LiveOn NY Statement on the New York City Fiscal Year 2021 Budget

LIVEON NY STATEMENT ON THE NEW YORK CITY FISCAL YEAR 2021 BUDGET

NEW YORK — July 6, 2020 — In response to the New York City Budget, Allison Nickerson, Executive Director of LiveOn NY, released the following statement:

There is no denying that this was a difficult budget; and that once again, human and senior services were not given the full funding deserved. To that truth, we're clear: our work will continue, in deeper earnest than before. We thank all those who have joined us in this work and who continue to make their voice heard in an effort to make New York a better place to age.

We are appreciative that the Mayor and the Council were able to pass an on-time budget under such dire circumstances, and are especially grateful for the continued support and allocation of resources towards the City’s emergency food program. We are hopeful that these resources will support not only New Yorkers in need, but the non-profit community-based organizations with the capacity to do this important work.

We must, however, highlight that the agreed upon FY21 budget will result in the Department for the Aging (DFTA) continuing to receive less than ½ of one percent of the overall budget and includes notable reductions in funding for senior centers and programs. Despite the austerity required in this budget, LiveOn NY affirms that this level of funding is wrong and shortchanges non-profits of their ability to meet the demands of a growing older adult population — the population most at risk to the pandemic that continues to ravage our city.

Additionally, the cuts to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) will also challenge New York’s ability to meet the affordable housing crisis faced by older adults; this is disheartening. Nonetheless, LiveOn NY looks forward to continuing to find ways to work with the City to meet this demand, though we know this work will be more challenging than before.

With that said, LiveOn NY is also clear: if it were not for the New York City Council, the funding available for services for older adults would be far less. Given this, we thank Speaker Corey Johnson; Chair of the Aging Committee, Council Member Margaret Chin; Finance Chair, Council Member Danny Dromm; and all of the Council Members who fought for senior services funding in this year’s budget.

Indicative of the uphill battle that Council faced, we note that in FY18, Mayor de Blasio reached an agreement with the City Council that promised $10 million in funding for Senior Centers to be allocated in FY21. Despite such promises, and even prior to COVID-19 altering the City’s revenue forecast, the Mayor’s budget did not include this commitment made to seniors just years prior. This funding was not included in the Mayor’s Preliminary Budget, his Executive Budget, or the Adopted Budget. This is wrong; and therefore we request that should State, Federal, or other funding become available, or should future deficits become apparent, the Mayor prioritize senior services funding and rectify this slight to New York’s non-profits and older adults. This request to the Mayor is particularly necessary, given his statement not to consider “layoffs and furloughs so we can take from our public workforce, which is the essence of how we keep the City going and turn that money over to a nonprofit.” Respectfully, non-profits are, in-fact, what keeps the City going, to not recognize this is both disheartening and frustrating to a workforce that has been given such little recognition and financial support for their essential work. In future budget modifications, we must do better for this sector.

Our commitment to New York’s older adults is unwavering and the work continues, as we know the budget difficulties have yet to fully subside. Given this, we implore all New Yorkers to continue to fight for senior and human services. Even in difficult times, progress remains possible, and we are hopeful that together we can indeed make New York a fairer, more equitable place to age.

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Press Contact
Katelyn Andrews
Director of Public Policy
kandrews@liveon-ny.org

LiveOn NY’s members provide the core, community-based services that allow older adults to thrive in their communities. With a base of more than 100 community-based organizations serving at least 300,000 older New Yorkers annually. Our members provide services ranging from senior centers, congregate and home-delivered meals, affordable senior housing with services, elder abuse prevention services, caregiver supports, case management, transportation, and NORCs. LiveOn NY advocates for increased funding for these vital services to improve both the solvency of the system and the overall capacity of community-based service providers.

LiveOn NY also administers a citywide outreach program and staffs a hotline that educates, screens and helps with benefit enrollment including SNAP, SCRIE and others, and also administers the Rights and Information for Senior Empowerment (RISE) program to bring critical information directly to seniors on important topics to help them age well in their communities.

LiveOn NY Coordinates Delivery of 225,000 Meals to Seniors Amidst COVID-19

Executive Director Allison Nickerson praises efforts of non-profits and partners for their work throughout COVID-19, while warning that funding gaps jeopardize NYC’s home-delivered meals (HDM) program

Press Contacts: Allison Nickerson, Executive Director (anickerson@liveon-ny.org | 212-398-6565 x. 224) or Katelyn Andrews, Director of Public Policy (kandrews@liveon-ny.org  | 212-398-6565 x.244)

New York, NY – June 24, 2020 – Senior advocacy organization LiveOn NY has announced that it has coordinated the delivery of more than 225,000 meals to older New Yorkers to help fill the demand for food since COVID-19 began. These meals are in addition to the thousands of meals provided by the City and non-profits through the City’s nutrition programs such as the newly created GetFood effort.

