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.