Bridging the Tech Gap: Empowering Older Adults in a Digital World

Los Angeles County is working to close the digital divide for older adults through technology distribution and training programs run by its Aging and Disabilities Department in partnership with the Internal Services Department's Delete the Divide initiative.

The Building a Better Connection for Older Adults program offers eight week training courses at five Community and Senior Centers, and participants who complete the course receive a complimentary Apple iPad with a two year high speed data plan.

Funded by the American Rescue Plan Act, that program had completed 26 cohorts and distributed 234 iPads and data plans as of 2024.

A companion Access to Technology program run with the Department of Public Social Services distributed 3,365 tablets with two year 5G data plans between April and August of 2024 and provided digital literacy training to 2,255 participants.

Recipients included 830 In Home Supportive Services clients and 535 homebound individuals.

The programs target the social isolation and digital barriers that intensified during COVID, helping older adults stay connected with family, access healthcare, and engage with digital services, with one instructor stressing the goal of making sure their lives still have purpose in the digital age.

The tablets Los Angeles County handed out were bought with pandemic relief money that runs out, and the only comparable federal pot spent fourteen months frozen. Trump halted the $2.75 billion Digital Equity Act in May 2025; on July 20, 2026 Judge John Bates ruled the president "lacks the power to cancel laws passed by Congress" but struck its race-based criteria, leaving older adults, rural residents and low-income households eligible, per Route Fifty. California's $70 million state grant sits in limbo, per KFF Health News. Pew counts 78% of Americans over 65 with a smartphone but only 70% with home broadband. Watch for the grant application NTIA has promised the court for December.