Fiscal Year 2023 State Budget Recap

Last weekend, the delayed Fiscal Year 2023 State budget deal, totaling approximately $220 billion in spending, was passed. Read the Governor's press release on the budget, here.

Below, see investments related to LiveOn NY advocacy priorities and of note to our sector:

• $500 Million for Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs), at 5.4%, for state contracted human services workers, the first significant COLA in years. This was the result of the Human Services Council led Just Pay campaign, which LiveOn NY is proud to support. We will continue to work to follow implementation of this investment, which will take time and will determine exactly which workers are covered under this investment. In addition to this State investment, it is critical that the City also provide a COLA for human services workers in its budget.

• $25 Billion 5 year housing plan, including $300 million for affordable senior housing. The plan seeks to create and preserve over 100,000 affordable homes, including 10,000 homes with supportive services for targeted populations.

• $110 Million for the Empire State Supportive Housing Initiative (ESSHI).

• $3 hourly raise for home care workers, phased in over two years, a meager response to the Fair Pay for Home Care campaign, which called for home care wages to be set at a minimum of 150% of the minimum wage.

• $50 Million for the Nonprofit Infrastructure Capital Investment Program.

• $800 Million for Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP).

• $250 Million for utility arrears.

• $2.25 Million increase for the Long Term Care Ombudsman Program (LTCOP), significantly lower than the $20 million sought.

• $500,000 to support the creation of a Master Plan on Aging.

• Medicare Savings Program income eligibility limits will increase from 135% to 186% of the federal poverty level in January 2023. Learn more, here.

• Eligibility Expanded for Medicaid for undocumented older adults age 65+. Learn more, here.

Thank you to everyone who joined our advocacy this year, during which time more than 400 messages were sent to elected officials in support of new funding for aging services. In future years, we remain committed to advocating for items not included in this budget, such as new investments in home-delivered meals, case management, and services in senior housing.

LiveOn NY continues to analyze the budget for additional details of interest to our sector, and will share as new details emerge.

Questions? Please contact Katelyn Andrews, Director of Public Policy and External Affairs, at kandrews@liveon-ny.org

Testimony to the New York City Council on Older Adult Centers

New York City Council

Committee on Aging: Chair, Council Member Hudson

Subcommittee on Senior Centers and Food Insecurity: Chair, Council Member Mealy

Subcommittee on COVID Recovery and Resilience: Chair, Council Member Moya

April 6, 2022

 Oversight - Protecting Older Adults at Older Adult Centers During the Continued COVID-19 Pandemic & Reopening Older Adults Centers

Thank you for the opportunity to testify and our congratulations to Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez on her reappointment to the role of DFTA Commissioner.

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, such as older adult centers, home-delivered meals, affordable senior housing, NORCs, and home care. LiveOn NY is also home to the Reframing Aging NYC Initiative, part of the national Reframing Aging Initiative aimed to counteract ageism and improve the way policymakers, stakeholders, and the public think about aging and older people. With our members, we work to make New York a better place to age. 

Background

Two years ago, Older Adults Centers (OACs) closed their doors for in-person programming, shifting to virtual programs to mitigate the risk of contracting the virus. During this time, OACs found new ways to provide critical services from setting up zoom classes to enrolling clients in emergency food systems, all in the face of unprecedented demand and a public health crisis. For a growing diverse aging population, Older Adults Centers were a lifeline during the pandemic, particularly in response to the increased risk of food insecurity and rise in social isolation that plagued many older adults. 

For months, OACs operated at a 25% capacity restriction that created administrative challenges for providers to execute. Recently, the Department for the Aging (DFTA) announced that all Older Adults Centers can lift capacity limits and resume programming at 100% capacity. LiveOn NY is appreciative of the new guidance to resume full capacity for OACs and allow all older New Yorkers to return to the Center they know and love in their community. This is a major step towards getting older adults back out into the community and their local centers, which we know are hubs for socialization, diverse programming, and other critical services. 

