housing. International Symposium on Housing and Environmental Design for Older Adults, Washington, D.C., December 1973. (Mimeographed.)

3. Donahue, Wilma T. Impact of living arrangements on ego development in the elderly. In Frances M. Carp and W.M. Burnett (eds.), Patterns of living and housing of middle-aged and older people. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1966.

4. Hamovitch, M.B. Social and psychological factors in adjustment in a retirement village. In Frances M. Carp (ed.), The retirement process: report of a conference, December 1966, Gaithersburg, Maryland. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1968.

5. Bultena, G.L. and Wood, V. The American retirement community: bane or blessing? Journal of Gerontology, 1969, 24, 209-17.

6. Lipman, A. Public housing and attitudinal adjustment in old age: a comparative study. Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 1968, 2, 88-101.

7. Sherman, S.R. Housing environments for the well elderly: scope and impact. Albany, New York: State Department of Mental Health, 1973. (Mimeographed.)

8. Carp, Frances M. A future for the aged: the residents of Victoria Plaza. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966.

9. Lawton, M.P. and Cohen, J. The generality of housing impact on older people. Journal of Gerontology, 1974, 29, 2, 194-204.

10. Carp, Frances M. Long-term effects of improved living environments on old people. Final report to the Administration on Aging, AoA Research Grant #93-P-57511, 1975. 11. U.S. Congress. Senate. Special Committee on Aging, Subcommittee on Long-Term Care. Nursing home care in the United States: failure in public policy: introductory report, p. 15. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, November 1974.

12. Carp, Frances M. Housing and living environments of older people. In R. Binstock and Ethel Shanas (eds.), Handbook of aging and the social sciences, in press. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company.

13. Rosow, I. Social integration of the aged. New York: the Free Press, 1967.

14. Sherman, S.R.; Mangum, W.P., Jr.; Dodds, S.; Walkley, R.P.; and Wilner, D.M. Psychological effects of retirement housing. The Gerontologist, 1968, 8, 1, 170-75.

15. Carp, Frances M. Housing and living environments of older people. In R. Binstock and Ethel Shanas (eds.), Handbook of aging and the social sciences, in press. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company.

16. Havighurst, R.J. Research and development goals in social gerontology. The Gerontologist, 1969, 9, 4, 1-90.

17. Carp, Frances M.; Zawadski, R.T.; and Shokrhon, H. Dimensions of environmental quality. Environment and behavior, in press.

18. Carp, Frances M. Retirement and physical health. Advances in psychosomatic medicine, in press. New York: S. Karger.

19. Carp, Frances M. A future for the aged: the residents of Victoria Plaza. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966.

20. Burch, G. and Collot, Claudette. Old people in their towns. (Translated from French by O. Neaman.) Paris: Centre International de Gerontologie Sociale, 1972.

21. Carp, Frances M. Urban life style and life cycle factors. In M.P. Lawton (ed.),

Community planning for the elderly, in press. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

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Cinema Solution

CENE: A nursing home in rural America. Personae: A couple of dozen octogenarians, most in wheelchairs, eagerly awaiting the start of a social evening in the common room.

Action: As the VCR is turned on and images of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers bring smiles to the audience, the door bursts open. "Stop the machine," a stranger shouts. "You're violating the copyright laws of the United States, and you 'must desist or cough up $16,000 a year."

Believe it or not, something like this has been happening. If you're the kind of person who fast-forwards through the sinister FBI warning at the beginning of every movie you rent at the video store, or even if you simply haven't read that warning as a copyright lawyer would, you probably didn't know that you're not authorized to show the movie outside a private home even if you don't charge admission. You are violating federal law if you rent a cassette for a Boy Scout meeting or to cheer up a sick friend in the hospital or to bring back to the dorm after a hard day of classes. Prison wardens have gotten into trouble for renting tapes to show to inmates. And

nursing home operators have come under fire for bringing Bogart, Bacall and Batman to shut-in seniors.