Not having coordinated the delivery of meals prior to COVID-19, LiveOn NY was supported by its membership of more than 100 community-based organizations that serve seniors, who helped route and distribute the meals to older adults most in need, primarily as the crisis began. Members and other senior-serving organizations reached out by identifying entire buildings that could benefit from meal delivery as the City worked tirelessly to prop up its more expansive meal delivery effort.

“While our work has historically been focused on advocacy to bolster services for older adults, we recognized a need for this type of coordinated nutrition effort and quickly jumped in to help, stated Allison Nickerson, Executive Director of LiveOn NY. “Our core mission is to make New York a better place to age, so this effort just made sense.”

LiveOn NY was able to immediately and dramatically scale operations to meet an onslaught of demand by forming critical partnerships with several organizations with philanthropic arms, including:

• Project Isaiah, a new non-profit that funded the airline catering company Gate Gourmet, so that it could continue preparing and packaging shelf-stable food items for distribution to seniors instead of airline passengers. The non-profit helped provide more than 170,00 meals.

• World Central Kitchen, a continued hunger relief effort that acts as “food first responders” when emergency strikes, provided more than 55,000 meals.

“We are deeply grateful to the generosity of those who recognized the dire need among the senior population — those most at-risk to COVID-19 — and rushed to fill it,” said Ms. Nickerson.

In addition to meal delivery, LiveOn NY has continued prioritizing its ongoing efforts to ensure that non-profits are fully funded to provide older New Yorkers throughout New York City with nutrition and other supports. Currently this means advocating for a $26.2 million new City investment to fully fund home-delivered meal services in FY21, which would not only ensure non-profits can meet demand, but that they can also adequately compensate front-line workers putting their lives at risk to prepare and deliver meals. 

“Illustrative of the need for funding, non-profit providers of these city-contracted meals currently lose money on every meal served, as the City reimburses at a rate 20% below the national average,” said Ms. Nickerson.

As stopgap philanthropic efforts ramp down, Nickerson anticipates that non-profits will continue striving to support older New Yorkers who are homebound and in need of services and nutrition support. She believes meaningful government investment is critical to ensuring non-profits can continue to meet demand, and the home-delivered meals program is a clear choice to be supported and expanded to fill this space.

“New York City must fulfill its commitment to those who have historically relied on home-delivered meals and need them now more than ever,” said Ms. Nickerson. “Currently, the lack of funds puts numerous non-profits financially at risk, threatening the stability of the entire HDM program.” 

For more information on LiveOn NY, please visit http://www.liveon-ny.org. 

About LiveOn NY

At LiveOn NY, we believe that all people have a future. Our work is centered on making sure that New York is a great place to age. We do this through targeted advocacy, data-driven policy, direct assistance & innovative programs. As a membership organization, we represent 100 agencies from small, single-site centers to large multi-service organizations. Through our work and membership, we represent the 3.2 million older New Yorkers and their caregivers.

Letter to the Mayor & City Council Requesting Funding for Senior Services Sent by More than 100 Non-profits

The below letter was sent to the Mayor, Cc’ing Speaker Johnson and the New York City Council, on behalf of more than 100 non-profit organizations urging consideration and support of senior service funding in the New York City FY 2021 budget.

June 15, 2020

Dear Mayor de Blasio,

Mayor de Blasio, first, thank you for your recently announced support of increased funding for “youth development and social services for communities of color." As organizations representing older New Yorkers and aging services providers, and in these final weeks of budget negotiations, we are writing about the urgent funding that is needed to support older adults. Aging services receive less than one half of one percent of the overall City budget, and many programs have been underfunded for years. While strides have been made, largely due to efforts by the City Council, the budget for the Department for the Aging (DFTA) remains critically under-resourced, especially in contrast to the rapidly increasing older adult population.

Today, as COVID-19 remains a threat and systemic racism is further brought to light, the importance of this funding is only heightened. We urge the City to include $10 million in senior center funding promises; $26.2 million for home-delivered meals supports; and a full restoration of all other programmatic funding for older adults in the FY 2021 City Budget. 

