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Who helps me locally?
There are people whose real job is to help families like yours. Public money pays them, and they have nothing to sell you. Most families never learn they exist. Here is what each one does and, just as useful, what none of them can promise.
Area Agency on Aging — the first call
An Area Agency on Aging is a public or non-profit agency picked by the state to look after the needs of older people in one area. The area may be a city, a county, or a group of counties.[1] Its job is to line up and offer services that help older adults stay in their own homes when that is what they want, such as meals brought to the home and help with housework.[1]
Reach yours through the Eldercare Locator at 1-800-677-1116. It is a public service of the Administration for Community Living (ACL). Real people answer Monday to Friday, 8am to 9pm Eastern. You can also go to eldercare.acl.gov.[2] ACL's own page gives the same two ways to reach an agency.[1]
Know this before you call. The talk is free. The services it points you to are a different matter. Each one has its own rules for who qualifies, its own fees (sometimes based on income), and sometimes its own waiting list. ACL says agencies line up and offer services. It does not say every agency has every service.[1] So ask three questions, in this order: what is there here, who qualifies, and what does it cost.
Help for caregivers comes through these agencies too. The National Family Caregiver Support Program pays for five kinds of help: information; help getting services; counseling, support groups and training; respite care (a break for the caregiver); and a small amount of other help. It covers adult family members caring for someone 60 or over, people caring for someone of any age with Alzheimer's disease, and some older relatives caring for children or for adults aged 18 to 59 with disabilities.[3] Each local program decides who it takes first. So the useful question is what this agency pays for, not what the program allows.
SHIP — free Medicare counseling
The State Health Insurance Assistance Program, or SHIP, uses trained volunteers to help people understand the kinds of insurance open to older adults. ACL says there is a SHIP in every state and links to the local office.[4] The program's national site says it gives one-on-one counseling on signing up for Medicare, what it covers and what it costs. The help comes from a source with nothing to sell, paid for by the Administration for Community Living. Reach it at 877-839-2675 or at shiphelp.org.[5]
It is not a sales line. No one there earns money on the plan you choose. One thing we can no longer tell you from these two sources is that your SHIP will handle an appeal or a bill you disagree with. Some do, and it is worth asking, but neither page says so.
ADRC and the state Medicaid office — where you apply
An Aging and Disability Resource Center, or ADRC, exists to fix the problem this whole page is about: how hard it is to learn about long-term care services and get to them. ACL says their job is to tell people what choices exist, give fair information and counseling, help people make an informed choice, and help them get into public and private programs. They do this for people at all income levels. That matters, because families often think these doors are only for people with low incomes and never knock.[6]
Two honest limits. First, ACL does not say there is one in every county. Its own words are that contact details for many ADRCs can be found through the Eldercare Locator.[6] Second, an ADRC is not the same as your state Medicaid agency. The state runs long-term-care Medicaid: the income and savings limits, the application, the waiver programs. That is where the paperwork goes in the end. Either office can tell you which is which in your state. Who pays for care covers what you will be applying for.
Long-Term Care Ombudsman — on the resident's side
Does someone you love live in a nursing home, an assisted living facility, a board and care home or a similar care home? There is a person on their side who does not work for the building. That person is called an ombudsman. Ombudsman programs work to solve problems that affect residents' health, safety, well-being and rights. Residents, their families and others have the right to contact them.[7] Every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam has a program.[7] Find yours in the state-by-state list at ltcombudsman.org. That site says the program speaks up for residents of nursing homes, assisted living facilities, board and care homes and similar adult care homes.[8]
If something is wrong, call before it becomes a crisis. What an ombudsman can do about one problem, and how fast, depends on the state's own rules. So describe what is going on and ask plainly what the program can and cannot do.
State-by-state contacts are coming
We are building a list of these offices for each state, with direct phone numbers. We will check and date it the same way we do the rest of the site. Until your state's page is live, the numbers above reach the right help anywhere in the country.
Sources and what they support
Sources checked 2026-09-23 using AI-assisted editorial research. This is a source check, not benefits advice.
- ACL, Area Agencies on Aging. Supports the definition — a public or private non-profit agency designated by a state to address the needs of older people at regional and local level, covering a planning and service area that is a city, a single county or a multi-county district — the coordinating role, the examples of home-delivered meals and homemaker assistance, and the two routes to a local office. The page says agencies coordinate and offer services; it does not promise any particular service, price or waiting time at a particular agency, and nothing here establishes that a downstream service is free.
- ACL, Eldercare Locator. Supports that the Locator is a public service of the Administration for Community Living, the number 1-800-677-1116, and the staffed hours of Monday to Friday, 8am to 9pm Eastern. A referral service: it connects you to an agency and does not itself determine eligibility or availability.
- ACL, National Family Caregiver Support Program. Supports the five funded service categories — information, assistance gaining access to services, individual counselling and support groups and training, respite care, and limited supplemental services — and the four eligible caregiver groups. Funding passes to states and territories and then to local programmes, which set their own intake and priorities, so this establishes that the categories are fundable, not that a given family will be served.
- ACL, Finding Local Services. Supports that SHIP programmes provide volunteers to help consumers understand types of insurance for older people, that they are located in every state, and that ACL links to the local office. This page does not describe appeals, billing disputes or plan comparison, and does not give a phone number.
- SHIP National Technical Assistance Center. Supports the one-on-one counselling on Medicare enrolment, coverage and costs, the description of SHIP as an unbiased source supported by the Administration for Community Living, the 877-839-2675 number, and the find-your-local-SHIP route. A programme site describing the network; what any individual state SHIP handles, and how soon it can see you, is set locally.
- ACL, Aging and Disability Resource Centers. Supports the purpose, the four functions — awareness of options, impartial information and counselling, informed choice, and help accessing public and private programmes — the statement that counselling is for people at all income levels, and the wording that contact information for many ADRCs can be found through the Eldercare Locator. That last word is why this page does not claim one in every county, and the page does not establish that an ADRC processes a Medicaid application.
- ACL, The Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program. Supports that programmes work to resolve problems affecting residents' health, safety, welfare and rights; that residents, their families and others have the right to contact the local programme; the settings covered — nursing homes, board and care and assisted living facilities and similar residential care facilities; and that every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam has a programme. It gives no list of complaint categories, nothing about confidentiality, and nothing about whose direction the ombudsman acts on.
- Consumer Voice, get help / state ombudsman directory. Supports that a state-by-state directory of local ombudsman contacts exists and that the programme advocates for residents of nursing homes, assisted living facilities, board and care homes and similar adult care homes. An advocacy organisation's directory, not a government eligibility source.
Removed in this pass: the claim that a SHIP handles Medicare appeals and disputed bills, which neither ACL nor the programme's own site states; the description of an ADRC as "the AAA's intake arm" in many states, which ACL does not say; the statement that the Ombudsman investigates improper discharges, since ACL's page names no complaint categories at all; and the flat word "free" where it covered the services an agency points you to rather than the counselling itself.