Nonetheless, we know there is more work to be done to fully support older adults back into a new normal. With OACs operating at full capacity, the City has the opportunity to create long term solutions and make meaningful investments to ensure all New Yorkers can access equitable community-based services in their community. 

Recognizing this opportunity, LiveOn NY applauds City Council for their leadership in calling for additional investments in Older Adult Centers and the aging sector in their recent response to the Mayor Adam’s FY23 Preliminary Budget by including an additional $8.7 million to expand DFTA's Geriatric Mental Health Program (DGMH), $60 million to provide a cost-of-living adjustment for human services workers, $7.5 million to improve IT education for older adults, $30 million for the Recovery Meals transition, and $12.7 million for the home-delivered meals program, among other key investments.  

Recommendations

To programmatically support Older Adult Centers into the future, LiveOn NY recommends:

DFTA and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) should continue to work in partnership with Older Adult Center providers to respond to future COVID related challenges, as well as share public health response best practices with centers as needed. 

As we move forward and the relative risks of COVID variants evolve, it’s critical that DOHMH and DFTA continue to provide science driven best practices and information for Older Adult Centers in response to trends and risk of transmission. Through this partnership, Older Adult Centers can truly support older adults as they safely re-engage with the community.

In addition, the City should continue to work in coordination with community-based organizations including Older Adult Centers, which are often sources of trust to marginalized populations, to further promote access to the vaccine and vaccine boosters.

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 older adults return to OACs, it is critical the City continues working with community-based organizations such as Older Adult Centers to ensure older adults are able to receive the life-saving vaccine.

Just as clear guidance was appreciatively shared with providers highlighting the increase in Older Adult Center Capacity restrictions to 100% capacity, DFTA should clearly share this information, and any relevant best practices, with other contracts such as NORCs, Transportation, Case Management, and others.

It is our understanding that the OAC capacity restriction changes do indeed extend to these programs, however, it would be beneficial to have this point clearly documented.

In addition, the City should continue to support the new models of service, such as virtual programming (a priority of DFTA’s that is further outlined below) and grab-and-go meals, that have proven to be successful during this time into the future.

By continuing to work with providers to cement best practices learned during the pandemic into the long-term models of service applied by OACs into the future, New York again has the opportunity to be a model of innovation replicable by centers across the country. These new models have expanded the work of OACs to older New Yokers who may not have been aware of or able to access the network of OAC services available in the past.  For example, grab-and-go meals have proven successful in ensuring older adults who may not be comfortable congregating due to COVID risks, or for personal reasons are less willing to meet their nutritional needs by eating at an Older Adult Center, have the option to take their meal home, a decision that ensures one’s nutritional needs can be met in the environment of one's choosing.

In addition to the aforementioned programmatic recommendations, LiveOn NY also offers the following budgetary recommendations, much of which were also emphasized in the aforementioned City Council Preliminary Budget Response:

First, recognizing the operation of Older Adults Centers would not be possible without the tireless work of human service professionals, we join our partners in calling for the City to Just Pay for all human services workers a liveable and equitable wage. 

Despite their essential work throughout COVID-19, the wages of human services workers, the majority of whom are women and Black and brown individuals, are slated to remain stagnant at near poverty levels, as a result of government underfunding. This, 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.

Allocate an additional $7 million investment to make virtual programming and technology more accessible

While Older Adult Centers are operating at full capacity, for older adults, and particularly those who are homebound, virtual programming will continue to be an important tool to remain  connected in one’s community into the future. This ability to remain connected virtually will undoubtedly save lives, given the acute health risks of social isolation among older adults.  It is therefore critical that Centers have a strong technology infrastructure to further enable OACs and other DFTA programs to connect with older adults through virtual programming, during the pandemic and beyond. For example, this means making it easy for older adults to find programming that is right for them, by creating an accessible online database featuring the virtual programming offered by OACs.

LiveOn NY is appreciative of DFTA’s continued championing of virtual programming and seeks to support this technology focus by requesting 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. 

Restore the $10.2 million cut to DFTA including a $1.3 million PEG to the Geriatric Mental Health program.