As you move forward with budget deliberations, please consider that seniors are most at risk to COVID-19; many have died, and many more remain fearful, sheltering in place, isolated from loved ones and peers, and connected only to their local community-based organizations. Aging services providers have been on the frontlines of their communities providing older people with food, financial benefits, mental health support, and virtual activities to reduce social isolation. Older New Yorkers are most at-risk to COVID-19; the City must commit that their funding for services will not be at risk, too. From annual programmatic funding to one-year Administration adds to the entirety of the Council’s senior service discretionary funds — all should be prioritized and spared from the cutting room floor of the virtual negotiating table.

Further, we recognize that COVID-19 has not affected our communities equally. Systemic discrimination has ensured disproportionate impacts, namely deaths and infections, in the black and brown communities that many of our organizations work to serve. COVID-19 is not the only area where racial disparities run rampant; they are prevalent across many of our institutions. In contrast, our community rooted organizations are key components to countervailing the forces of racism, as well as sexism, ageism, and the many forms of discrimination that still exist. To this end, full funding for human and senior service organizations is necessary to promote resiliency and equity in our neighborhoods, among our predominantly female and minority workforce, and for the older adults we serve.

Despite the budget challenges, we believe it is possible for the City to enact a budget that reflects the values that have become resoundingly clear from New Yorkers. This means increased funding for human services — including not only senior services, but youth services, housing supports and more — and truly investing in our communities.

Respectfully,

LiveOn NY
AARP New York
Acacia Network
Age Friendly Bedford Stuyvesant and Crown Heights
Allen Community Senior Citizens Center
Alpha Phi Alpha Senior Citizens Center **
Alzheimer's Association
ARC XVI Ft. Washington, Inc.
Ascendant Neighborhood Development Corporation
Bay Ridge Center
Bethany HDFC
Bronx House
Brooklyn Chinese-American Association
CaringKind
Carter Burden Network
Catholic Charities Neighborhood Services **
Center for Adults Living Well @ the Y: YM/YWHA of Washington Heights & Inwood
Center for an Urban Future (CUF)
Community Agency for Senior Citizens, Inc. (CASC)
Chinese-American Planning Council, Inc.
Citymeals on Wheels
Concerts in Motion
Cooper Square Committee
Corona Congregational Church
DOROT
East Side House Settlement
Educational Alliance
Elmcor Youth & Adult Activities
Enterprise Community Partners, Inc.
Emerald Isle Immigration Center
Encore Community Services
Family Health Centers at NYU Langone
Fenimore Senior Citizen Center INC
Florence E. Smith Senior Services
Fordham Bedford Community Services
FPWA
Gray Panthers NYC
Greenwich House
Goddard Riverside
Guardianship Project at the Vera Institute of Justice
Hartley House
Hamilton-Madison House
HANAC, Inc.
Heights and Hills
Henry Street Settlement
Homecrest Community Services **
Hope of Israel Senior Citizens Center
Housing Options & Geriatric Association Resources, Inc. **
Hudson Guild
Human Services Council
India Home inc
Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement
James Lenox House and Carnegie East House
Japanese American Social Services, Inc.
JASA
Jewish Community Council of Greater Coney Island
Lenox Hill Neighborhood House
Lifetime Arts
Mark Morris Dance Group (Discalced, Inc.)
Meals on Wheels of Staten Island
Medicare Rights Center
Mid Bronx Senior Citizens Council, Inc.
Morningside Retirement and Health Services
Neighborhood SHOPP
New York Irish Center
New York State Alliance for Retired Americans and our NYC chapter
NY Caring Majority
OATS
Osborne Association
Penn South Social Services
Polish and Slavic Center
Project FIND
PSS (Presbyterian Senior Services)
Regional Aid for Interim Needs, Inc.
Recreation Rooms and Settlement Inc.
RiseBoro Community Partnership, Inc.
RiverSpring Health
Riverstone Senior Life Services
Rochdale Village Senior Center
RSS Riverdale Senior Services
SAGE
Samuel Field Y dba Commonpoint Queens
Selfhelp Community Services, Inc.
Senior Citizens League of Flatbush
Service Program for Older People, Inc. (SPOP)
Services Now for Adult Persons, Inc. (SNAP)
Shorefront YM-YWHA of Brighton-Manhattan Beach, Inc.
Sister Annunciata Bethell NSC
Sisters of Charity Housing Development Corporation
Stanley M. Isaacs Neighborhood Center
Stonewall Community Development Corporation
Strycker's Bay Neighborhood Council
Sunnyside Community Services
The Brookdale Center on Healthy Aging
The DOME Project
The New York Academy of Medicine
Trinity Healing Center, Inc **
UJA-Federation of New York
Union Settlement
United Jewish Council Adult Luncheon Club
United Neighborhood Houses
University Settlement
Vision Urbana, Inc.
VISIONS/Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Visiting Neighbors, Inc.
Visiting Nurse Service of New York **
Volunteers of Legal Service - Elderly Project
Wayside Out Reach Development
Weill Cornell Medicine's NYC Elder Abuse Center
WEST SIDE FEDERATION FOR SENIOR AND SUPPORTIVE HOUSING, INC
Young Israel Programs, Inc.

