This brief takes a look at how the Community Care Initiative has been progressing in the first four years of its implementation and explains why, in defining target groups for community care interventions, it is necessary to move away from the existing approach of program-oriented service provision to sustainable services that are integrated and linked. Older adults with disabilities should be given priority considerations as their vulnerability is compounded by old age and disablement combined. Given how vulnerable they can be in terms of health, care, and economic conditions, older persons with disabilities, if without sufficient support in health care and activities of daily living, are more likely than either non-disabled older persons or young and middle-aged persons with disabilities to resort to unnecessary institutionalization. Community care needs to be made available to any community resident in need of appropriate housing and assistive services, with the focus of its financial capabilities placed on those in most need of support so that the policy effect is maximized. The direction in which community care is heading is toward “community-based” services, much in accord with trends in policies on persons of disabilities and those on older persons.
