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

Queens Chronicle

Senior program budget cuts would be devastating

Thursday, May 26, 2011

By Bobbie Sackman

Publication & Publisher: Queens Chronicle

May is Older Americans Month - a designation dating back to 1963. This year's theme: "Older Americans: Connecting the Community."

May is also the month Mayor Bloomberg released his 2011-2012 budget featuring $39 million dollars in devastating cuts to services that enable seniors to stay in their homes and retain community connections.

Even more distressing is the fact that these cuts are in addition to $50 million the mayor already cut from the Department for the Aging over the past three years - a cumulative total of about $90 million, a whopping 50 percent budget cut to senior services.

Queens seniors face cuts

New York City has the largest and most diverse elderly population in the nation - an estimated 1.3 million seniors 60+. Queens is home to 375,000 seniors.

Over the next 20 years, this city will grow even older - with today's 46-year-olds becoming 2030's 65-year-olds. The city is also growing poorer, with one out of three of your elderly neighbors living on $10,000 a year or less.

Once New York City was a national leader in providing a cost-effective community-based senior service safety net (funding the first senior center nationally in 1943). Now this administration is relentlessly dismantling the city's safety net in a misguided attempt to save money.

Here's what that $39 million in service cuts means for Queens seniors:

A $4.5 million cut for 13 million senior meals annually. Consider that senior centers and meals-on-wheels are currently required to feed seniors on a budget of $2.20 a meal.

A 30 percent cut in case management funding, which means 8,000 of the oldest, frailest homebound seniors - average age 85 - will lose the social workers that are their lifeline to everything from meals-on-wheels to transportation to the doctor to crisis intervention.

Elimination of all funding for elder abuse victim services. Leaving this hidden crisis - 96 percent of the estimated 120,000 New York City cases of abuse go unreported - to grow even worse.

Chopping senior center budgets by $20 million. Includes the closing of 17 senior centers citywide in addition to the 26 closed in 2010. As a result, the face-to-face social network for seniors - will shut their doors.

Elimination of $4.1 million in borough president funds - resulting in even more closings of Queens senior centers and adult day care programs.

All this on top of earlier city budget cuts, including a cut of $10 million (40 percent) to a program serving seniors just above the Medicaid poverty line, causing hundreds to lose part of their home care or be stuck on waiting lists.

Case histories

The human tragedy of these budget cuts is heartbreaking - as these case histories of Queens seniors testify to:

Put yourself in the shoes of the 68-year-old Queens widow emotionally and financially abused by her 23-year-old grandson, who regularly stole her money and threatened her. A social worker and a lawyer from JASA, the Queens elder abuse provider, arranged for an order of protection and ongoing monitoring. What will happen to the next elder abuse victim if the city eliminates all funds for elder abuse programs.

Consider the 87-year-old veteran with no family in the city, referred to SNAP, a Queens provider of case management services, because he was malnourished and depressed. His social worker quickly arranged for medical intervention and meals-on-wheels, and contacted his nephew in DC who was willing to help but "didn't know where to begin." This veteran remains in his home, monitored by that social worker, but will lose this lifeline if case management funds are cut.

Cutting services will cost money

Every year, the mayor proposes that senior services absorb a disproportionate level of budget cuts, and even though the City Council does its best to restore some funding, more seniors lose essential services.

The administration says it must cut services to save money, but objective analysis shows these cuts will likely cost taxpayers even more money.

For example: When the city cuts home care services (costing approximately $13,000 per year) for a frail senior, taxpayers could end up paying $123,420 per year in Medicaid funds for her nursing home placement. Where's the sense or fiscal prudence in that?

In his introduction to the city's 2009 "Age Friendly NYC" report, Mayor Bloomberg stated, "Together we have challenged ourselves ... to build a city that furthers the individual and collective well-being that results when we celebrate our aging."

Today, we ask the mayor and all public officials to give more than token statements about making this an "Age Friendly City," and accept their share of responsibility for providing a safe, healthy, community-oriented future for the city's oldest citizens.

Bobbie Sackman is Director of Public Policy for the Council of Senior Centers & Services, which assists the city's neighborhood-based senior service providers.