County Expanding Aging and Disability Center

Milwaukee County Courthouse. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

Milwaukee County is expanding its Aging and Disability Resource Center.

The county will hire an additional 27 employees to work on services that help youth with disabilities transition to adulthood, counseling for seniors and persons with disabilities, the benefits process for veterans and community outreach.

“By creating these new jobs, Milwaukee County is working to better support our growing population of older adults and individuals with disabilities to ensure these folks have access to the services and resources they need,” said County Executive David Crowley. “I am proud we are allocating resources for new staff to focus on key areas, including options counseling to help people enroll in long-term care, mental health needs to address the increase in isolation since the pandemic, and benefits specialists to assist people in getting connected to healthcare.”

The Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) are the second largest generation in U.S. history and have been aging into retirement age for roughly the past two decades. Between 2010 and 2020, the county’s population of seniors grew by 21%, according to the Milwaukee County Commission on Aging.

Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRC) are part of the state’s health and human services. According to the county executive’s office, ADRCs across the state are struggling with understaffing, and the state recommended a $4.4 million increase in funding for these centers.

“This shortfall has been greater in Milwaukee County, where staffing levels have declined over the past decade while caseloads have increased,” the county executive’s office said in a statement. “Milwaukee County leads the state in publicly funded long-term care enrollments.”

The state has allocated $1.4 million specifically for Milwaukee County, and the county anticipates the federal government will provide matching funds of $1.3 million.

“Milwaukee County’s community is suffering, we really need the services in our community and the state recognize that we need this,” Marietta Luster, interim administrator of disability services, told supervisors on the Milwaukee County Board in May. 

The state also recognizes that Milwaukee County has youth who are losing out on services as they transition from the children’s system of care to the adult system, Luster said. Some of the staff positions will work specifically on the issue. “So we need to wrap services around those youth and make sure that we’re catching them before they actually fall further into the system,” she said. 

The new staffers will work in the county’s ADRC and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Aging and Disability Services.

“If you have aging parents, are part of the sandwich generation, are a caregiver or know a caregiver, you know caregiving can be incredibly stressful,” said Shakita LaGrant-McClain, DHHS Executive Director. “With this expansion, we’re poised to better serve our community and ensure that every resident has access to the resources and support they need.”