Population aging is a major challenge in the world and in Croatia. Human life expectancy has increased significantly, with an increasing percentage of the elderly in the population. Croatia, with a share of people older than 65 years of 15.7%, follows the EU average. With the decline in the functional capacity of the elderly, we recognize that the need for care is increasing. With the aim of keeping as many elderly as possible at home in their natural environment, many non-institutional forms of care and assistance, from both social and health aspects, are being developed along with a dominant institutional form. Noninstitutional care for the elderly has many advantages over institutional care because it allows the elderly to live in their own home for as long as possible and to meet their specific needs in the local community. Given the topic, the paper presents experiences, needs and care options for the elderly in Međimurje County, with particular emphasis on noninstitutional care. Noninstitutional care throughout Croatia, including Međimurje County, is poorly developed. The County of Međimurje must develop a social welfare strategy by promoting active and healthy aging with the organization of noninstitutional forms of community care that must have a clear funding system. Therefore, it is necessary to reform the traditional forms of care for the elderly, to modernize the existing programs, to introduce a new social protection strategy for the elderly which will unite the public and private sectors and associations. Introducing local, noninstitutional forms of care in which the elderly person, his family and the immediate social environment will play an active and important role is one way of allowing the elderly to decide their own destiny and to overcome the basic mistakes of centralized state planning.