The following testimony was shared with the New York City Council Committee on Finance.
New York City Council
Committee on Finance, Chair, Council Member Daniel Dromm
March 2, 2020
Preliminary Budget and Oversight Hearing
Thank you, Chair Dromm and the Finance Committee, for the opportunity to testify on how we can work together to make New York a better place to age. LiveOn NY also thanks Mayor de Blasio, Speaker Johnson, DFTA Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, Aging Committee Chair Margaret Chin and the entire City Council for their consideration of the needs of older adults in the FY21 budget.
LiveOn NY would not want to miss an opportunity to testify on record to the significant budgetary investments needed to best serve New York’s older adult population.
With a base of more than 100 community-based organizations, LiveOn NY’s members provide core services that allow older adults to thrive in their communities, including senior centers, congregate and home‐delivered meals, affordable senior housing, elder abuse prevention services, caregiver supports, transportation, NORCs and case management. DFTA’s network provides services to over 50,000 older adults daily. Let’s be clear: these services are vital to the well being of older adults. Studies have shown that services such as senior centers, home delivered meals, and many others help prevent social isolation and positively impact health outcomes.
LiveOn NY recognizes and is encouraged by initial investments in senior services by the de Blasio Administration and ongoing investments by City Council. With that said, the DFTA budget still accounts for less than half of 1% of the total City budget, a point that is only exacerbated by the fact that aging New Yorkers now outnumber school-aged children. It is imperative that we continue to develop and maintain a robust system that will serve the rising number of older adults in the City. Aging is a multifaceted process, and supports need to be in place to address the nutrition, housing, and overall well-being of older New Yorkers. As the City continues to grow and prosper, we must not leave behind the people who helped build it. The need is urgent, especially when we consider that according to a study by Center for an Urban Future, 20% of older adults in New York City are living in poverty.[1] To truly show our commitment to the older adult population, the City must properly invest in the Department for the Aging, and go #AllInForAging.
LiveOn NY’s priorities are attached to our testimony, and are briefly highlighted below:
Invest $16 Million for Home Delivered Meals
First, it is important to note that the Home-Delivered Meals program is currently in the middle of an RFP solicitation, in which nonprofits are poised to determine their ability to continue participating in the program. From a mission driven standpoint, this is an easy decision. The program is invaluable, as the majority of individuals utilizing the program are women of limited means who live alone, and on average, these meals account at least half of their total food for the day. Nationally, 59% of meal recipients live alone, and the person delivering the meal is often the only person they will see that day and provide much needed social interaction.[2] However, despite the clear importance of this work, from an economic standpoint the decision to continue participating in the City’s home-delivered meal program becomes much more treacherous.
Currently, providers are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars each year through these contracts. At the $9.58 funding rate provided in the current RFP, nonprofits will continue to lose money on every meal they serve. At this rate, NYC will be reimbursing providers approximately 20% below the national average of what a meal cost in urban areas five years ago.[3] Evidence of the inadequate funding available is also displayed through the Human Services Council RFP rating, which scored the RFP at 75% in overall risk — the highest scoring of risk in the history of the rater — with financial adequacy being the greatest driver of risk.
With more than 27,000 older adults having received these life sustaining meals in 2019 alone, we must ensure that the program is kept solvent for years to come by making the necessary investments.
According to the Mayor’s FY19 Management report, 4,554,828 meals were delivered to 27,065 homebound older New Yorkers, numbers that have consistently grown over the past few years.
An investment of $16 million in new funding is needed to support the home-delivered meals system across the five boroughs. Of this, $13 million is needed to solve the shortfall for weekday meals and $3 million will support weekend meals. These funds will help account for increases in raw food costs, including the associated costs of providing more diverse, culturally competent meals, and to support increase in costs for environmentally conscious disposables to serve food. Further, funding is necessary to account for the overall increase in meals served and rising costs of labor. It is critical that funds are provided to support fair salaries for home delivered meals staff, without whom this incredible program would not be possible.
Invest $1.7 Million to Achieve Pay Parity for NORC Staff
Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCs) are housing developments or neighborhoods where a large number of older adults are aging in place. By providing support services such as case management, assistance with benefits applications, support groups, health and wellness services, older New Yorkers are able to remain in their homes and communities. NORCs help older adults avoid nursing home stays that can cost as much as $142,000 annually per person. Currently, there are 11,000 older adults spread across dozens of NORCs across New York City.
However, the NORC staff that provide who these critical support services earn, on average, $15,000 less than their DFTA-funded senior center counterparts, even if they are performing the same duties. As a result, the nonprofit organizations who run these critical programs often grapple with staff recruitment and retention. $1.7 million in new funding is necessary to achieve pay parity across DFTA programs and ensure fairness not only for staff, but for the older adults living in these NORCs.
Invest $1.8 Million for Service Coordination in Senior Housing
LiveOn NY 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 older adults 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 budgets work, providers are often having to offer less services than are believed to be preferred by older residents 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 older adults would prefer an individual at the front desk at all times to support the physical wellbeing 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. A $1.8 million increase in FY21 would allow an initial 600 SARA general lottery units to receive funding.
Invest $3.2 Million to Further Increase Equity Across Senior Centers
In 2017, when the Department for the Aging analyzed the budgetary needs of senior centers as part of the ‘Model Budget’ process, 38 centers were left out of this analysis. These were satellite senior centers and social clubs that will need to compete in the forthcoming RFP process, yet will be hamstrung from doing so due to the upfront disparity of funding. Using the average funds received by senior centers during the initial process, LiveOn NY estimates that $3.2 million in new senior center funding is needed to promote equity within these spaces.