Suitably shocked by constituent complaints, Sen. William Roth (R-Del.) and Rep. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) introduced similar bills to create a special exemption from the copyright law for nursing homes. Then Rep. Bob Kastenmeier (D-Wis.), who chairs the House subcommittee that handles copyright legislation, came up with another idea. He offered the movie industry what he calls "an out-of-Congress" solution. Drawing on the Roth and Cardin bills, he put together an agreement that was signed the other day by nine motion picture companies, three licensing organizations and two nursing home associations. The principle of the copyright law will be preserved. Each of the associations, acting on behalf of all nursing homes, will make a token $10 payment to each movie company, and that payment will be donated to charity. In return, the companies have agreed to allow nursing homes to screen an unlimited number of rental movies until Jan. 1, 2001.

Like so many of the movies likely to be shown, this congressional caper had a happy ending.

Washington Post

New York Times

Wall Street Journal

other Wisconsin State Journal

14A

TODAY'S FORECAST

Nursing homes
blindsided
by video age

WASHINGTON Question: When is a "home" not a home? Answer: When the home is a nursing home where residents want to watch a rented movie. It's a story with two sides.

When videocassettes and VCRS became popular a few years ago, the directors of hospices and nursing homes saw a chance to give residents the same kind of pleasure they might have enjoyed in their own living rooms. The directors began to rent videotapes for viewing in the common room where the old folks gather after dinner.

For a time, everything went happily. The elderly gathered together, some in wheelchairs, some on walkers. They all watched a movie on the TV set. Some snoozed and some nibbled on popcorn, but no one dreamed that they were - gasp! violation of the law!

in

JAMES J. KILPATRICK

Ah, but they were. The Motion Picture Licensing Corp. (MPLC) got wind of this invidious practice. In July 1987, the corporation budgeted $3.5 million for a two-year campaign to educate the old folks in the error of their ways. The campaign began in a few Eastern states. The idea was partly to educate the directors and partly to scare them silly. The campaign worked.

Thus a chain of nursing homes in Delaware and Maryland learned a little copyright law the hard way. One home received a bill for $16,975 in unpaid license fees. Residents of the Emily P. Bissell Hospital, a nursing care facility run by the state of Delaware, wrote Delaware's Sen. Bill Roth that they had been told the showing of home videos without a license was "illegal."

It turned out that the moguls of the MPLC had distributed a notice warning the homes in no uncertain terms that they are required to obtain a "public performance license" before showing videotapes. Home videos may be shown, without a license, only "in the home to a normal circle of family and its social acquaintances." Offenders faced civil damages of at least $250 for each illegal showing. Panic!

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Residents of the Bissell home were plaintive: "Emily P. Bissell Hospital is our home. just as other nursing care facilities are home for their residents. It is not by choice that we are here, but we are, and our lives are now changed in many, many ways. For the most part we are not able to get out into the community to do the things that most people take for granted, sach as going to the movies, or going to the video store.

"If the staff from our Activity Department could show us some of the movies available on videocassettes, however, it would certainly bring us a lot of pleasure, and we do not see how this type of situation could be defined as a 'public showing' as the law currently sees it."

The appeal touched a soft spot in the senatorial heart. Roth has introduced a bill (S.1557) to amend the copyright laws. Rep. Benjamin Cardin of Maryland has a companion bill in the House. The measure would grant carefully drawn exemption for showings in any hospital, hospice, nursing home, retirement home, or other such facility providing health-related care on a regular basis.

The MPLC, not wishing to be perceived as an organization of blood-sucking ogres out to feed upon the frail bodies of little old ladies, has been squirming. One studio after another has written Roth to say how sympathetic they are to the plight of the oldsters.

The Disney studios will offer a 20-year, royalty-free license agreement to any eligible facility in exchange for a $10 contribution in Disney's name to the United Way. Time-Warner would go for a 25-year agreement. Columbia Pictures would grant licenses for $1 a year. Paramount and Turner Home Entertainment would not ask for any special payment.

But all of them are fighting the Roth-Cardin bill, which they fear would seriously erode the "public performance doctrine" as it now appears in copyright law. Roth's response is that without his amendment, the hospices and nursing homes would remain vulnerable to prosecution whenever the MPLC changes its mind.

My own thought, having visited a number of nursing homes, is that these homes are homes in every sense of the copyright act. Elderly people live there. These homes are the only homes they have. The movie industry's desire to protect copyrights is understandable, but to pick on elderly invalids is indefensible. There oughta be a law! If Roth prevails, there will be.

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