However, legal hotlines whose eligibility requirement is solely age routinely serve clients over the Legal Services eligibility limit. Senior hotlines who keep statistics on caller income report at least half their callers are above the income guidelines. Even Puerto Rico, the hotline serving the poorest clients, reports one-third of their clients are above the poverty level. Therefore, some organizations may consider it desirable and appropriate, philosophically speaking, for clients whose incomes permit, to share in the cost of providing the service. Charging fees to callers also serves a symbolic function, useful in applying for grants.
Image is especially important when an organization is spending taxpayers' money.
Alert at 5. Those symbolic concerns are especially pertinent to the senior legal hotlines, most of which are currently run with public funding. While taxpayers are usually willing to provide services to the poor, charging fees to the non-poor projects the image both that the service being provided has value and that more affluent clients are called upon to share the cost of providing the service with the funder and the taxpayer. Dr. Al Duncker, Director of the Office of Program Development confirms that Title IV of the Older Americans Act provides for the generating of program income, as outlined in the Administration on Aging's Request for Proposals for new senior legal hotlines. According to Dr. Duncker, those legal hotlines operating under the previous Title IV grant cycle may change to a fee generating hotline by submitting an amended budget for the next year and having it approved by the Administration.