The following comments were submitted to the New York City Council.
New York City Council
Joint Hearing
Committee on Aging, Chair Margaret Chin
Committee on Housing and Buildings, Chair Cornegy
December 12, 2019
Affordable Senior Housing
Thank you to Chairpersons Chin and Cornegy, and committees, for holding this important hearing on affordable senior housing.
LiveOn NY’s members include more than 100 community-based organizations that provide more than 1,000 programs to serve older New Yorkers. These core services include senior centers, home‐delivered meals, caregiver supports, NORCs, case management and homecare. Additionally, many of LiveOn NY members develop, manage, and provide services in affordable senior housing buildings throughout the five-boroughs, as well as Nassau and Suffolk counties. Through policy efforts, LiveOn advocates to increase funding and capacity for our members to meet the needs of older adults in their communities. In addition to numerous other trainings and programs offered by LiveOn NY, we are proud to convene our Affordable Senior Housing Coalition, which works to ensure the senior perspective is represented in the larger conversation of affordable housing needs.
Background
The need for affordable senior housing with services remains as or more significant today as it was in 2016, when LiveOn NY first reported our finding that an estimated 200,000 seniors were on waiting lists for housing through the HUD202 program in New York City. Findings also showed seniors wait an average of 7-10 years for a unit to become available. It quickly became evident to LiveOn NY that seniors were not immune to the housing crisis that has taken hold of our city, as the vacancy rate continued to hover around 3%. In fact, housing challenges may disproportionately impact seniors, as many older adults live on fixed incomes that cannot keep pace with rising rents; experience mobility challenges that limit housing options within an aging rental-stock; and are found to have high rates of rent burden, with one third of individuals receiving the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) benefit paying more than 70% of their income on rent.
The University of Pennsylvania recently released stark findings that, without intervention, the population of individuals 65 and older experiencing homelessness is likely to balloon to almost 7,000 individuals by 2030. This is far beyond the 1,438 individuals 65 and over who spent last December in temporary shelter, as reported by City Limits. Statistics indicate that we have yet to reach the peak of the housing crisis for seniors, and increased intervention by all levels of government is needed to abate an even more disastrous scenario for the oldest among us.
Seniors First Initiative
Given the current need, LiveOn NY has been pleased to see the Administration’s clear recognition of the need for senior specific housing as demonstrated through the investments and commitments included in the Seniors First Initiative, which has most notably brought about historic commitments to the production and preservation of affordable senior housing. Through this initiative and the Senior Affordable Rental Assistance (SARA) program in particular, NYC is now home to the nation’s first LGBTQ friendly affordable senior housing developed by SAGE and partners; Queens has opened its doors to HANAC’s new environmentally friendly senior building; the Bronx welcomed WSFSSH’s Tres Puentes, which will bring significant new health care resources to the MillBrook community; and thousands of seniors, including many who had experienced homelessness, now have an affordable place to call home.
LiveOn NY sees the SARA program, which is often utilized in conjunction with NYCHA NextGen, as an incredible success and feat for the City. However, in recognition of the significant continued need and the ability to continue to refine and improve upon current efforts, LiveOn NY respectfully offers the following recommendations:
Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, LiveOn NY strongly recommends an increase to the per-unit allocation of service funds through the SARA service program, administered by HRA. Currently, only $5,000 in funding is awarded per SARA unit that is occupied by a formerly homeless senior, which makes up 30% of a building’s units. Units occupied by seniors coming from the general Housing Connect lottery system are not eligible for any city funding for services, though it is expected that services are made available to these tenants. While LiveOn appreciates and strongly prefers the inclusive nature of the program as it stands, we do not believe that the currently-available funding is sufficient to ensure the type of robust programming that is required for older adults.
More specifically, in order to make their budgets work, providers are often having to offer less services than are believed to be preferred by seniors or are unable to offer the predominantly female human service workers in their buildings the competitive salaries they deserve—and that providers want to give—due to the lack of funds. For example, many seniors would prefer an individual at the front desk at all times, to support the physical well-being of tenants in the event of emergency. However, most budgets cannot allow for this 24/7 service, and there is no mandate to include such a position.
