Reframing the Way We Think About Aging in New York City

LiveOn NY and the Reframing Aging Initiative launch a new communication strategy in NYC to shift the way New Yorkers understand aging and older people 

For Immediate Release

NEW YORK — March 9, 2021 — As we age, we are presented with new challenges and the need to create solutions that better support older people. Today, the senior advocacy organization LiveOn NY announced a partnership with the Reframing Aging Initiative, which is a multi-year strategy to counteract ageism and improve the way policymakers, stakeholders, and the public think about aging and older people. New York City currently is home to more than 1.8 million people over the age of 60 living across the five boroughs.

We all age yet public perception around aging and older people is often a cycle of negative stereotypes, assumptions and misconceptions. Ageism — discrimination based on age — is a reality that impacts older adults every day with 82 percent of older adults experiencing one form of ageism daily , according to a recent survey by the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging.

The Reframing Aging Initiative takes a holistic approach using an evidence-based communication strategy as the core to create collective change in public discourse, policies and practices. It is led by The Gerontological Society of America on behalf of the Leaders of Aging Organizations collaborative.

In partnership with LiveOn NY, the initiative is training a cohort of 30 facilitators — advocates, aging services professionals, and community leaders who will be the catalysts of change in reframing aging in New York. By the end of the training, the facilitators will be equipped to lead the aging field to create systemic change through community engagement, targeted communications, and advocacy.

“Across the country, we have seen the power of Reframing Aging through research-based solutions to shift the way we think about aging and older people,” said Allison Nickerson, Executive Director of LiveOn NY. “This initiative in New York City will drive the mission forward to create a more robust age-integrated society that celebrates the contributions of older adults as well as build greater support for community-based aging services and policy solutions that allow older adults to truly thrive and age in their communities.” 

Patricia M. D’Antonio, project director of the Reframing Aging Initiative and vice president for policy and professional affairs at GSA, said she is excited to be embarking on this co-venture.

“With LiveOn NY and other aging organizations tapping into the energy and ingenuity that New Yorkers are known for, this city will be a supportive and dynamic place to age. The Reframing Aging Initiative welcomes the opportunity to work with LiveOn NY to create a model for cities across the country.”

Press Contacts:

LiveOn NY: Brianna Paden-Williams, Communications and Policy Associate, bpaden-williams@liveon-ny.org

The Gerontological Society of America: Todd Kluss, Director of Communications, tkluss@geron.org

About LiveOn NY

LiveOn NY’s members include more than 100 community-based nonprofits that provide core services which allow all New Yorkers to thrive in our communities as we age, including senior centers, home‐delivered meals, affordable senior housing, elder abuse prevention, caregiver supports, NORCs and case management. With our members, we work to make New York a better place to age. For more information, please visit our website, https://www.liveon-ny.org/

About the Reframing Aging Initiative

The Reframing Aging Initiative is a long-term social change endeavor designed to improve the public’s understanding of what aging means and the many ways that older people contribute to our society. This greater understanding will counter ageism and guide our nation’s approach to ensuring supportive policies and programs for us all as we move through the life course.  For more information, visit www.reframingaging.org.  

About The Gerontological Society of America (GSA)

The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) is the nation's oldest and largest interdisciplinary organization devoted to research, education, and practice in the field of aging. The principal mission of the Society — and its 5,500+ members — is to advance the study of aging and disseminate information among scientists, decision makers, and the general public. GSA’s structure also includes a policy institute, the National Academy on an Aging Society.

###

---

Testimony on the NYC Fiscal Year 2022 Preliminary Budget

We’re proud to testify to the New York City Council to ensure that the strengths, as well as the needs, of older adults are consistently heard and prioritized by New York’s elected officials. Below is testimony submitted by LiveOn NY.

To learn more about upcoming New York City Council hearings: click here.
To register to testify: click here.
To watch live and past hearings: view here.

---

New York City Council
Committee on Finance: Chair, Council Member Chin
Committee on Contracts: Chair, Council Member Kallos
Subcommittee on Capital: Chair, Council Member Gibson
March 3, 2021
Preliminary Budget Hearing - Finance

Thank you for the opportunity to testify on the Fiscal Year 2022 Preliminary Budget.

