New York City Council

Committee on Aging

Chair Hudson

Committee on Immigration

Chair Avilés

The Needs of Older Adult Immigrants in NYC

My name is Kevin Kiprovski, and I am the Director of Public Policy at LiveOn NY. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

LiveOn NY’s members include more than 110 community-based nonprofits that provide core services which allow all New Yorkers to thrive in our communities as we age, such as older adult centers, home-delivered meals, affordable senior housing, NORCs, and home care. LiveOn NY is also home to the Reframing Aging NYC Initiative, part of the national Reframing Aging Initiative aimed to counteract ageism and improve the way policymakers, stakeholders, and the public think about aging and older people. With our members, we work to make New York a better place to age.

Background:

Our city has many different populations of aging immigrants across the five boroughs that have different needs than the non-immigrant aging population. Our members and partners in this work have highlighted the following top issues unique to aging immigrant populations across the city:

Mental health needs differ across many populations, but recent older immigrants who have been here for 10 years or less tend to experience more anxiety, depression, and higher rates of suicidal ideation. Anti-asian hate during the pandemic exacerbated these feelings for many older adults throughout the city and made many feel unsafe in their own communities.
Language services provided by the city only cover the 10 languages required by existing statute, leaving out many languages used every day by older immigrants and cutting them off from vital services. Our members have identified Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Punjabi, and Gujrathi as just 5 languages that need more resources to support from the city, but there are many more.
Resources provided by the city in the 10 specified languages do not always meet the needs of speakers. Oftentimes the translators who create materials use an academic language framework and do not reflect the lived experience of those who need the resources. The materials created through this process can be unintelligible to the intended audience, and literacy levels are not considered when making exclusively printed materials.
Many older immigrants who have been in the US for less than 10 years find themselves renting rooms in cramped apartments or basements and do not have the resources to find healthier housing. This contributes to the poor mental health outcomes and lower quality of life.
Remittance scams have become much more prevalent in older immigrant communities with individuals being targeted for the money they send back to their country of origin. These scams are not covered in existing anti-scam programs or materials and this leaves older immigrants uniquely vulnerable to them.

Recommendations:

In language and culturally sensitive mental health services should be offered that recognize the unique experiences of older immigrants. People’s immigration experience could be a contributing factor to poor mental health outcomes, from trauma experienced in their country of origin to financial and legal difficulties faced in the US, there are many factors that are unique to the older immigrant population. Additionally linguistic barriers can prevent even the most experienced mental health professional from properly treating someone, so extra care must be paid to build up a multilingual workforce among our providers.
Embrace new housing models, such as India Home’s Co-living project to meet both the social health and housing needs of older adults. We must explore new and creative ways to solve our housing crisis and to meet the social health needs of older immigrants in our communities.
Work with local nonprofits that provide services to these communities to provide effective translations, interpretations, and materials. Colloquially translated materials and materials that meet the literacy needs of populations can be made in partnership with local organizations if given the resources. Groups should be funded and included in the production of these materials to ensure their effectiveness.
Add remittance scams to the existing lists of materials and programs aimed at protecting older adults from bad actors and research other scams that may impact immigrant communities.
LiveOn NY supports the pre-considered legislation that would provide more information about benefits available to NYC’s older immigrant population.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

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Testimony provided by Kevin Kiprovski, Director of Public Policy, at LiveOn NY For questions, please email kkiprovski@liveon-ny.org.

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.