Photo: Members enjoying festivities at the Catholic Charities Howard Beach Senior Center. File Photo
In Queens and across the city, some senior advocates and elected officials are decrying Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Fiscal Year 2016 Executive Budget for what they see as a minimal funding boost for vital senior services from meals and homecare to combating elder abuse.
Bobbie Sackman, director of Public Policy for LiveOn NY, an organization that advocates for seniors, said that de Blasio’s budget “pretty much ignored the [city] Department for the Aging.”
While Sackman explained that about $1.8 million in funding has been allocated for Meals on Wheels, a program now at 100 percent capacity, and about $800,000 for mental health services, many other important senior service programs are being virtually ignored.
LiveOn NY organized a priority request list of $33.7 million in additional funds for DFTA on top of the administration’s current budget allocation of just over $257 million.
Sackman said that while $800,000 for mental health services is okay, she thought the numbers would be higher, especially given First Lady Chirlane McCray’s citywide mental health agenda. LiveOn NY was seeking about $9 million in overall funding to help provide mental health counseling services in senior centers across the city.
City Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park) commented specifically about the Catholic Charities, the organization that advocates and provides services for people in need. CC also owns and operates the Howard Beach Senior Center.
“Catholic Charities provides vital services for our seniors including home visits, transportation and meals on wheels,” Ulrich said. “The mayor’s proposed budget cuts hurt not only seniors in my district, but the people who love and care for them as well.”
And while Catholic Charities stated through a spokeswoman that it “has received adequate funding from the NYC DFTA” for services at the 17 senior centers it operates in Brooklyn and Queens, others remain unconvinced.
Back in March, Councilmembers Margaret Chin (D-Manhattan), who chairs the Committee on Aging, and Paul Vallone (D-Bayside) told the Observer that de Blasio needs to increase funding for senior programs over the current budget proposal, especially given the fact that the city’s 60-plus population will comprise about 20 percent of the population of the five boroughs by 2030.
Sackman noted that there is currently a waiting list across the Big Apple of about 2,000 seniors who need help from social workers at home in taking medications, meal preparation and other basic activities.
Last month, Sackman said that more than 300 seniors converged on City Hall to protest the planned budget cuts and also advocate for new funding to DFTA.
She also visited City Hall last week in an attempt to lobby councilmembers to increase senior spending via their own budgets.
“What’s happening,” said Sackman, “is that DFTA’s services are just not part of the mayor’s vision, not on his priority list.”
She added that family caregivers are also being hurt by this lack of funding because it forces families to provide care for loved ones when programs are not available.
Sackman asked where seniors’ “fair share of funding” is, adding that there is frustration trying to get de Blasio’s attention to commit to the aging population some of the millions that he’s given to other agencies.
A spokesperson for the Mayor’s Budget Office did not respond to a request for comment, but a de Blasio spokeswoman, Ishanee Parikh, recently told Capital NY that the mayor had increased spending on new programs and restored federal cuts at DFTA by $23.8 million in FY 2016 over Michael Bloomberg’s final budget.
Parikh added that “the executive budget increases funding to DFTA by another $2.6 million for next year, growing to $3.2 million in FY 17 and out, including $1.4 million a year to bring mental health services directly to seniors by placing workers in centers across the city.”
By Alan Krawitz