LiveOn NY’s members include more than 100 community-based nonprofits that provide core services which allow all New Yorkers to thrive in our communities as we age, including senior centers, home-delivered meals, affordable senior housing, elder abuse prevention, caregiver supports, NORCs and case management. With our members, we work to make New York a better place to age.

For decades, LiveOn NY has come to the City prior to budget adoption to highlight the importance of the aging services network, and to share the fact that, despite providers work in communities across our City, the Department for the Aging (DFTA) budget remains at less than ½ of 1% of the overall budget. Even with a growing, increasingly diverse older adult population, this has yet to be redressed. In fact, in recent years, providers have been promised millions of dollars in funding for Senior Centers that never came to be allocated, while also experiencing significant cuts and uncertainty to the much needed Indirect Cost Rate (ICR) initiative.

Amidst this, providers confronted a pandemic that put older adults at the greatest risk, not only to the virus, but also to the negative health impacts of extended periods of isolation while staying home to avoid infection. In response to these threats, providers worked to change their service models virtually overnight, shifting to reaching clients via phone, setting up zoom classes, enrolling clients in new emergency food systems, navigating new vaccine systems, and continuing to be a resource to older adults across the City. This work has been critical, as isolation is now understood to be a significant health risk and predictor of morbidity.

The workers who provided these services - from home-delivered meals, to Senior Centers, to case management - are, and will always remain, essential. 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. Rather than bolstering their work, for too long the City has created cracks in the foundation of nonprofits by eroding the sustainability of their funding, which puts not only these organizations at risk, but our communities and our neighbors.

Given this, the following investments are critical to turning the tide towards a truly equitable City for all ages.

Critical Investments in the Department for the Aging (DFTA) Services

LiveOn NY requests $16.6 million be added to the funding available for home-delivered meals, in order to increase capacity to meet new demand and increase the per-meal rate to the national average. Even following a recent Request for Proposals, the City continues its inadequate reimbursement for culturally competent home-delivered meals. Today, all home-delivered meals remain funded below at roughly $2 less per meal the national average. Further, COVID-19 has demonstrated significant increases to the demand for home-delivered meals, with providers now serving more older adults than ever, with thousands of new clients being added to the service since March.

The City must fully allocate the promised $10 million in funding for Senior Center staff, and $5 million in funding for Senior Center kitchen staff. These funds, which were not included in the Mayor’s preliminary budget, were promised to organizations prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and reneged in the midst of this pandemic, despite older adults being most vulnerable to the virus. Such funding is particularly critical to serve the older immigrant population, as lack of funds can hinder an organization’s ability to hire or retain bilingual staff necessary to best serve LEP older adults. Studies have found that salary increases expected for bilingual professionals ranges from 5-20%, amounts that may be just out of reach within Senior Centers current shoe-string budget. Further, this funding is particularly important to ensure that wages for senior service professionals, a workforce made up of predominantly women and people of color, are paid competitively for their work, rather than exacerbating existing inequalities. Without resolution, the City will continue to underpay this workforce, heightening the risk of more New Yorkers aging into poverty, and of providers of aging services coming to need the very services they now dedicate their lives to making available.

LiveOn NY recommends that the City increase its investment in the technology infrastructure of Senior Center and other DFTA providers. LiveOn NY and our members have seen the ways that lack of access to technology limits the ability for older adults to remain engaged and connected in our communities. For example, lack of access limits one’s ability to connect to virtual programming, heightening the risk of isolation. Further, lack of access means missing out on real time information, such as best practices in regards to COVID, how to access food or the vaccine, and online job opportunities. One of LiveOn NY’s members, PSS, surveyed their more than 700 older adult participants, and found lowest tech use and comfort among their Senior Center program attendees, with many having no personal means to access the internet. Many clients reported having only a basic cell phone as their technology infrastructure. These findings underscore the need to increase technology access funding targeted to the Department for the Aging network.

