Finding Your Local Senior Center: Eldercare Locator and Area Agencies on Aging

Finding a local senior center is harder than it should be. Senior centers do not advertise much, they rarely show up in general internet searches, and many older adults do not know that a center exists in their neighborhood until a friend or family member mentions it. The federal government solved this problem in 1991 by creating the Eldercare Locator, a free national service that connects callers to local aging services anywhere in the United States. The Eldercare Locator is funded by the U.S. Administration for Community Living and operated by the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging. The phone number is 1-800-677-1116, and the website is eldercare.acl.gov.

The Eldercare Locator works by zip code. A caller provides the zip code where the older adult lives, and the operator pulls up the local Area Agency on Aging, which is the regional office that coordinates all federally funded aging services in that county or region. The Area Agency on Aging maintains a current list of every senior center in its territory, along with hours, address, phone number, and a summary of programs offered. The Eldercare Locator can also email or mail a printed list of nearby centers, which is helpful for older adults who do not use the internet.

The Area Agencies on Aging are organized under the Older Americans Act of 1965. There are 622 Area Agencies in the United States, covering every county and territory. Some agencies are run by county government, some are nonprofit organizations, and some are regional councils that cover multiple counties. The agency itself does not usually operate senior centers directly. Instead, it funds and oversees a network of local centers, which may be run by city government, the local Y, a faith-based organization, or an independent nonprofit. The agency is the right starting point for finding centers because it has the complete list, not just the most well-known ones.

For older adults who prefer not to call, the Eldercare Locator website at eldercare.acl.gov has a search tool that returns the same information. Enter a zip code and select Senior Centers from the topic menu. The site returns the Area Agency on Aging contact information plus direct links to local senior centers when available. A second useful resource is benefitscheckup.org, run by the National Council on Aging, which screens for over 2,500 federal, state, and local benefit programs based on age, income, and location. Benefits Check Up often surfaces senior center programs as part of its results. Source pages include eldercare.acl.gov, acl.gov, n4a.org for the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging, and benefitscheckup.org.