CSCS: Council of Senior Centers and Services of NYC, Inc.

Staten Island Real-Time News

Wednesday, May 13, 2010

By Peter N. Spencer

Publication & Publisher: Staten Island Real-Time News

Associated Press file
photo

Mayor Bloomberg's budget proposes
slashing 25 percent of all funding for
senior services.

Protesters rallying outside City Hall yesterday were referring to a list of 50 senior centers, four of them on Staten Island, that the city Department for the Aging has slated for closure on July 1, to save the city $4.3 million.

Targeted on the Island are the Mariners Harbor Senior Center, West Brighton Senior Center, Berry Houses Friendship Club and the South Beach Senior Center.

The city would shutter an additional 25 centers citywide if Albany sticks to a plan to redirect $25 million of federal funds elsewhere.

But that list is just the tip of the iceberg.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's latest budget proposes the largest cut ever to DFTA, slashing 25 percent of all funding for senior services -- a total of $44 million. The cuts will hurt a wide range of programs providing meals, rent assistance, transportation and home healthcare assistance to thousands of seniors every day.

"Even if you restore money to keep centers open, you will have centers that are shells of what they were. They will be crippled," said Bobbie Slackman, director of public policy for Council of Senior Centers & Services of NYC.

Cutting, fighting, then eventually restoring money for senior centers has become an annual ritual at City Hall. But the elderly and elderly advocates across the city say the mayor's proposal this year is particularly harsh.

The constant erosion of DFTA's budget is puzzling, Ms. Slackman added, since the mayor has touted a broad initiative to make the city "age friendly."

"There is a disconnect here," Ms. Slackman added.

At the rally, Councilwoman Debi Rose (D-North Shore) charged up the crowd with a slogan: "Don't throw grandma under the bus."

She noted how the city's senior services played a big role in her life.

"My mom has Alzheimer's and I don't know what I would have ever done if it wasn't for the senior daycare program that helped me help my mom," Ms. Rose said.