Continued discretionary and one-time executive funding. 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 and one-time Executive funding be restored in the Executive, and subsequent Adopted Fiscal Year 2022 budget.

Critical Investments Across Human Services Contracts

The human services sector stepped up to meet the need of New Yorkers in crisis despite the fact we faced a funding crisis long before our City saw its first case of COVID-19. Unfortunately, the New York City government did not step up to support us in the same way. The City is not getting a deal by chronically underfunding and retroactively cutting human services contracts to balance the budget; it is further harming the low wage workers the City relies on to keep these programs running while pushing community-rooted nonprofits towards failure during a time of increased need. Throughout the last calendar year, the City has allowed the COLA for human services workers to expire in the middle of the pandemic by not renewing it in the FY21 budget, failed to provide comprehensive emergency pay for low-wage City-contracted frontline workers, and created fiscal chaos for the sector by retroactively cutting the Indirect Cost Rate (ICR) Funding Initiative. 

In order to address this crisis, the FY22 budget must include the following investments across the human services portfolio, including within Department for the Aging (DFTA) contracts: 

1. Sufficient funding to fully honor the ICR Funding Initiative for FY20, FY21, and going forward. Recent cuts to the ICR Initiative have significantly threatened the viability of New York City’s nonprofit human service providers, leaving current senior service providers scrambling to pay staff and get by. To truly support nonprofits through COVID-19 and beyond, the City must reverse course and fully implement the ICR Initiative, including full funding of ICRs within HDM contracts, and all DFTA and human services contracts;

2. The restoration of the COLA on the personnel services line of all human services contracts at a rate of at least 3%; and

3. Comprehensive emergency pay for human services workers retroactive to March 23, 2020, when non-essential workers in New York were ordered to stay home.

These urgent investments are needed 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 essential labor.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and for all support of the investments outlined in the above. We look forward to continuing to share information on the need for broader support of aging and human services, and hope to find resolution to these budgetary shortfalls in the Fiscal Year 2022 budget.

LiveOn NY Testimony on COVID and Seniors

We’re proud to testify to the New York City Council to ensure that the strengths, as well as the needs, of older adults are consistently heard and prioritized by New York’s elected officials. Below is testimony submitted by LiveOn NY to the New York City Council Committees on Aging and Technology.

To learn more about upcoming New York City Council hearings: click here. To register to testify: click here. To watch live and past hearings: view here!

---

New York City Council
Committee on Health: Chair, Council Member Levine
Committee on Aging: Chair, Council Member Chin
Committee on Technology: Chair, Council Member Holden
February 17, 2021
Oversight - COVID-19 and Seniors: Addressing Equity, Access to the Vaccine, and Scheduling Vaccination Appointments Online in NYC

Thank you for the opportunity to testify on COVID and Seniors: Protecting Older Adults in the Community.

LiveOn NY’s members include more than 100 community-based nonprofits that provide core services which allow New Yorkers to thrive in our communities as we age, including senior centers, home‐delivered meals, affordable senior housing, elder abuse prevention, caregiver supports, NORCs and case management. With our members, we work to make New York a better place to age.

The COVID-19 pandemic has swept across New York, creating a rippling effect exposing the current political, economic, and social gaps that impact older New Yorkers. These must be confronted both as we continue to respond to the pandemic, but in undertaking the COVID-19 mass vaccination effort.

Vaccine Recommendations

Today, we have the opportunity to bring this life-saving vaccine to thousands of older adults and slow down the pandemic in its tracks. Yet despite eligibility for older people 65 and over, we continue to see the gaps and inequities as access to the vaccine remains nearly impossible for many, particularly for people of color who have shouldered the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The time is now to commit to older New Yorkers and remove the barriers that have pushed out communities. Unfortunately, LiveOn NY and our members have seen the hurdles older adults have experienced to simply get a shot, and distribution has also revealed the racial inequities that already plague communities of color. As it stands, Black and brown residents, who represent 22% of the City’s population, have only received 9% of the vaccines.

