OCEAN CITY – Ocean City is looking to be included in a membership program that offers support services to senior citizens in northern Worcester County.
On Tuesday, the Ocean City Transportation Committee voted unanimously to write a letter to the county asking for the town to be included in the Community for Life program, which provides senior citizens an opportunity to live independently at home by offering round trips to destinations with its service area, as well as simple home repairs, telephone check-ins and more.
“It’s offered in certain parts of the county …,” Mayor Rick Meehan said. “It’s certainly optional. So, it’s something that if it was offered to our residents, they would have the option of participating in it.”
Discussion on the Community for Life program began at last month’s committee meeting when Public Works Director Hal Adkins updated members on the city’s Medical Appointment Transportation (MEDTRN) service, which provides medical transportation services to individuals with disabilities residing in Ocean City.
The service costs $5 to board the MEDTRN vehicle, $5 to be picked up, and $5 to be returned. Through a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Shore Transit, the town also receives $16 per one-way trip to cover the cost of the service. In 2018, Adkins said operating costs for the MEDTRN service totaled $15,475, while revenue totaled $17,359.
“Of that $17,359 $12,928 was a subsidy through Shore Transit, which participates in our MEDTRN program through an MOU in which they compensate us $16 per one-way trip …,” he said. “So it paints the picture that it’s revenue positive because as long as the MOU continues to exist it is revenue positive.”
Adkins, however, noted future funding challenges. The upcoming replacement of the MEDTRN vehicle, a 2009 transportation van, will have to be fully funded by the town.
To that end, officials began to explore the Community for Life program and how any expansion of the program could affect the city’s MEDTRN service before spending $76,000 on a new van.
“We were charged with the responsibility to dig into it further to gain a better understanding and then to do a comparison of what it can offer versus our MEDTRN,” Adkins told the committee this week.
Community for Life is a program of the Worcester County Commission on Aging and offers services to seniors from the Maryland-Delaware line to Newark and west of the Route 50 bridge. But Adkins said the grant-funded program is subsidized by residents who pay membership fees and services those ages 65 and older.
“The program they are running is really apples and oranges in comparison to our current MEDTRN,” he said. “It was created to provide a greater level of service to the Worcester County seniors, not those that are ADA disabled.”
Transit Administrator Brian Connor added the program provided more than just transportation services.
“It’s way beyond taking people to medical appointments,” he said. “It’s calling you to see how you are doing. It’s a friendship. These folks are aging in place, so it’s a relationship.”
Committee members, however, agreed the program could benefit Ocean City residents wishing to join. Meehan said he attended a recent AARP meeting, and individuals had mentioned the Community for Life program.
“I think we should write a letter to the county asking to be included in the program with other county residents,” he said.
The committee voted unanimously to send a letter to the county seeking the town’s inclusion into the program.
“I know it started with grants on a trial basis,” Meehan said. “But if it’s going to continue, I would hope we would be included.”
Adkins told the committee the town would continue to explore options for the replacement of the MEDTRN vehicle.