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 (DGMH) program that supports Older Adult Centers to provide critical mental health services to older adults. The cut to DGMH is particularly concerning, as LiveOn NY’s member organizations have raised mental health issues as one of their chief concerns coming out of the pandemic. As we look ahead, it's critical the City prioritizes the need for older adults to access mental health services at Older Adult Centers. 

$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.

The traditional home-delivered meals system is a lifeline for homebound older New Yorkers, providing nutritious assistance and preventing social isolation. This program is critical to serving older adults who are unable to get to an Older Adult Center for their daily nutrition. At this time, the City must make long-term investments to ensure a seamless transition of clients from the Recovery Meals Program, envisioned as a temporary program and set to end at the close of the Fiscal Year, to traditional home-delivered meals, which already serves approximately 20,000 older New Yorkers. As the Recovery Meal program is set to end, many clients will continue to need nutritional support – support for which there is currently no funding allocated to provide.

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 addressing the capital needs for van purchases and other infrastructure needs by HDM providers. 

LiveOn NY recently informally 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 (some of which are used for both OAC and home-delivered meal services), new refrigerators, and other infrastructure investments. By working with providers to more formally survey and understand the needs, DFTA would be well positioned to make an investment that would put the wheels in motion towards expanded capacity for this mission driven system. Further, such an investment would recognize that the growing demand for home-delivered meals is unlikely to be an emergency situation, as demand has historically risen year-after-year, a fact mirrored by the rapidly expanding older adult demographic citywide. 

Fund an additional $2.6 Million for Support our Seniors and continued full funding for all discretionary initiatives.

Many Older Adult Centers rely on discretionary funding including the Support our Seniors Initiative to ensure their communities can be served. Recognizing the importance of these discretionary initiatives, it’s critical the City fully funds all aging service discretionary initiatives. 

LiveOn NY is also requesting an additional $2.6 million for the Support Our Senior Initiative that would provide an additional $50,000 per district on average to better support older New Yorkers, in particular for services or programs including transportation, social isolation, technology and more. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Testimony on the New York City Aging Budget

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.

Testimony to New York City Council on Housing and Buildings Preliminary Budget

New York City Council
Committee on Housing and Buildings
Chair, Council Member Sanchez
March 14, 2022
Oversight - Preliminary Budget Hearing - Housing and Buildings

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

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 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

Even prior to the pandemic, New York was in the grip of a housing crisis that made it difficult for tens of thousands of New Yorkers to find stable housing and make ends meet. Today, more than half of older renters are rent-burdened, as are a third of older homeowners. Further, roughly 2,000 older New Yorkers are living in homeless shelters, a number that is expected to triple by 2030 without significant intervention. LiveOn NY’s own research has found that there are more than 200,000 older adults languishing on waiting lists for affordable housing through the HUD 202 program, each waiting for 7-10 years on average for a unit to become available. This challenge is mirrored by the thousands of applications that come flooding in each and every time a new affordable senior housing lottery opens on Housing Connect. 

This crisis is particularly acute for older adults as many rely on fixed incomes, making it difficult to afford the rent while other costs rise. Further, much of the City’s housing infrastructure is inadequate to accommodate an older adult’s health and mobility needs, with 70% of the City’s housing stock only navigable by at least one set of stairs. In addition, NYCHA is a well-known provider of affordable housing for low income older adults, and yet in many situations for many older tenants living in NYCHA, their living experience is plagued by poor ventilation systems, broken elevators, leaking roofs, and recurring mold.

It is critical we address this crisis, as New York is aging rapidly and research shows that the majority of older adults would prefer the opportunity age in their community, surrounded by the networks of support built over a lifetime. Moreover, we’re all aging, and we all have a stake in ensuring there are affordable options to call home throughout the lifecourse.

Recommendations

LiveOn NY is proud to support the recommendations of the United for Housing Coalition, which includes more than 80 organizations that have come together around a set of bold but attainable recommendations to address the housing crisis in our City.