Cc: Speaker Corey Johnson and New York City Council

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Note signatories of this letter continue to grow. Organizations identified with an (“ ** “) joined this effort after the letter was formally sent to the Mayor and City Council. Their support is just as valuable and welcomed. Should your organization not yet be listed and wish to sign on, click here.

LiveOn NY Statement on the Murder of George Floyd

LiveOn NY Statement on the Murder of George Floyd

When injustice takes place, we all have a role in speaking out against it. 

George Floyd's murder was wrong, as are all of the continued structural barriers that are put in place to advance racism in our country. It is not an accident that COVID-19 is disproportionately impacting black and brown communities, including the very seniors served by LiveOn NY’s member network. It is further not an accident that health, housing, and financial struggles are disproportionately concentrated in these very same communities. In reality, these are not policy failures, but they are the products of policies working exactly as designed: to advance our country’s racist roots.

Going back to normal is not an option, and it certainly should not be the goal. 

As a City and as a Nation we must do better. LiveOn NY’s mission has long been to make New York a better place to age, and we know that this aim can never be met when injustice remains present in our state; when individuals of color like George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and so many others are never even given the chance to reach old age. As allies and as advocates, LiveOn NY is committed to using our platform to support policies that will redress these systemic wrongs and injustices and to instead create a system where we all truly have equal access to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or age. 

To those who are grieving, who are scared, and who are angry, we are with you and we will remain with you until future generations are spared this same pain.

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LiveOn NY’s members provide the core, community-based services that allow older adults to thrive in their communities. With a base of more than 100 community-based organizations serving at least 300,000 older New Yorkers annually. Our members provide services ranging from senior centers, congregate and home-delivered meals, affordable senior housing with services, elder abuse prevention services, caregiver supports, case management, transportation, and NORCs. LiveOn NY advocates for increased funding for these vital services to improve both the solvency of the system and the overall capacity of community-based service providers.

LiveOn NY also administers a citywide outreach program and staffs a hotline that educates, screens and helps with benefit enrollment including SNAP, SCRIE and others, and also administers the Rights and Information for Senior Empowerment (RISE) program to bring critical information directly to seniors on important topics to help them age well in their communities.

LiveOn NY Testifies on the Executive Budget to City Council

New York City Council
Joint Hearing
Committee on Finance and Subcommittee on Capital Budget
Chair Dromm and Chair Gibson
May 21, 2020
Remote Hearing

Thank you to Chair Dromm and the full Finance Committee and Chair Gibson and the Subcommittee on Capital Budget for holding this important hearing amidst these challenging times. 

With a base of more than 100 community-based organizations, LiveOn NY’s members provide core services that allow older adults to thrive in our communities, including senior centers, home‐delivered meals, affordable housing, elder abuse prevention services, caregiver supports, NORCs, case management and more. DFTA’s network provides services to over 50,000 older adults and caregivers daily. 

Seniors are the most at risk to COVID-19. Their funding for services should not be at risk too.

Just this Tuesday, LiveOn NY held our 25th Annual Aging Advocacy Day. We did so virtually, with more than 200 individuals registering to participate in the event and a shared commitment to calling on the City to make critical investments in senior services, as well as thanking fellow providers for their work throughout COVID-19. Many Council Members engaged via Zoom and social media, as well as fielding calls from constituents; thank you all for participating in this exciting event.

While we couldn’t be physically on the steps of City Hall, the calls for support somehow felt louder and more clear than ever. Amidst our calls for support, one provider shared a story of receiving a call from a senior whose food supply had run out, a call not unfamiliar during this time; another confided that their organization had lost more than forty clients during this time, not unlike many providers who speak regularly about struggling with the loss of clients and colleagues; and participants having shared messages of how essential their teams have proven. With every point made, the need for increased support from the City became both urgent and undeniable.

To respond to these stories, and the abundantly clear need for robust support of older New Yorkers throughout our City, LiveOn NY and our partners request the following key investments to be made.

