New York City Council
Committee on Aging
Chair, Council Member Hudson
March 23, 2022
Oversight - Preliminary Budget Hearing - Aging
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
LiveOn NY’s members include more than 110 community-based nonprofits that provide core services which allow all New Yorkers to thrive in our communities as we age, including older adult centers, home-delivered meals, affordable senior housing, elder abuse prevention, caregiver support, NORCs, and case management. With our members, we work to make New York a better place to age.
Background
As a result of COVID, older New Yorkers became invisible virtually overnight, with stay-at-home orders creating barriers to accessing critical services that enable older adults to age in community. The pandemic also exposed some of the most pressing challenges facing older adults, namely: an over-reliance on institutionalization, a chronic rise in social isolation, and an inequitable care system.
To confront these realities, the aging services sector has stepped up to provide support to older adults in new ways, shifting to reaching clients via phone, setting up zoom classes, enrolling clients in emergency food systems, navigating vaccine systems, and remaining a resource for older adults across the City.
And yet, aging services remain chronically underfunded, with the DFTA budget making up less than 1% of the overall City budget despite a rapidly increasing older adult population. Most recently, DFTA has experienced cuts in the Preliminary Budget under the Program to Eliminate the Gap (PEG), including a $1.3 million PEG to the Geriatric Mental Health program.
Rather than cuts, it’s time for equity for aging and for the City to just pay. We believe that every New Yorker deserves the ability to age in community with access to services regardless of one’s zip code or background. It’s time for the City to enact a more equitable budget that holistically supports these professionals that work tirelessly to ensure that no older New Yorker falls through the cracks.
Given this, the following investments are critical to building a truly equitable City for all ages.
Critical Investments in the Department for the Aging (DFTA) Services
Support the Workforce
The City must just pay all essential human service workers a liveable and equitable wage.
Throughout COVID-19, human services workers across sectors have stepped up to provide critical services in new ways, including to keep older New Yorkers fed, assist older adults in receiving vaccinations, and combating the life-threatening effects of social isolation. Despite this, the wages of these workers, the majority of whom are women and Black and brown individuals, are slated to remain stagnant, at near poverty levels, in a City where costs are notoriously high.
To address this crisis, the City must implement changes that address the inequitable pay of human services workers, including:
Establish, fund, and enforce an automatic annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) on all human services contracts.
Set a living wage floor of no less than $21 an hour for all human service workers.
Create, fund, and incorporate a comprehensive wage and benefit schedule for government contracted human services workers comparable to the salaries made by City and State employees in the same field.
Reverse Cuts
Restore the $10.2 million cut to the Department for the Aging (DFTA).
The budget cut to DFTA under the PEG puts a further strain on the future of aging services. The City should restore the $10.2 million PEG to DFTA's budget, including the $1.3 million PEG to the Geriatric Mental Health (GMH) program that provides critical mental health support to older adults. Moreover, as the City looks to continue to recover from COVID-19 it should look to bolster all human services, which have been leaned on so heavily over the past two years.
Combat Hunger
LiveOn NY requests $12.7 million in additional funding to meet the home-delivered meal demand that will result from the termination of the GetFood Recovery Meals Program in June.
As the Recovery Meal program is set to end in June, many clients will continue to need nutritional support – support for which there is currently no funding allocated to provide. Ideally, these clients will transition to the HDM program, which already serves approximately 20,000 older New Yorkers.
This investment would include $9.7 million to support continued growth in demand for the HDM program, equating to funding to serve roughly 3,100 new clients at the $11.78 reimbursement rate, as a conservative estimate of the number of clients that might need meals beyond the Recovery Meal clients transition. Additionally, this would provide $3 million to support weekend and holiday home-delivered meals, which are not provided through current contracts, and did not receive the same investment to address reimbursement rate as weekday meals received.
DFTA must assess and invest in home-delivered meal provider’s capital needs, including van purchases and other infrastructure needs.