Given these realities, there is much work to be done. We do, however, want to take a moment to thank all those who are working tirelessly to ensure older adults can get vaccinated. Specifically, we thank the Vaccine Command Center for their continuous effort to coordinate the vaccine distribution across the City and we applaud the recent launch of the homebound seniors initiative to ensure older adults who are unable to travel to vaccine sites have the opportunity to receive the shot. 

To ensure a more equitable distribution of the vaccine moving forward, LiveOn NY recommends the City:

• Work in coordination with community-based organizations that are often sources of trust to marginalized populations to promote access to the vaccine,  and can provide the necessary information to ensure no one is left behind. 

• Move away from an over-reliance on technology, including removing the requirement for each vaccine appointment be made using a different email address, which prohibits professionals from assisting multiple seniors using the same account.

• Ensure information is available across languages

• Monitor and improve the vaccine registration process, including: phone wait times and the numerous web systems and pages each older adult must navigate

• Make clear vaccine eligibility of senior service professionals, including: home-delivered meal cooks and deliverers, service coordinators and maintenance workers in senior housing, home care attendants, and caregivers who are the unseen, underappreciated heroes throughout this pandemic. 

• Fully fund providers and professionals for their work.

Now is the time to create an efficient and equitable vaccination program that ensures no one is left behind and all older New Yorkers can safely age in their communities. 

COVID-19 Response Recommendations

Older New Yorkers who have stayed home for extended periods to remain safe from the virus, need a clear plan, guided by science, as to when it will be safe to reengage with the community services they know and love. Many spent the Summer, a period of low transmission risk, hoping their local Senior Center would one day open, not knowing if this would be the case, or why it would not be the case if restaurants, gyms, bars, and other services could resume operation. These individuals and the professionals that serve them deserve clarity, transparency, and the comfort of knowing their services are prioritized and guided by science as New York emerges from this crisis. 

Therefore, LiveOn NY recommends a plan be created jointly by the Department of Health and Mental Health (DOHMH) and the Department for the Aging (DFTA), and that such plan should:

• Be balanced against the fact that, in addition to the risk of COVID-19, the impacts of isolation also pose considerable risks to the older adult population.

• Be guided by the fact that the older adult population is not a monolith experiencing the risk of COVID-19 uniformly, but an age cohort spanning multiple decades of significant variations in overall health and risk level.

• Quantify the health indicators that will need to be met in order to resume in-person senior services, including services at Senior Centers and NORCs.

• Include clear guidance on metrics that must be met, or other rationale, indicating the ability to resume in-person services from a public health perspective. A sample metric could indicate a maximum threshold for the citywide infection rate, which once reached, would trigger the allowance of grab and go meal service to resume.

• Identify the order in which the resumption of in-person services can be phased in. For example, we have seen restaurants deemed safe enough to offer outdoor dining, followed by indoor dining at a specific capacity and with specific social distancing requirements as risk levels went down. Senior services require similar guidance.

  • Given the varying risks associated with each activity, the following components of a Senior Center should each be given individualized guidance: grab-and-go meal distribution, indoor dining, one-on-one case assistance with clients, outdoor programming (potentially at local parks as the weather changes), and indoor programming.

• Be posted on each agency's websites and shared with City Council, non-profit providers, older adults, and other stakeholders. 

• Be released as soon as is practicable, taking into account community input, including input of providers, upon drafting.

In addition to such a plan, providers must be fully reimbursed for cleaning and other costs incurred to ensure safety upon the resumption of each service.

We appreciate the consideration of the recommendations, and look forward to working with the City to reauthorize in-person Senior Services at an appropriate time.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

State Testimony at Joint Budget Hearing on Human Services

We’re proud to testify to the New York State legislature to ensure that the strengths, as well as the needs, of older adults are consistently heard and prioritized by New York’s elected officials. Below is testimony submitted by LiveOn NY at the Joint Legislative Public Hearing on 2021 Executive Budget Proposal: Topic Human Services.

Support the budget asks included in the below testimony?
Call your Senate and Assembly representatives and echo the funding asks most meaningful to you.

State Assembly Representatives
State Assembly Representatives or Assembly Switchboard 518-455-4100.

State Senate Representatives
State Senate Representatives or Senate Switchboard 518-455-2800.

