Programs for older adults: which the law orders and who to ask

It is a map, not an application. The law orders ten programmes for older adults created and gives each a name and an agency, but it publishes no requirements, amounts or forms. Its value is that it tells you exactly which agency to ask about each programme, and that the agency has a legal duty to orient you.

The law is aimed at the older adult population, but it publishes no eligibility for any of the programmes it orders created. Each agency must provide that by regulation, and we did not read those regulations. To know whether you qualify for a specific programme, you must ask the agency the law designates.

Information pending verification.

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: Familia: CARE and Adoptive Grandparents

   The Support and Rehabilitation Centers for Older Adults (CARE) are created, per the law, “to offer services such as transportation, personal care, laundry, rehabilitation, social skills, caregiver counseling, nutrition programs, psychosocial support, management of specific medical conditions,” and through them alliances with pharmacies must be established to provide medicines, especially maintenance and prevention ones. Adoptive Grandparents is created to provide caregivers for children awaiting adoption, allowing generational interaction. Both are attached to the Department of the Family.

2. 2

   Step 2: AFV: Techo Dorado, Assisted Housing and Llave Dorada

   All three are attached to the Housing Finance Authority. Techo Dorado is created “to assist the older adult population in completing emergency and minor repairs in the primary home,” and adds that the homes of older adults with a disability must be adapted with access ramps and appropriate bathrooms. Assisted Housing is created so the AFV and the Health Department identify disused Government buildings that can be modernized and converted into assisted-living complexes for adults with physical or intellectual disabilities needing minimal daily assistance. And through the Llave Dorada Program “older adults are oriented and assisted with a subsidy for down payment and/or closing costs in purchasing a home”; the AFV also has the responsibility to run an educational campaign orienting them about that program’s benefits.

3. 3

   Step 3: Housing: 21st Century Egidas

   Attached to the Housing Department, this program is created “to identify public-housing egida complexes requiring rehabilitation to ensure dignified and safe housing for older adults.”

4. 4

   Step 4: ODSEC: Age in Place and Vida Plus

   Both are attached to Puerto Rico’s Office for Socioeconomic and Community Development. Age in Place is created to transform and plan communities suited to older adults, identifying communities where most residents are older adults, promoting consortia among municipalities for service delivery and redesigning homes “using the universal design concept so they can continue living in them.” Vida Plus is created “to retrain and re-employ retirees from the private and/or public sphere” for services such as home aides, caregivers, companions to medical appointments and hospitals, care centers and office work.

5. 5

   Step 5: DDEC: Empresarismo Master and the employment side

   Attached to the Department of Economic Development and Commerce, this program aims to foster small and medium enterprises that drive the older adult population’s economy. The law adds a concrete labor charge to DDEC: strengthen government services for older adults’ professional training, promote job-placement initiatives with the private sector, help them identify work, education, training and support opportunities, match employers with these persons according to their skills under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, and orient private employers, municipalities and instrumentalities about the benefits of giving them work experience.

6. 6

   Step 6: DTOP: transportation and “Llame y Viaje”

   The law charges the Department of Transportation and Public Works, through its Secretary, with taking all actions necessary to strengthen transportation service programs such as Llame y Viaje, and to promote collaborative agreements to publicize that service to older adults. It adds that the Health Secretary will work with the Transportation Secretary to evaluate and make feasible that the transportation offered meets this population’s needs.

7. 7

   Step 7: The agency has a duty to orient you

   This is the whole law’s practical hook, and worth citing when you call. Each Secretary and Executive Director of the agencies charged with implementing these programs has, as the first duty on the list, to “orient the general public about the services covered by the various programs.” The rest of that list: follow up on and continue the administrative steps, request assistance from other government bodies, investigate the availability of and pursue federal funds, establish the necessary collaboration agreements and protocols, and provide by regulation the organization and operation of the programs under their supervision.

8. 8

   Step 8: The reports the law requires

   They help you learn where each program stands. All Secretaries and Executive Directors of the agencies concerned have the duty to issue a semiannual progress report on the programs, copied to the Secretary of Governance and the presidents of each legislative body. And per the Act 202-2024 amendment, all Government agencies required to report periodically to the Governor or the Legislature must include a chapter on the implementation, results and effectiveness of all programs, benefits, services and activities available to older adults.

Each program has its agency and the law assigns it: Familia for CARE and Adoptive Grandparents; the Housing Finance Authority for Techo Dorado, Assisted Housing and Llave Dorada; the Housing Department for 21st Century Egidas; the Office for Socioeconomic and Community Development for Age in Place and Vida Plus; DDEC for Empresarismo Master; and DTOP for strengthening transportation. Ask for the program by name and lean on the orientation duty the law imposes on them. If what you need is an already-regulated rent subsidy, that has its own guide; if it is support from adult children, that is the ASUME Prospera programme guide.

• Applying believing the law sets requirements: it does not; each agency’s regulation does.
• Knocking on the wrong door: the law assigns each program to a named agency.
• Assuming a program is operating: the law does not say so and we did not verify it.
• Asking for Techo Dorado at the Housing Department: it is attached to the Housing Finance Authority.
• Confusing Llave Dorada, a down-payment and closing-cost subsidy, with Techo Dorado, which is repairs.
• Looking for amounts in the law: it publishes none, for any program.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento de la Familia

  Familia

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov