City Council Candidate Responses
District 4
Candidate: Keith Powers
1. Please briefly share your background and note any experiences you may have in engaging older adults, whether professionally or personally, and in connecting with the non-profit sector.
I’m the City Council Member of the 4th District, which covers the East Side of Manhattan and Midtown. During my time on the Council, I have authored and passed 12 laws and introduced more than 50 bills, including legislation to prevent housing discrimination, expand recycling and composting, reform the criminal justice system, and support small businesses. I’ve also prioritized the needs of elderly New Yorkers in and out of City Hall. In 2019, I sponsored a bill to combat hunger within our city’s elderly population, and in the same year, strongly supported a package of legislation tackling age discrimination in the workforce. When the pandemic hit in March, my staff and I immediately sprung into action, calling thousands of seniors in the district to check if they needed any food assistance, PPE, or even just social or emotional support during such a difficult time. I also recently supported legislation to establish a vaccination plan specifically for homebound seniors. Beyond this work, I’ve dedicated significant amounts of my expense funding to organizations specifically aimed at supporting older New Yorkers. In the past year alone, I’ve given thousands of dollars to Carter Burden Center for the Aging, CityMeals on Wheels, Community Service Society of New York, DOROT, James Lenox House Association, Medicare Rights Center, New York Foundation for Senior Citizens, Older Adults Technology Services (OATS), Service Program for Older People, Service And Advocacy For Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual And Transgender Elders, Stanley M. Isaacs Neighborhood Center, Stein Senior Center, Stonewall Community Development Corporation, VISIONS/Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Educational Alliance, Find Aid for the Aged, God’s Love We Deliver, Find Aid for the Aged, Health Advocates for Older People, Jewish Association for Services for the Aged, Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty, Vocal Ease, Community Service Society of New York, God’s Love We Deliver, and Search and Care.
2. As we live longer and healthier lives, what are your priorities with respect to promoting equity across all ages in our City?
It’s critical that we provide high-quality, equitable services to support and protect the expanding population of older New Yorkers.
One of the primary ways we can ensure equity is through the city’s budget. During my time on the City Council, I’ve prioritized issues impacting the elderly, including Senior Centers, home delivered meals, case management, and other support systems for older New Yorkers. Moving forward, it’s going to be increasingly important to build more affordable senior housing, invest in prevention against elder abuse, support NORCs, and continue shifting resources to fund these essential programs.
Beyond that, the DFTA’s budget is still far too low relative to other agencies—we need to steadily increase its funding to create a better sense of equity, as well as invest in the programs that affect seniors most housed in other agencies. This includes improving our city’s accessible infrastructure, like creating a ride-hailing app for Access-A-Ride, expanding the Fair Fares program, and improving accessibility at subway stations. In my district, I’ve proposed a program called “Zoning for Accessibility,” which would provide elevators in subway stations. City Planning is currently pursuing a text amendment for this program. In addition, DSNY’s GetFoodNYC and other in-home meal delivery services, which were highly utilized during the pandemic, also require funding to address the assessed need and further coordination between agencies and organizations. And given the pandemic’s tremendous impact on seniors’ physical and emotional wellbeing, DOHMH needs increased funding for mental health services, in-home COVID-19 testing, vaccines, and transportation to vaccination appointments.
3. Do you support increasing the budget for the Department for the Aging (DFTA), which funds programs such as Senior Centers, NORCs, home-delivered meals, and more? Please give rationale for your response and specify any specific funding changes you are most committed to achieving.
Yes. As previously stated, it’s important that we increase the Department of Aging budget to be able to deliver essential services to elderly communities and achieve equity amongst agencies. Along with serving elderly communities, DFTA also addresses critical, intersectional issues like food insecurity, housing, and much more. I strongly support increasing investments in affordable senior housing, strengthening access to senior centers, and tackling food insecurity while raising the Department’s budget.
4. Do you support implementing a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) increase for city-contracted human service workers and the full implementation of the Indirect Cost Rate (ICR) initiative for non-profits? Please explain your response.
Yes, the Council has fought for this for the last three years. As a member of the Budget Negotiating team, I will continue advocating for it and make sure my colleagues keep pushing it forward.
5. Given that many older New Yorkers rely on limited fixed incomes and would prefer to age in community, rather than entering costly nursing homes, how will you address the need for affordable senior housing with services for a growing older population? How will you evaluate/respond to affordable senior housing proposals during ULURP?
One of my proudest accomplishments on the City Council has been an Aging in Place, affordable housing deal at Waterside Plaza. Previously, Waterside Plaza had been a Mitchell-Lama affordable housing complex that had aged out of its deal, leaving tenants with soaring rents and tremendous instability. In that deal, we were able to work with the landlord to lower the rents to 30% of a tenant’s income—before, some tenants were facing up to 75% or more of their income going towards rent. This was a huge victory for tenants at Waterside Plaza. Moving forward, this is the type of deal we should keep pursuing so we can do everything in our power to avoid displacement and allow elderly New Yorkers to stay in their own homes.
Additionally, as we are building affordable housing in the city, we should aim to create a larger allotment of apartments for seniors who are looking for more affordable rents. My district and other neighborhoods are great places to target for this.
6. While many older adults wish to be connected, many lack the financial resources or training necessary to fully access technology, exacerbating the digital divide. How would you encourage the City to address this?
Every year, I’m proud to allocate funding to groups that are working to address the digital divide in my district. Currently, the City Council dedicates a significant amount of money to this as well, but when the Council turns over, we need to make sure this funding isn’t cut. As telehealth and other digital communications platforms become more widely used, it’s critical that we continue to invest in these groups and look for more access points across districts to provide seniors with this necessary training.
7. During COVID-19, Senior Centers continued to work remotely, offering services in new ways to ensure their clients’ needs were met. To date, providers have not been authorized to operate in-person, despite restaurants, movies, and other entities, which older adults could also attend, being open. Further, community-based organizations, in many cases, have not been leveraged in the new meal delivery system. What are ways that you feel the City should work with nonprofits and engage older adults in the event of a future emergency?
As a starting point, Senior Centers need to re-open. They’re important hubs for providing necessary services and much needed socialization to New Yorkers.
In the past year, we’ve also learned a lot about the uncertainty of a pandemic and the particular needs of different communities. Providing food to seniors was one of the most important things we did during the pandemic. I personally delivered food boxes to seniors in my district, and it was an important lifeline for them during such a difficult time. We should be constantly working for DFTA, OEM, and other agencies to make sure that we are always ready for a pandemic, blackout, or other emergency.
But beyond that, we need to find better ways to provide emotional and social interactions for seniors. As noted, my office was doing outreach to make sure that seniors had that type of support, but it shouldn’t be up to individual Council Members to do—DFTA should have the funding and resources to provide those resources independently.
8. With 1 in 5 New Yorkers over the age of 60, what are the changes you would seek to make to create a more age-friendly district? Please consider addressing the physical infrastructure of your district (walkability, accessibility, etc.), health care access, safety net resources, and other district specific items of note.
First off, we need to make streets more walkable and safer for the elderly, including expanding sidewalks, increasing ADA-compliant curbs, adding time on pedestrian traffic signals to accommodate slower walkers, and addressing any dangerous street conditions like cracks, uneven surfaces, or potholes. Given that seniors are disproportionately likely to suffer from pedestrian injuries or fatalities due to motor vehicles, we also need to implement tools like leading pedestrian intervals, speed bumps, stop bars, and other traffic calming measures to increase safety for older New Yorkers.
New York City’s subway stations are also very inaccessible. As I mentioned above, one of my proposals, “Zoning for Accessibility,” would address this issue by putting elevators in subway stations. The proposal will go through the City’s formal land use review process this year, and will be reviewed by Community Boards and Borough Presidents with public meetings so New Yorkers can learn more about ZFA and provide their own feedback.
This year has also taught us a lot about public health, and that seniors need to have access to local, high-quality healthcare facilities. Given the possibility of future pandemics, we need to invest more into NYC H+H public hospitals, expand the workforce training pipeline for direct care workers, and allocate more resources to teaching seniors how to use telehealth services. It’s also extremely important that we increase the distribution of healthcare facilities across boroughs—currently, the unequal distribution of facilities has created health care deserts in various neighborhoods, leaving elderly and other vulnerable New Yorkers without adequate care.
9. In the event of a budget shortfall, how would you push for the City to close the gap? Are there agencies or programs you feel should or should not absorb cuts? Please be specific.
While budget shortfalls do require us to make tough decisions, it’s critical that we do not put the burden on seniors. We need to do a combination of rightsizing of agencies where there is overspending, looking for new revenue streams, and holding the line on the social safety net.
In any situation where we need to make cuts, they must be equitable to ensure that no agency takes on an outsized burden. In my experience, the Department of Aging in one of the areas that may face uncertainty around the budget, and it’s vital we prevent that. It’s also a priority of mine that we don’t slash the budget of our healthcare system at such an important moment.
10. How should your constituents look to measure your success in achieving your responses outlined above?
I’m proud of my record, including the work around affordable housing at Waterside Plaza, reaching out and providing essential services to seniors during the pandemic, and prioritizing funding for organizations like Senior Centers in my district. I think all of this speaks to my willingness to anticipate any deficiencies in senior services and my commitment to upholding the highest quality care for these communities. That said, I recognize that there’s always much more to do.