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

The Riverdale Press Article

Thursday, March 10, 2011

By Adam Wisnieski

Publication & Publisher: The Riverdale Press

Karsten Moran / The Riverdale Press
From left to right, Sadie Penn, 96,
Louise Rivera, 86, and Margaret Heerasingh play cards
at the Jasa Van Cortlandt Senior Center on Monday
morning, March 7.

Van Cortlandt and Marble Hill Senior centers are among those that will be forced to close if the mayor’s budget proposal passes unchanged.

The Van Cortlandt Senior Center, located on Sedgwick Avenue, serves approximately 60 kosher lunches to seniors every day and the Marble Hill Senior Center, located on Broadway near West 228th Street, serves 50 meals per day, according to officials at each. They are on the list because they serve fewer than 85 meals daily.

According to Sharon Wolfe, project director of the Van Cortlandt Senior Center, many of the regulars who eat lunch at the center are in their 80s and 90s and live in the Amalgamated Houses or Park Reservoir Housing Cooperative, both within walking distance.

On Monday, seniors were playing cards, using computers, painting and exercising as a group. Other programs at the center include Tai Chi, yoga, discussion groups, sing-alongs and trips.

“We rely on this place for our entertainment, for our lunch, for our social life,” Louise Rivera, 86, said as she sat with friends.

One of them, Sadie Penn, 96, said the center gives her a place to meet people instead of staying in bed. The Amalgamated resident said she has been coming to the center for 27 years and volunteers in its kitchen.

Bayla Lovens, senior center director at Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, which oversees the Marble Hill center, said she is concerned the closure would mean elderly people having to cross the bridge into Upper Manhattan or go up the hill to Riverdale for meals and fun.

“Most of these people live in the neighborhood and they’re not gonna go someplace else if it closes,” she said.

The mayor’s budget proposal wipes out $27 million in Title XX funding for senior centers, which could result in the closure of 105, or a third, of the City’s senior centers. The cut is a result of money not being restored in Gov. Cuomo's budget proposal. There is also $403 million in funding for City social services that was eliminated in the governor’s proposal, which slashes more than $37 million for aging services.

At the Van Cortlandt Senior Center, workers and regulars have been writing letters to Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to save their center.

“This is one area where I think we need to draw a line in the sand. We cannot close senior centers, let alone over a hundred across the city. That’s just madness,” Mr. Dinowitz said.

He said the Assembly will release its one-house budget bill on Monday, March 14 or Tuesday, March 15, and he was confident it would call for a complete restoration of Title XX funding.