---

New York State
Joint Legislative Budget Hearing 
Human Services
February 9, 2021

My name is Katelyn Andrews and I am the Director of Public Policy at LiveOn NY. Thank you to both the Senate and the Assembly for the opportunity to testify today.

LiveOn NY’s members include more than 100 non-profit community-based organizations that provide core services to older adults across the State. These programs include senior centers, home-delivered meals, affordable senior housing with services, elder abuse prevention services, caregiver supports, NORCs, case management, and homecare. Through policy efforts, LiveOn NY, with our members, advocates to make New York a better place to age.

LiveOn NY also administers a citywide benefits outreach program that assists thousands of older adults each year in communities where benefits, such as SNAP and SCRIE, are most underutilized. Additionally, thanks to the generous support of the legislature, LiveOn NY administers the Rights and Information for Senior Empowerment (RISE) program, an outreach program designed to support professionals serving older adults and offer direct assistance and information to older New Yorkers.

In all, we believe that aging creates momentum that drives our state forward, with older adults powering local economies, political systems, and communities. Older people are the anchors in our neighborhoods, providing invaluable volunteerism, caregiving, and civic engagement across the state.

Unfortunately, despite older New Yorkers being an asset to our state, they have not been invested in. Today, New York’s older adult population is greater than the total populations of 21 other states, yet it isn’t reflected in the New York State Office for the Aging (NYSOFA) budget. New York State’s older adult population is more than 1.6 million with the Executive Budget allocating NYSOFA only $271.6 million in aging funding, $3.12 million less than in Fiscal Year 2020-2021, amidst a global pandemic in which seniors have been hardest hit.

While the older adult population continues to be the fastest growing demographic, and despite seniors having been particularly vulnerable to the impacts of COVID-19, the programs that are built to serve older New Yorkers remain chronically underfunded, even more so than last year given the cuts and lack of accounting for inflation and increased demand. This pervasive underfunding of NYSOFA has real implications for our ability to keep older New Yorkers safe in communities through a global pandemic. Illustrative of this, is the existence of waiting lists for services that deter the need for higher levels of care, in settings that proved particularly vulnerable to the virus. This further represents a missed opportunity to find cost-savings that would otherwise be imposed at higher levels on our Medicaid and Medicare systems.

It is important to illustrate just why increased support for senior services is so critical to New York State’s ability to further assert itself as a bastion of progressive policy. There is a reason that one in seven older adults are living in poverty throughout New York State, time acts as a compounding factor to inequities experienced throughout the life course. For an older woman of color, decades of earning less per dollar than their male counterparts compounds to inadequate savings to make ends meet when she reaches old age. Evidence to this, today, 19% of African American seniors live in poverty. For an LGBTQ senior, closed doors due to discrimination in the workplace or in housing, compound fiscal insecurity throughout a lifetime. Today, one in five LGBT adults are living on less than $12,000 a year. For an older Chinese immigrant, linguistic isolation and a lack of access to benefits lead to limited resources in old age. Today, Chinese seniors in New York City have an estimated annual income of $7,000 a year, a number not vastly different from other older immigrant populations. For all seniors, of whom the average social security payment is only $1,470 a month, we as a state must do more to, at the very least, provide high quality services for all older New Yorkers to redress such vast inequities in old age.

These inequities were reflected in the impacts of COVID-19. Data from the CDC highlights this, with Black and brown Americans representing 30% of COVID cases, despite accounting for only 13% of the population. Black workers made up a significant portion of the frontline workers deemed essential throughout COVID-19, placing these individuals and their families at greater risk throughout the pandemic. Consequently, hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID disproportionately affected people of color all over the country. The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed the ongoing racial inequities that were already prevalent.

