Title XX Funding for NYC Senior Centers
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Title XX Funding for NYC Senior Centers
January 4, 2012
- Since October, 2011, 16,642 older New Yorkers have sent individually signed letters to Governor Cuomo urging him not to propose a Title XX cut again to NYC senior centers.
- $25 million of Title XX money has funded NYC senior centers since 1975, 36 years.
- Title XX funds are 25% of all funding for NYC senior centers. Funds are administered by the State Office of Family and Children Services. The NYC Department for the Aging administers the senior center funds.
- Last year, Governor Andrew Cuomo amended Title XX language allowing the funds to be spent only on "mandated" services. Technically, senior centers are a "discretionary" service under Title XX, not a "mandated" service. However, after 36 years of providing the foundation of senior center funding, it is hardly an optional funding source.
- A $25 million loss will close 105 senior centers as of April 1st.
- Upwards of 10,000 seniors will go to their senior center on April 1st only to find it closed. There will be a loss of 2.5 million nutritional meals for older New Yorkers annually.
- Gone will be a neighborhood senior center for future seniors also. In addition to meals, lost will be transportation, exercise classes, socialization to prevent isolation, social services and other programs.
- Closing 105 senior centers is the wrong direction for the state to move in as it attempts to save Medicaid and health care dollars. Since well over half of all senior center participants live in poverty, they are Medicaid eligible. The average age is 77. Attending a senior center prevents them from using expensive Medicaid services including home care, hospital care and nursing home care. Nursing home care in NYC costs over $130,000 a year. The average senior center budget is only $350,000 – less than the cost of 3 elders to live in a nursing home.
- While that is technically true that it is a local choice for NYC to use Title XX funds for senior centers, it has been a local choice for 36 years. NYC does not have the funding to meet this cut.
- Seniors and service providers are understandably anxious about senior centers closing. No one wants 105 senior centers to close. There is also serious concern that only a partial restoration will start a slippery slope of the closing of senior centers each year. This is too high a price for seniors to pay to close the state's budget gap.
To see the full list of 105 senior center closures, Click Here
For further information, please contact Bobbie Sackman, (212) 398-6565, x226 or bsackman@cscs-ny.org
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