More specifically, LiveOn NY joins the United for Housing Coalition in calling for a $4 billion annual investment to fund a comprehensive affordable housing plan.

This $4 billion capital investment 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. 

Further, this investment would build upon the clear success of the City’s Senior Affordable Rental Assistance (SARA) program, which has created incredible community assets in every borough, including examples such as West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing’s (WSFSSH’s) Tres Puentes in the Bronx and HANAC’s Corona Senior Residences in Queens. These two building are clear 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 that  were built to the environmentally friendly Passive Housing standards, in addition to offering a new Pre-K on the ground floor.

This capital investment and overall affordable housing plan must also prioritize the preservation of public housing. By investing $1.5 billion in NYCHA, as part of the larger $4 billion capital investment, the City will take a serious step towards addressing the capital backlog that plagues these buildings across the City. In addition, this investment must prioritize not only the residential units within NYCHA, but support the community spaces such as Older Adult Centers that too have been harmed from decades of disinvestment.

Notably, the City must also invest in the workforce of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), by hiring new staff required to ensure that affordable housing goals can be met. While the pace of development has only quickened in recent years, hiring freezes and now PEGS have resulted in understaffing at HPD that puts the entirety of our City’s affordable housing goals at risk.

Additionally, it is critical that the City prioritize public and institutional land (e.g., hospitals, libraries, etc.) for affordable senior housing. By prioritizing institutional land such as hospitals in particular, the City will reflect an understanding of the connections between health and housing, and a commitment to treating housing as the social-determinant of health that it is.

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.

The City must fully fund and implement a Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) for essential human services workers. Throughout the duration of the pandemic human services workers, including those providing services in affordable housing, have stepped up to provide critical services, from assisting in scheduling vaccination appointments, to combating social isolation. And yet, human services workers are consistently underpaid for their services as a result of City contracts. In order to rectify this, it is vital that these important workers receive a COLA in the FY 23 budget and in subsequent budgets. 

Finally, LiveOn NY also encourages our City colleagues to join us in advocating on the State level for the passage of Senate Bill 4547 and Assembly Bill 4854, which seeks to legalize Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs). ADU legalization will help address our City’s affordable housing crisis, giving homeowners a new source of income, and providing more options for multigenerational families. Older adults especially stand to benefit from the legalization of ADUs, both because it would create more affordable homes, and second because it would allow more seniors to age in place by giving older homeowners the ability to have a live-in caretaker, or more income to pay expenses.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

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Testimony to New York City Council on Recovery Meals and Home-Delivered Meals

New York City Council
Committee on Aging
Chair, Council Member Hudson
Subcommittee on Subcommittee on Senior Centers and Food Insecurity
Chair, Council Member Mealy
March 11, 2022
Oversight - DFTA’s Home Delivered Meals Program and the Ending of the 60+ Recovery Meals Service 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify and an enthusiastic welcome to our new Chairs, Council Member Hudson and Council Member Mealy, during our first Aging Hearing of the new term.

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 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

During the COVID-19 pandemic, food insecurity was deeply exacerbated by issues not only economic, but related to access as well, as older adults were advised to “stay home” to mitigate risk of contracting the virus. Prior to the pandemic, many older adults relied on meals from Older Adult Center for more than half of their daily nutritional intake; but in the Spring of 2020, congregate meal settings were forced to close, resulting in the creation of an emergency home-delivered meal program which became known as GetFood. The GetFood program scaled rapidly to meet the growing need for nutritional assistance yet represented a temporary solution to a more systemic hunger problem. 

Representative of the temporary nature of the program, the GetFood program came to a close this Fall, transferring thousands of older clients into the Department for the Aging (DFTA) Recovery Meal (RM) program, which is currently being run by three non-profit providers, all of which are LiveOn NY members. This program — also envisioned as a temporary solution — is currently set to end at the close of this Fiscal Year, or June 30, 2022. Unfortunately, Mayor Adams’ Preliminary Budget allocated no Fiscal Year 2023 or outyear funding to support Recovery Meals clients who will need home-delivered meals (HDM) beyond June 30th, nor is there publicly available data on the current demand trends to understand how many clients might need such continued support into the future. 