LiveOn NY recently surveyed providers and found an estimated 65 replacement or new vans are needed to support the home-delivered meal program. This, in addition to consistently hearing of capacity concerns due to needs for larger kitchen spaces, new refrigerators, and other infrastructure investments. Further compounding this need, we have recently learned that the majority of our members who provide home-delivered meals have had their delivery vans vandalized in recent weeks, with the majority having had their catalytic converter stolen from their vehicle, a part that takes both time and money to replace.
By working with providers to more formally survey and understand the needs, DFTA would be well positioned to make an investment that would, quite literally, put the wheels in motion towards expanded capacity for this mission driven system.
Promote Community Care
Allocate an additional $40 million to build upon DFTA’s Community Care Initiative
The Community Care Plan, initiated by DFTA, works to expand investments in critical services to support an older adult’s ability to age in place. Building upon this plan, LiveOn NY recommends:
An additional $7 million investment to expand DFTA virtual programming accessibility, through an online database, devices and connectivity. This technology investment would also create a new program to promote tech literacy among older adults by funding community-based organizations to offer this support.
$5 million to support continued growth in demand of the case management program to ensure all clients can be screened and receive this critical service should they be eligible. Exacerbated by the long-term health impacts of isolation and other stressors experienced during COVID, many older adults will require some level of case management to remain independent in their communities. In a recent survey, LiveOn NY estimated that more than 1,000 clients are currently on waiting lists for case management. This comes on top of consistent demand increases for case management that have historically led to waiting lists, requiring additional funding each year, and indicating a need for early and significant investments to avoid the continued cycle of recurring waiting lists.
$28 million to support continued growth in demand of the home care program, including expanding the hours of home care service available to older adults requiring additional support.
Address the Housing Crisis
Allocate funding to develop 1,000 units of affordable senior housing with services per year.
LiveOn NY joins the United for Housing Coalition in calling for a $4 billion annual investment to fund a comprehensive affordable housing plan that must include a minimum target of 1,000 new units of affordable senior housing with services per year, as part of a total target to construct no fewer than 8,000 new units of housing dedicated to serving extremely low income and homeless households annually. As waitlists and limited housing stock pose an acute challenge for older New Yorkers, a considerable investment and consistent unit targets per year will be critical to paving a pathway out of this crisis.
This investment would build upon the clear success of the City’s Senior Affordable Rental Assistance (SARA) program, which has created community assets in every borough, including examples such as WSFSSH’s Tres Puentes in the Bronx and HANAC’s Corona Senior Residences in Queens. These two building are examples of what is possible through housing, with Tres Puentes not only offering 175 new units of affordable senior housing, but providing space for a new Older Adult Center, health center and pharmacy on site, and the Corona Residences offering 67 affordable senior units built to the environmentally friendly Passive Housing standards and a new Pre-K on the ground floor.
LiveOn NY also recommends the City increase the per unit reimbursement rate for SARA services from $5,000 per unit, to $7,500 per unit, allowing for increased staff to more adequately address social isolation and significant case assistance needs.
This increased reimbursement rate would make services better available to support an aging and formerly homeless tenant population, in turn enabling more older New Yorkers to age in place and avoid institutionalization.
Support Local Needs
Fund an additional $2.6 Million for Support our Seniors and continued full funding for all discretionary initiatives.
Many programs, particularly smaller, hyper-local nonprofits that serve hard-to-reach senior populations rely on discretionary funding to ensure their communities can be served. Therefore, it is critical that all aging services discretionary are fully funded in the Fiscal Year 2023 budget.
In addition, LiveOn NY is requesting an additional $2.6 million for the Support Our Senior Initiative that would provide an additional $50,00 per district on average to better support older New Yorkers, in particular for services or programs including transportation, social isolation, technology and more.
Conclusion
To truly make New York a better place to age, where we can all thrive in community, we must build a caring economy that supports all older New Yorkers regardless of their background. From a livable and competitive wage for all human services workers to equitable policies and programs that support all New Yorkers, New York can become a more equitable place to age.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.