To begin to address such inequities, the following represents LiveOn NY’s Fiscal Year 2021-2022 budget recommendations:

Fund Services for the more than 11,500 Older Adults on Waiting Lists

Budget Ask: A significant investment towards the $27 million needed to fully address waiting lists

Currently, more than 11,500 older adults are on waiting lists for State Office for the Aging (SOFA) community based services, particularly waiting lists for home-delivered meals, case management, home care, and transportation that have arisen throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Such services enable older adults in counties across New York to age safely and independently in their communities, avoiding unwanted moves to costlier institutional care settings. This is likely the tip of the iceberg in regards to demand across the state, as federal stimulus funds have helped keep larger waiting lists at bay, and the mere presence of a waiting list is often untenable for an older adult in need, forcing the individual to make the immediate decision to enter an institutional setting.

Given the exorbitant strain COVID-19 has placed on the older adult population, the prospect of adding further stress to the lives of older New Yorkers by forcing them to wait for critical services is untenable and must be redressed through a significant, immediate investment. For many older adults, it is only through the delivery of a daily hot meal, a visit from a home care attendant to assist with activities of daily living, or the support and referrals from a case manager, that one is able to live fully and safely in community. To delay a single older adult from getting such support—particularly during a global pandemic that has left older New Yorkers most at risk—is to deny them the opportunity to age with dignity and respect. We as a State must ensure that funds are available to address this waiting list, not only for the older adults in need, but for the non-profit community-based service professionals who so desperately wish to serve but lack the funds to do so.

Further, by investing in these supports, New York will not only be ensuring an improved quality of life to those in need, but will inevitably help balance the State’s budget by reducing Medicaid expenditures. Findings indicate that for every 1% increase in home-delivered meal service to the older adult population, there is a significant savings to Medicaid through the reduction of higher cost care. More specifically, findings indicate that in New York, savings from just a 1% increase in meal service would lead to $11,427,143 Medicaid savings—proving that waiting lists for such services actually cost more than the cost of the meal service itself.

Ensure Older New Yorkers and Professionals Have Access to Key Information

Budget Ask: Restore $200,000 in historically legislative funding for LiveOn NY’s “Rights and Information for Senior Empowerment” (RISE) program

The Governor’s Budget eliminated $200,000 in funding for LiveOn NY’s RISE program. This cut will put at risk our ability to ensure that older New Yorkers receive vital information regarding COVID resources, benefits and entitlement changes, scams, and ways to remain active and safe. The timing of this move is particularly distressing as COVID-19 has had a disproportionately deadly impact on older New Yorkers, who have also faced new and frequently daunting barriers when trying to access meals, groceries, medicine, support services, and now the COVID vaccine. Even prior to the pandemic, older adults have often struggled to receive basic, trustworthy information on how to get vital services, including benefits such as SNAP and SCRIE, which LiveOn’s RISE program works tirelessly to promote and make accessible for older adults.

At this critical juncture, LiveOn NY seeks a restoration of funding to bridge these gaping information holes through a multi-faceted approach. This approach will include:

• Providing citywide training and education for the senior service workforce (primarily through virtual techniques that LiveOn successfully implemented during the lockdown and beyond), so that they know about benefits, programs, and services, as well as how to best help their clients on such matters. 

• Serving as a “constituent services” partner with local elected officials’ offices to bring needed information to the community (e.g. through information for elected officials’ newsletters, webinars, and other communications efforts). 

• Provide updated, free, culturally competent information to seniors, including through digital methods (including LiveOn’s website, social media, and newsletters), as well as extensive engagements with a variety of media sources. 

Restore Funding to Combat Elder Abuse 

Budget Ask: Restore $340,000 in funding for Lifespan and the NYS Coalition on Elder Abuse

Lifespan is the convener of the New York State Coalition on Elder Abuse and works to provide training, public awareness, and direct social work intervention in all forms of mistreatment, with an emphasis on financial exploitation—the fastest growing form of abuse and often the most devastating for vulnerable older adults. New York State is a leader in the field because of the decades-long support in the State Budget.

The Governor’s Executive Budget proposal eliminated $340,000 in funding for Lifespan. These funds are critical for our overall ability to address elder abuse prevention & intervention throughout New York State. This service is particularly important during COVID-19 as the pandemic has led to: an increase in scams nationwide; the potential for increased proximity of perpetrator to victim due to more individuals “staying home;” and growing economic challenges nationwide that may increase a perpetrators willingness to commit financial abuse. 