To address these challenges, and ensure funding is available for senior service providers to keep wages on pace with the recent prevailing wage increases, we recommend that HRA also make available a minimum of $3,000 per year per non-formerly homeless SARA unit, in addition to the $5,000 currently available for services for formerly homeless tenants. This funding would show a recognition from the city that older adults of all housing backgrounds can benefit from the light-touch services offered by a social worker in their place of residence. Further, the funding would recognize that while an individual might not initially present with significant need for assistance, we all can benefit from additional supportive services as we age. Finally, funding for service coordinators in senior housing is proven to reduce health care costs. In fact, LiveOn NY’s member Selfhelp Community Services recently released a study of the residents in their senior affordable housing program. The study compared Medicaid data for residents in their housing in comparison it to seniors living in the same zip codes over a two year period. This crucial research found that the seniors living in Selfhelp’s affordable housing had significantly more 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-Selfhelp resident
Secondly, the city must continue to develop new affordable senior housing on all types of land—not just sites made available through NYCHA NextGen. While the NYCHA NextGen RFPs represent a critical and welcomed opportunity for the construction of new affordable senior housing, these cannot be the only projects prioritized. Without publicly committing to ensuring room is in the pipeline for proposals from alternative sites, private investment in land or pre-development planning for affordable senior housing will slow. Lack of certainty can be a driver of cost increases or speculative actions; therefore by sharing this information, mission-driven, non-profit providers can adequately prepare to respond to new opportunities. To this point, LiveOn NY notes that we have found HPD’s team to be extremely approachable and communicative about their development timelines. However, we welcome further commitments from the Administration around senior development outside of the NYCHA NextGen program.
Thirdly, LiveOn NY recommends that the City ensure that senior housing is prioritized in its overall development pipeline, allocating additional resources as needed to ensure extremely-low income seniors can be served. Given the extensive amount of time devoted to both the land-use and construction processes, delays in closing on senior properties should not place potential developments on hold. For older adults, the value of time takes on new meaning, making the urgency of the housing crisis and the need to prioritize this particular type of housing more pronounced. If projects are put on hold due to lack of investment from other levels of government (e.g. the availability of project-based vouchers or volume cap), LiveOn recommends that the City publicly and specifically articulate the nature of these challenges to ensure that the public has the information needed to effectively advocate for said resources.
Finally, LiveOn NY recommends further coordination between city agencies—particularly DFTA, HPD, NYCHA, and City Planning—as development sites are selected with the potential to include space for senior programming. As existing senior centers continue to face increased capital needs and rent increases, and the demographics of seniors continues to shift across the five boroughs, LiveOn NY recognizes the significant opportunity to improve the senior center system through the inclusion of communal space in new affordable senior housing developments. Positively, this has been in practice in some cases; however, the process to bring a new center to life has often proven challenging, filled with both uncertainty and a lack of uniformity, despite significant effort by all involved. LiveOn NY recommends the agencies come together and develop a uniform mechanism for new developments to incorporate space for senior centers that will require city funds for operation. A critical component to this should be addressing the challenges related to the varying timelines a developer must adhere to, while simultaneously allocating funding to a center in accordance with city procurement rules. This is especially important for centers that would be developed after FY22, as the senior center RFP process will have just come to a close.
New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)
LiveOn NY would be remiss if we did not mention the importance of increased funding for NYCHA, as public housing also represents one of the few affordable options for older adults in New York City. With the Physical Needs Assessment estimating the capital backlog to be $32 billion and the barrage of news headlines indicating the dilapidated current state of the City’s Housing Authority, it is critical that funds are made available and are well-utilized to improve living conditions for NYCHA tenants. Additionally, it is important to note that community spaces operating within NYCHA have not been immune to the capital and operational challenges plaguing the developments. The Wall Street Journal estimated $500 million in capital funding is needed for NYCHA community spaces, which include senior centers and other valuable programs for NYCHA tenants and the surrounding communities. While much emphasis has been accurately placed on the need to improve the living conditions in units within NYCHA developments—which LiveOn NY wholly supports—it is nonetheless critical that these life-sustaining services also be included in the dialogue of NYCHA related needs.
Intro 6 and Intro 225
Finally, LiveOn NY would like to express our strong support of Intro 6 and Intro 225, introduced by Council Member Barron and Council Member Brannan, respectively.
LiveOn NY has been a longstanding proponent of the City’s anti-eviction efforts, including the Right to Counsel initiative spearheaded by Council Members Gibson and Levine. We welcome and support the passage of Council Member Barron’s efforts to further protect older adult tenants from facing displacement by ensuring the City receives advance notice of planned evictions of elderly tenants in order to share legal assistance resources with said individuals.
LiveOn NY also supports Council Member Brannan’s efforts to ensure age-friendly accommodations be made by landlords in an older adult’s place of residence. It is our understanding that this effort is in line with current practices related to reasonable accommodation requirements under the City’s interpretation of the Human Rights law, and we are pleased to see continued efforts to codify this practice of providing support as requested by the older tenant.
LiveOn NY thanks Chairs Chin and Cornegy and the full committees for holding today’s hearing, and we look forward to working together in the upcoming fiscal year.