Kevin Prindiville L’03 Calls for Policy Changes to Enable More Home Care for Seniors

ost elderly Americans do not relish placement in a nursing home.

Seniors who rely on Medicaid, however, are often funneled into such facilities, said Kevin Prindiville L’03. He serves as Executive Director of Justice in Aging, a nationwide legal organization that advocates for the rights of older adults. Prindiville is familiar with the nursing home issue, which gained newfound national attention after a staggering number of residents died during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The preferred alternative, he said, is home care. “People don’t want to be in a nursing facility,” he said. “But we haven’t built the system to provide care at home—we haven’t created financing and benefits programs. We haven’t supported caregivers to be able to provide at home through paid leave policies, or … new public systems that will improve access to that care at home.”

As a Mel King Community Fellow with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Prindiville has been researching national funding solutions for increased home care. He and other fellows recently traveled to Germany to observe the country’s system of at-home elderly care, which involves a social insurance model similar to the United States’ Social Security and Medicaid programs.

Prindiville has always had an interest in public interest work, and following graduation from Penn Carey Law he worked at the Pennsylvania Health Law Project. “I totally fell in love with working with health law,” he said.

In 2006, he joined the National Senior Citizens Law Center, now called Justice in Aging, as a staff attorney. He then managed a health team and later served as Deputy Director before taking the helm as Executive Director for the past nine years.

“My day-to-day is helping set the mission and vision for the organization and being a main face for partners, policymakers, and the board of directors,” he said. “I’m managing our staff, building our team, and putting them in a position to do the work they do.”

With 34 staff members across the country, Prindiville, who is based in Oakland, California, said he is proud to have grown the organization three times over since he took the helm as Executive Director.

“We work on the systems level, and when we make change, it impacts a lot of people — there are 50 million people on Medicare,” he said.

Justice in Aging’s model of change is cyclical: It first provides legal training to local legal services lawyers and others who directly work with older adults. The organization trains about 50,000 people a year through webinars and in-person sessions, Prindiville said, adding that service people often provide valuable feedback.

“They report back and say, ‘That’s not what’s happening.’ We use that information to create advocacy campaigns to fix those problems,” he said, adding that Justice in Aging attorneys then work with administrative agencies and legislative bodies to propose changes. If attempts at improved policy fail, Justice in Aging files class action lawsuits.

With policy changes or successful lawsuits, Justice in Aging then disseminates the information in updated training sessions.

Kevin Prindiville L’03
Executive Director, Justice in Aging

A recent example of change involved Medicare options for people re-entering society after incarceration, Prindiville said. Previously, incarcerated individuals who were 65 and older were eligible for Medicare but could not enroll while incarcerated, he said. Upon release, they would be charged late enrollment fees.

“It was totally punitive and ridiculous, and we just got it changed,” Prindiville said. “We do amazing stuff like that all the time. Several years ago, we brought a lawsuit against the Social Security Administration about a rule they had in place that we challenged as illegal and won almost $2 billion in back-benefits for older adults and people with disabilities.”

Another focus of Prindiville’s has been reducing and preventing elderly homelessness, which he said has reached alarmingly high rates in recent years. “It’s heartbreaking,” he said.

Such work isn’t simply a job for Prindiville, who said he views it as an opportunity to not only respect older adults but also shape policies that will improve the lives of future generations.

“It’s a real honor, and it’s not always fun—it’s hard, and there are times when we lose—but there’s always meaning in it because there are always real stakes on the line,” he said. “I always feel like we’re making progress to build a better future in aging for everybody, but especially getting the focus on people who have had the fewest resources, and that feels really good.”