$26.2 million for home-delivered meals for seniors

This program—unique from GetFood in that it serves seniors who were homebound prior to COVID-19 and will remain so after—has been chronically underfunded for years. Today, the reimbursement rate for meals is 20% below the national average, even as providers have experienced a 20% increase in demand amidst the pandemic. Together, it’s a recipe for leading our City’s non-profits to the brink of insolvency. Even worse, providers have yet to receive any additional funding to provide drivers incentive pay as they continue to make door-to-door deliveries in spite of the increased risk. This is unsustainable and wrong. The funding requested will compensate for: increased demand; incentive pay for essential workers; adequate support of the weekend meals; and will close the per-meal reimbursement deficit. Together, the funds will enable the program to meet demand resulting from increased need and awareness of the City’s incredible senior service sector, as well as ensuring providers can continue to provide high-quality, culturally competent meals provided by local, community-based non-profits. 

Please also note that the Request for Proposal (RFP) for this contract is currently due June 1st, meaning that providers—who are already inundated with increased demand, as well as concerns for staff and participants—must also grapple with responding to an RFP that would substantially alter the system at-large. This procurement, and all similar procurements, should be delayed until COVID-19 has subsided and its effects can begin to be understood.

$10 million for Senior Centers, which was already promised in 2017

In 2017, the City undertook a “model budget process” for numerous contracts, including senior centers, to bring these in line to reflect true costs, with particular emphasis on right-sizing contracts to allow for more competitive wages of the oft underpaid human services staff. During this time, the senior center portfolio was promised $10 million to be received by FY21; senior centers even received notices of how much assistance would go directly to their programs. This funding, however, remains excluded from the Executive Budget, despite initial promises in 2017 and further promises during the preliminary budget hearings. This must be rectified by budget adoption. Beyond being wrong to renege on such a promise to seniors and providers, these funds are critical to supporting a predominantly female and minority workforce that—as evidenced throughout COVID-19—can no longer bear the burden of such persistent disparities. 

Restore all one-time senior services funds

Funding for services must be permanently maintained to prevent any sort of disruption in critical programs. The $2.8 million for senior centers, $2.84 million for home delivered meals, $1 million for NORCs, and the $2.1 million for NYCHA community spaces should all be baselined and to sustain these programs moving forward. Further, by only making these investments on an annual basis, rather than baselining the investments as we are requesting, providers are unable to use funds to address salaries or fill budgetary gaps as is most urgently needed.

Additionally, City Council’s $1 million case management investment should be baselined, as waiting lists for this program continued to grow prior to COVID-19, and have skyrocketed along with an intensification of client needs since the pandemic began.

Continue City Council Discretionary Funding

City Council has long been a staunch supporter of City and district-wide senior services programs through allocations in Schedule C. We thank you, and while recognizing the budget challenges that are upon us, we continue to advocate for full restoration for all Senior Service Programs funded in Schedule C. At the outset, these funds helped to fill gaps existing in the infrastructure of support for seniors, they therefore remain as critical as ever to supporting older New Yorkers as we embark on our new normal. Examples of key initiatives that support the wellbeing of older adults include: NORCs, Support our Seniors, SuCasa, Senior Centers for Immigrant Populations, Health Aging Initiative, Social Adult Day, and others.

Invest $1.7 Million to Achieve Pay Parity for NORC Staff

Currently, there are 11,000 older adults spread across dozens of NORCs across New York City. However, the NORC staff that provide these critical support services earn, on average, $15,000 less than their DFTA-funded senior center counterparts, even if they are performing the same duties. $1.7 million in new funding is necessary to achieve pay parity across DFTA programs and ensure fairness not only for staff, but for the older adults living in these NORCs. 

Continued Investments in Human Services Sector

Years of underfunding the sector have resulted in the entire human services workforce being some of the lowest compensated workers in New York City’s economy. A 3% COLA on the personal services line of all human services contracts at the cost of $48 million is needed in the FY21 budget to ensure this vital workforce does not slip further into poverty. The Mayor and City Council have taken important steps to begin to address this crisis with previous multi-year cost-of-living investments, but there is no COLA in place for future years. The 3% COLA is a needed investment while workers, advocates, providers, and elected officials continue to work together on more comprehensive solutions to ensure that human services workers finally earn fair pay for their labor.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify and for your consideration of the above needs.

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Please contact Katelyn Andrews, Director of Public Policy at LiveOn NY with any questions (Kandrews@liveon-ny.org).