More specifically, these funds provide services to combat elder abuse such as, case management, education and intervention, shelter for victims, respite for caregivers, statewide education and training, statewide multidisciplinary teams, forensic accounting in cases of financial exploitation, statewide financial exploitation consultation, and management of the New York State Coalition on Elder Abuse.

Increase funding for the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program

Budget Ask: Increase the program budget by $4.81 million

The Long Term Care Ombudsman Program (LTCOP) is an advocate and resource for older adults and persons with disabilities who live in nursing homes, assisted living and other licensed residential facilities. The importance of this program was seen during the COVID-19 crisis. Throughout this pandemic, the LTCOP staff and volunteers have remained engaged with residents, families, and facilities to provide information and support to ensure that resident rights are protected but, without access, it was hard. Older adults in long-term care have proven the most vulnerable and the most at-risk. If fully supported, ombudspersons can act as advocates and sources of strength on behalf of increasingly distraught family members seeking information about their loved one. It is time to modernize and strengthen this critical program.

Today ombudspeople help residents understand and exercise their rights to good care in an environment that promotes and protects their dignity and quality of life. The program advocates for residents at both the individual and systems levels to address issues that have the potential to impact their health and wellness. Ombudspeople investigate and resolve complaints; promote the development of resident and family councils; and inform government agencies, providers and the public about issues and concerns that impact facility residents. Ombudsmen’s activities also greatly enhance the footprint of DOH facility surveillance activities by sharing resident concerns and quality of care issues observed during regular interactions with residents.

Support Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCs)

Budget Ask: Restore $325,000 in historically legislative funding 

We are pleased that the Governor’s Executive Budget proposal includes $8.055 million in support for NORC programs, but unfortunately, it fails to include $325,000 that the Legislature added in FY 2019-2020 and FY 2020-2021 to support nursing services in NORCs. Restoration of this funding is critical as it enables NORCs to provide key nursing services to older residents in need. During COVID-19 in particular, despite physical NORC spaces being closed, staff have continued to assist residents remotely throughout the pandemic, including through: frequent wellness calls to monitor health and safety and to reduce social isolation; case management services to assist older adults in accessing food, medical supplies, in-home healthcare, and more. NORC nurses are providing remote support over the phone, particularly focusing around COVID-19 concerns. In this remote environment, NORCs serve as essential services for older adults, helping them stay safe, healthy, and connected. 

Invest in Affordable Senior Housing & the Empire State Supportive Housing Initiative (ESSHI)

Budget Ask: Commitment to a new $3 Billion investment over 5 outyears towards Affordable Housing Capital, including affordable senior housing and service coordination for older residents

LiveOn NY supports the Governor’s Executive Budget commitment to another year of supportive housing through a $250 million investment, as well as the commitment to extend low-income housing credits for five years. However, as we are now in the final year of New York State’s Five-Year Housing Plan yet the need is greater than ever. It is important for the state to signal a commitment to consistent, predictable funding to maintain a pipeline of production, including for critical senior and supportive housing projects.

Deepening investments in affordable senior housing with services is critical in future years, not only to improve the quality of life of older New Yorkers and address rising senior homelessness, but as a cost-savings measure against increased Medicaid and Medicare spending. Service coordinators in senior housing residences have proven to reduce health care costs, including reducing Medicaid expenditures. LiveOn NY’s member, Selfhelp Community Services, released a study of the residents in their senior affordable housing program. The study compared Medicaid data for residents in their housing in two zip codes to other seniors living in the same zip codes over two years. This research found that seniors living in Selfhelp’s affordable housing had demonstrably positive outcomes including:

• 68% lower odds of being hospitalized

• $1,778 average Medicaid payment per person, per hospitalization for Selfhelp residents, versus $5,715 for the comparison group

• 53% lower odds of visiting an emergency room compared to a non-resident

Additionally, a 2016 study of residents in affordable housing in Oregon showed that Medicaid costs declined by 16% just one year after seniors moved into affordable housing communities. Results also showed that primary care visits increased by 20%, while emergency room visits decreased by 18%, and that properties with on-site health services produced the largest decrease in emergency room visits. These examples demonstrably show that an investment in service coordinators makes good fiscal sense, while supporting older New Yorkers.

