We’re proud to testify to the New York City Council to ensure older adults can safely aging in NYCHA developments. Below is testimony submitted by LiveOn NY to the New York City Council Committees on Aging and Public Housing.

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New York City Council
Committee on Aging
Chair, Council Member Chin
Committee on Public Housing
Chair, Council Member Ampry-Samuel
April 7, 2021
Oversight – Seniors aging in place in NYCHA during a pandemic

Thank you for the opportunity to testify on seniors aging in place in NYCHA during the pandemic.

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.

In New York City, NYCHA represents one of the greatest providers of affordable housing for low-income seniors. Currently, 38% of New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) households are headed by an older adult age 62 and over, and an estimated 7,700 units are designated specifically for older adults. Just as the buildings are aging, so are the tenants that occupy them, making the need for quality, safe services in NYCHA paramount to the success of the community. Unfortunately, however, providers of services such as Senior Centers and NORCs that operate in NYCHA community spaces face daily challenges just to keep the doors open.

While an emphasis must be placed on improving the living conditions of residents living in NYCHA developments, it’s also important to acknowledge senior service providers have not been immune to the challenges during the pandemic.

Prior to the onset of the pandemic, and potentially exacerbating the pandemics impacts, inadequate conditions in NYCHA developments including poor ventilation systems, broken elevators, leaking roofs, and recurring mold have long been one of the many challenges providers have worked to alleviate. While working to mitigate these repairs, providers are frequently faced with fines and violations, in addition to lengthy approval processes by NYCHA that exacerbate the timeline for repairs.

The impacts of these fines and conditions are not only monetary: instead of spending critical time providing critical services for NYCHA residents and the surrounding community, providers are forced to become experts in the nuances of repair systems wholly outside of their job description in order to simply stay afloat. This impact cannot be understated as these non-profit providers work tirelessly to provide high quality services to those who need it most and, through these suboptimal systems, are being consistently hamstrung from meeting their city-mandated and personally motivated aims. Now, in the midst of a pandemic, it’s critical that these repairs and conditions are addressed as they pose an even greater risk for residents and staff as we look ahead to resume in-person services and programming.

In response to these difficulties LiveOn NY recommends:

The City must work to continue to increase capital funding for public housing to support ventilation upgrades and other critical infrastructure improvements that will improve both residential and community space within NYCHA;

Redirect fines to ensure nonprofits are not penalized for violations that are out of their control. Nonprofit human service providers, who lack site control and rely on NYCHA to make repairs, should not be subject to citations and fines from DOHMH or FDNY due to NYCHA’s failure to make those repairs. When violations are found during inspections, and if these violations have already been reported to NYCHA by the provider, the provider should not be penalized. At this time, the fine should be automatically negated, and NYCHA should be notified by the fining agency of a need to cure the violation in question;

Restore and baseline all one-time funds for NYCHA Social Clubs. All funding for senior programming in NYCHA community spaces should not rely on one-shot funding from the Administration, but should be sustainably baselined and incorporated into the full scope of DFTA services;

Fully fund the Indirect Cost Rate (ICR) Initiative, which is critical to ensuring nonprofits operating in NYCHA remain viable into the future. Recent cuts to the ICR Initiative have threatened the viability of New York City’s nonprofit human service providers, leaving current NYCHA Senior Center, NORC, and other providers scrambling to pay staff and get by. To truly support nonprofits the City must reverse course and fully implement the ICR Initiative;

Include funding promises made to Senior Centers in the FY22 Executive Budget. Fully allocate the $10 million in Senior Center Model Budget funding and $5 million in Senior Center Kitchen funding to ensure that this workforce -- made up of predominantly women and people of color -- are paid competitively for their work. This funding will support not only Senior Centers located in NYCHA, but the broader Senior Center portfolio.

Additionally, LiveOn NY strongly supports the following bills that would potentially improve operations for providers and transparency in NYCHA developments:

Intro 1827, introduced by Council Member Ampry-Samuel, is an act to provide a dedicated NYCHA liaison within DFTA. To ensure there is a clear and consistent line of coordination, there should be an individual within the Department for the Aging (DFTA) whose sole focus is to coordinate with NYCHA on matters impacting older adult public housing residents. This individual could support and streamline processes for DFTA funded services that may include establishing a system to receive comments and complaints, delineating roles and responsibilities regarding repairs at Centers located within NYCHA developments and make recommendations to improve programs and facilities that serve older adults public housing residents.

Intro 415, introduced by Council Member Chin, is an act to require NYCHA to report annually on Senior Centers within NYCHA buildings. As we look to create better solutions for older adults who rely on Senior Centers for critical services, receiving an annual report from NYCHA would provide service providers and community-based organizations with the necessary information and data — such as the number of people served by each center, or the programming provided at each center — to create evidence-based solutions that better support older adults and advocate for investments and legislation on the City and State level. The City Council should work with the Department for the Aging, prior to passage, to confirm if the information that would be mandated reporting under this bill is already being collected, or can be easily collected by providers, so as to not create additional data collection requirements where those don’t already exist. Further, it should be considered if this information is already available through Local Law 140.

As we look ahead to the warmer season when Senior Centers located in NYCHA will act as Cooling Centers for those in need, NYCHA developments and DFTA fiscal must work to accelerate the approval for repairs or replacements of poor HVAC systems. Further, as DFTA moves towards reopening of in-person senior services, funding and flexibility for budget amendments must be prioritized to ensure Senior Centers in NYCHA can proactively address leaks and other issues that are critical to the safety and health of staff and older adults.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s hearing.