2008 marked the 30th anniversary of the Older Americans Act (OAA) grant programs for Indian Tribal Organizations. Before 1978, the OAA allowed Indian tribes to bypass the traditional state funding and apply directly to the Commissioner on Aging for Title III funds necessary to set up a service program for older Indians. To award such grants, the Commissioner had to first decide that older Indians did not receive satisfactory services and would receive better service from OAA Title III programs with direct funding to a tribe. The Commissioner would then make direct grants to tribes from the State's Title III allotment.
Because that authority was never exercised by a Commissioner, and to improve and ensure satisfactory services for older Indians, Congress created a new title under the 1978 Amendments to the OAA. The formula designed to give out Title III funds to Indian tribes was the number of older Indians sixty years old or older in each state. Those funds subtracted from each state's Title III formula allotment became the allotment for the first Title VI grantees.
In the 1978, amendments Congress included tribal sovereignty in OAA amendments, and created Title VI, Grants for Indian Tribal Organizations. The purpose of Title VI was to promote the delivery of supportive and nutrition services to American Indians and Alaska Natives that are comparable to services offered to other older people under the Title III program. In establishing this new title, Congress identified findings about the needs of older Indians. The law stated the following:
- Older Indians are a rapidly increasing population
- Older Indians suffer from high unemployment
- Older Indians have a poverty rate estimated at 61 percent
- Older Indians have a life expectancy between 3 and 4 years less than the general population
- Older Indians lack sufficient nursing homes and other health and long-term care facilities
- Older Indians lack sufficient Indian area agencies on aging
- Older Indians frequently live in substandard and overcrowded housing and receive less than adequate health care
Although Title VI became a part of the OAA in 1978, funding for the programs were not available until 1980. In 1980, AoA statutorily withheld $6 million from Title III appropriations to fund Title VI. The $6 million based on the total number of older Indians sixty years old and older in 1980 that AoA would count for Title III formula grant funding. These funds provided funding for the first 85 Title VI grants. The 85 grantees represented nearly 20,000 elders.
In 1981, Congress amended the OAA to establish a separate appropriation for Title VI. Congress reminded states that older Indians must be counted as part of the states total older population, and thus continued to be eligible for title III services.
The 1984 amendments to the OAA removed the language that set eligibility for services at age sixty years and older. This required tribes and consortiums of tribes to have and keep the statutory number of older Indians sixty years old and older to make application. At the same time, the amendment allowed tribes and consortiums of tribes to decide the age its older Indians would be to get title VI services. Most tribes elected an age below sixty years to reflect the actual aging of their older members.
In 1987 Congress amended title II of the OAA to establish an Office of American Indians, and Alaskan Natives Programs within the Administration on Aging, and headed by an Associate Commissioner (changed to Director in later technical amendments).
The 1991 amendments to the OAA established a new part B for title VI that provided programs and funding for Native Hawaiians.
The 2000 amendments to the OAA provided a new caregiver program for tribes under title VI, and funding for the new program.