Invest $3 Million for DFTA Infrastructure Funds
The FY19 Mayor’s Management Report saw an “increased utilization” of of the 249 DFTA contracted and 38 affiliated senior centers that served more than 124,000 older adults. Over 30,000 New Yorkers frequented these centers for activities and meals daily. A baselined capital fund is necessary for replacements, repairs, and upgrades that are critical to the continued functioning and ADA friendliness of the facility. For example, the release of the new home delivered meals RFP introduced the chilled or refrigerated meals format in addition to hot and frozen meals. In order to accomodate the production and the storage of this new format, home delivered meal providers need funding for equipment and increase their capacity to supply these meals. Meanwhile, as the hot summer moments approach and senior centers are often requisitioned into doubling as cooling centers, aging HVAC will need to be replaced or repaired especially because older adults are more vulnerable to heat stress. This $3 million new, baselined capital investment will ensure that the services contracted through the Department for the Aging are able to make needed repairs or investments, and do not fall into disrepair, today or in the years to come.
Invest $2 Million for DFTA Innovation Funds
Likewise, in order for senior centers to implement age-friendly improvements to their facilities, innovation expense funds are essential. In addition to more modest age-friendly improvements, funding can streamline the home delivered meal process and enhance efficiency with the purchase of new technology. For instance, home delivered meal providers are still tediously tracking their routes using pen and paper. Software would enable meal providers to track their deliveries in real time and allow for GPS mapping. Data would also be easier to see, collate, and analyze, which can be used to improve service delivery to the client and prioritize their needs. Further, the continued availability of $2 million in innovation expense funds will ensure that DFTA contract programs can continue to invest as new technology becomes available that can enhance the wellbeing of the older adult population.
Restore and Baseline One-Time $9.7 million funds
As the older adult population steadily grows, funding for services need to be maintained permanently to prevent any sort of disruption in critical programs. The $2.8 million for senior centers, $2.84 million for home delivered meals, $1 million for NORCs, and the $2.1 million for NYCHA community spaces should all be baselined and to sustain these programs moving forward. Further, by only making these investments on an annual basis rather than baselining the investments, providers are unable to use them to increase salaries or fill budgetary gaps as is most urgently needed.
Further, City Council’s $1 million case management investment should be baselined, as waiting lists for this program continue to grow, as they have done for years, indicating continued investment will be required to meet demand.
Fulfill Existing Promise of $10 Million in New Funds For Senior Centers
In 2017, $10 million was promised in the Model Senior Center process in FY21. Senior Centers even received documentation from DFTA and OMB indicating the amount of funding that they would receive. However, this $10 million promised was not included in the preliminary budget. This must be rectified, especially given the upcoming senior center RFP. Senior centers are cornerstones in their communities for older adults that provide everything from congregate meals to mental health services. Undercutting their funding would mean undercutting the seniors that frequent them.
Council Restorations and Investments in Senior Services Through Schedule C
City Council has long been a staunch supporter of City and district-wide senior services programs through allocations in Schedule C. We thank you for your investments and advocate for full restoration for all Senior Service Programs funded in Schedule C. These include NORCs, Support our Seniors, SuCasa, Senior Centers for Immigrant Populations, Health Aging Initiative, Social Adult Day, and others. We also support the growing call for an expansion of the Geriatric Mental Health Initiative by adding $950,000 to this Council initiative.
Continued Investments in Human Services Sector
Years of underfunding the sector have resulted in the entire human services workforce being some of the lowest compensated workers in New York City’s economy. A 3% COLA on the personal services line of all human services contracts at the cost of $48 million is needed in the FY21 budget to ensure this vital workforce does not slip further into poverty. The Mayor and City Council have taken important steps to begin to address this crisis with previous multi-year cost-of-living investments, but there is no COLA in place for future years. The 3% COLA is a needed investment while workers, advocates, providers, and elected officials continue to work together on more comprehensive solutions to ensure that human services workers finally earn fair pay for their labor.
LiveOn NY looks forward to working with Mayor de Blasio, City Council, DFTA, and all City agencies to make New York City a better place to age through a strong network of community-based services.
LiveOn NY’s members provide the core, community-based services that allow older adults to thrive in their communities. With a base of more than 100 community-based organizations serving at least 300,000 older New Yorkers annually. Our members provide services ranging from senior centers, congregate and home-delivered meals, affordable senior housing with services, elder abuse prevention services, caregiver supports, case management, transportation, and NORCs. LiveOn NY advocates for increased funding for these vital services to improve both the solvency of the system and the overall capacity of community-based service providers.
LiveOn NY also administers a citywide outreach program and staffs a hotline that educates, screens and helps with benefit enrollment including SNAP, SCRIE and others, and also administers the Rights and Information for Senior Empowerment (RISE) program to bring critical information directly to seniors on important topics to help them age well in their communities.
[1] Center for an Urban Future, New York’s Older Adult Population is Booming Statewide, February 2019
[2] Meals on Wheels of America, Delivering So Much More than Just a Meal Fact Sheet, United States, 2018
[3] For home delivered meals, in FY17 DFTA reimbursed providers on the average $9.58 compared to the national average rate of $11.06.