On the other hand, LiveOn NY is appreciative of Mayor Adams Preliminary Budget investment to address reimbursement rates within the HDM program. This funding will bring the reimbursement rate for meals to $10.68, retroactive to January 1, 2022, and will raise the rates further to $11.78 beginning in Fiscal Year 2023. This investment, first announced in December of 2021 by Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez, will make a meaningful difference in the overall sustainability of this program.

Nonetheless, we recognize there is more work to do in order to fully root out senior hunger in the City, including for the thousands of older adults who will continue to need home-delivered meals beyond the close of the Recovery Meal program in June. It is critical that the City use this moment and the momentum of a new Administration and City Council to go beyond short-term solutions, to instead executing long-term investments aimed at rooting out older adult hunger more holistically. 

Recommendations

In order to adequately tackle these challenges at hand, LiveOn NY recommends the following:

First, recognizing the home-delivered meal program would not be possible without the tireless work of human service professionals, we join our partners in calling for the City to invest in a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for all human services workers. 

Throughout COVID-19, human services workers across sectors have stepped up to provide critical services in new ways, including to keep New Yorkers 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 and at poverty levels in a City where costs are notoriously high. It is critical that the FY23 budget, and all future budgets, rectify this by automatically allocating a COLA for all human services workers.

Additionally, DFTA must work with providers to assess clients, share data, and ultimately make the proper investments required to address projected home-delivered meal demand increases for Fiscal Year 2023, including those as a result of Recovery Meal client transitions. 

This assessment should result in a corresponding investment required to serve all older adults that might require a home-delivered meal in the coming Fiscal Year, including both those known to the Recovery Meal program, and a projection of future demand likely to be experienced during the year as a result of growing population. Recognizing that such a growth in demand requires operational and logistical support on the part of current providers, as well as time to make preparations for such a growth in demand, DFTA must also work with providers to ensure a seamless transition of clients, with proper infrastructure support and investment as is needed.

In lieu of this more detailed information, LiveOn NY and partners estimate an $12.7 million investment should be made to meet 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 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 in the Preliminary Budget.

DFTA must assess and invest in addressing the capital needs for van purchases and other infrastructure needs by HDM providers. 

LiveOn NY recently informally 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 the need for infrastructure investments, 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. Further, such an investment would recognize that the expanded demand for home-delivered meals is unlikely to be a short-term, emergency situation, as demand for home-delivered meals has historically risen year-after-year, a fact mirrored by the rapidly expanding older adult demographic citywide. 

$5 million to expand investments in case management to ensure all clients can be screened for case management eligibility and receive this critical service should they be eligible.

Further, exacerbated by the long-term health impacts of isolation and other stressors experienced over the past year and a half, many meal recipients may require some level of case management to remain independent and safe in their communities.  In a recent survey, LiveOn NY estimated that more than 1,000 clients are currently on the waiting list for case management. This demand is likely to grow as more Recovery Meal clients are assessed and comes on top of consistent demand increases that have historically led to waiting lists for case managers. These waiting lists have required advocacy for additional funding each year, and indicate a need for early and significant upfront investments to avoid the continued cycle of recurring waiting lists.  

Recognizing the role that Older Adult Centers play in combating hunger, DFTA and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) should work together to reassess and update Older Adult Center (OAC) Capacity Requirements. 

Presently, OAC/NORCs are, for the most part, unable to operate at full in-person capacity, as currently there is a 25% capacity restriction in place, with flexibility to go beyond this only under guidelines that are administratively difficult for providers to execute. In comparison, restaurants are able to operate at full capacity with an indoor vaccination requirement in place. Given the current downturn in infection rates and the variance in guidance with similar entities such as restaurants, it would be impactful for the current guidance to be reassessed and updated to ensure maximum opportunity for social service provision, while also balancing safety precautions. This is critical as capacity restrictions on OAC hinders the recovery for these spaces, which are hubs for addressing hunger among older adults. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

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