Invest in Technology for Older New Yorkers

Budget Ask: $5 Million in funding to invest in technology services for older adults

COVID-19 has shown the vast digital divide in the older population. The most vulnerable older residents have been without interaction for months, and having the ability to create and implement a robust virtual platform for our clients is paramount. There needs to be a substantial investment to purchase and implement technology to bridge the gap in social isolation and loneliness. Our network stands prepared to implement a variety of programs, including expanding virtual senior centers across the state, with an investment.

In Conclusion

In this difficult budget year, we are especially proud to recommend investments with proven cost-savings to Medicaid and health care more broadly, while remaining quality and mission-driven in approach. We appreciate the legislature's support of the above recommendations and look forward to seeing a budget that responds to the devastating impact COVID-19 has had, and continues to have, on the older adult population. LiveOn NY stands ready to work with New York State to make New York a better place to age, and we appreciate all efforts by the State to provide equity, reduce wait lists, and improve quality of life for all older New Yorkers. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.

LiveOn NY Statement on the COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution Across New York State

For Immediate Release

NEW YORK — February 2, 2021 — The time for bold commitment to New York’s older adults — particularly people of color who have shouldered the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic — is now. Older New Yorkers of color are disproportionately impacted by the pandemic with higher mortality rates and a growing need for critical services, exposing the racial disparities and inequalities that already plague communities of color. The vaccine distribution in New York continues to reveal the gaps as older New Yorkers of color are less likely to have access to the internet and technology and yet, we as a State, as a City, and in counties across New York, continue an over-reliance on the use of technology to distribute information and access to this life saving vaccine.

The lack of coordination with community-based organizations that are often sources of trust to marginalized populations, widen the gap in the vaccine distribution. Black and brown residents, who represent 22% of the City’s population, have only received 9% of the vaccines. While laudable steps have been taken to create hotlines or prop up vaccination in sites such as NYCHA, for too many older New Yorkers, the vaccine remains inaccessible, trapped behind a labyrinth of websites or behind hold-music with no end in sight.

To the extent that these experiences are the result of supply failures, we look now to the new Biden Administration to expedite production and ensure our vaccine supply chains are steady into the future.

To the extent that the decentralization of this system, the over-reliance on technological mechanisms for vaccine access, the lack of information across languages are the result of decisions made by our counties and our state, and the underutilization of community-based nonprofits to promote access, we call on each level of government to remove these barriers swiftly and fully, while deepening engagement with these community assets.

Vaccine accessibility by mobility must also be prioritized, and a plan for the vaccination of homebound older New Yorkers must be urgently developed and implemented.

We also call on the State and localities to make publicly clear that all professionals working with older adults are eligible for the vaccine. While nursing homes were appropriately prioritized in initial phases of vaccine distribution, it is time to fully acknowledge and appreciate that most older New Yorkers live in communities often with the support of caring human services professionals such as home-delivered meal cooks and deliverers, service coordinators and maintenance workers in senior housing, home care attendants, and caregivers who are the unseen, underappreciated heroes throughout this pandemic. To support these professionals, New York governments must not only make clear their eligibility for the vaccine, but must fully fund their work.

The time to rise to the challenge is now. With the appropriate guidance and partners, entire buildings of senior housing could swiftly and equitably vaccinate thousands of older New Yorkers at scale. There are trusted community nonprofits, armed with the right information and infrastructure, could dispel myths and ensure vaccination across the hardest to reach populations as well as hundreds of thousands of loved ones who, compelled by the efficiency of a government that moves to truly meet people where they are, will breathe a sigh of relief if we get this right.

LiveOn NY, and our members, stand at the ready to support New York in fulfilling an equitable, efficient, and expedient vaccination program.

 Press Contact

Brianna Paden-Williams, Communications and Policy Associate, bpaden-williams@liveon-ny.org 

About LiveOn NY

LiveOn NY’s members provide 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.

---