LiveOn NY Testimony on COVID and Seniors

We’re proud to testify to the New York City Council to ensure that the strengths, as well as the needs, of older adults are consistently heard and prioritized by New York’s elected officials. Below is testimony submitted by LiveOn NY to the New York City Council Committees on Aging and Technology.

To learn more about upcoming New York City Council hearings: click here. To register to testify: click here. To watch live and past hearings: view here!

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New York City Council
Committee on Health: Chair, Council Member Levine
Committee on Aging: Chair, Council Member Chin
Committee on Technology: Chair, Council Member Holden
February 17, 2021
Oversight - COVID-19 and Seniors: Addressing Equity, Access to the Vaccine, and Scheduling Vaccination Appointments Online in NYC

Thank you for the opportunity to testify on COVID and Seniors: Protecting Older Adults in the Community.

LiveOn NY’s members include more than 100 community-based nonprofits that provide core services which allow 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.

The COVID-19 pandemic has swept across New York, creating a rippling effect exposing the current political, economic, and social gaps that impact older New Yorkers. These must be confronted both as we continue to respond to the pandemic, but in undertaking the COVID-19 mass vaccination effort.

Vaccine Recommendations

Today, we have the opportunity to bring this life-saving vaccine to thousands of older adults and slow down the pandemic in its tracks. Yet despite eligibility for older people 65 and over, we continue to see the gaps and inequities as access to the vaccine remains nearly impossible for many, particularly for people of color who have shouldered the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The time is now to commit to older New Yorkers and remove the barriers that have pushed out communities. Unfortunately, LiveOn NY and our members have seen the hurdles older adults have experienced to simply get a shot, and distribution has also revealed the racial inequities that already plague communities of color. As it stands, Black and brown residents, who represent 22% of the City’s population, have only received 9% of the vaccines.

Given these realities, there is much work to be done. We do, however, want to take a moment to thank all those who are working tirelessly to ensure older adults can get vaccinated. Specifically, we thank the Vaccine Command Center for their continuous effort to coordinate the vaccine distribution across the City and we applaud the recent launch of the homebound seniors initiative to ensure older adults who are unable to travel to vaccine sites have the opportunity to receive the shot. 

To ensure a more equitable distribution of the vaccine moving forward, LiveOn NY recommends the City:

• Work in coordination with community-based organizations that are often sources of trust to marginalized populations to promote access to the vaccine,  and can provide the necessary information to ensure no one is left behind. 

• Move away from an over-reliance on technology, including removing the requirement for each vaccine appointment be made using a different email address, which prohibits professionals from assisting multiple seniors using the same account.

• Ensure information is available across languages

• Monitor and improve the vaccine registration process, including: phone wait times and the numerous web systems and pages each older adult must navigate

• Make clear vaccine eligibility of senior service professionals, including: home-delivered meal cooks and deliverers, service coordinators and maintenance workers in senior housing, home care attendants, and caregivers who are the unseen, underappreciated heroes throughout this pandemic. 

• Fully fund providers and professionals for their work.

Now is the time to create an efficient and equitable vaccination program that ensures no one is left behind and all older New Yorkers can safely age in their communities. 

COVID-19 Response Recommendations

Older New Yorkers who have stayed home for extended periods to remain safe from the virus, need a clear plan, guided by science, as to when it will be safe to reengage with the community services they know and love. Many spent the Summer, a period of low transmission risk, hoping their local Senior Center would one day open, not knowing if this would be the case, or why it would not be the case if restaurants, gyms, bars, and other services could resume operation. These individuals and the professionals that serve them deserve clarity, transparency, and the comfort of knowing their services are prioritized and guided by science as New York emerges from this crisis. 

Therefore, LiveOn NY recommends a plan be created jointly by the Department of Health and Mental Health (DOHMH) and the Department for the Aging (DFTA), and that such plan should:

• Be balanced against the fact that, in addition to the risk of COVID-19, the impacts of isolation also pose considerable risks to the older adult population.

• Be guided by the fact that the older adult population is not a monolith experiencing the risk of COVID-19 uniformly, but an age cohort spanning multiple decades of significant variations in overall health and risk level.

• Quantify the health indicators that will need to be met in order to resume in-person senior services, including services at Senior Centers and NORCs.

• Include clear guidance on metrics that must be met, or other rationale, indicating the ability to resume in-person services from a public health perspective. A sample metric could indicate a maximum threshold for the citywide infection rate, which once reached, would trigger the allowance of grab and go meal service to resume.

• Identify the order in which the resumption of in-person services can be phased in. For example, we have seen restaurants deemed safe enough to offer outdoor dining, followed by indoor dining at a specific capacity and with specific social distancing requirements as risk levels went down. Senior services require similar guidance.

  • Given the varying risks associated with each activity, the following components of a Senior Center should each be given individualized guidance: grab-and-go meal distribution, indoor dining, one-on-one case assistance with clients, outdoor programming (potentially at local parks as the weather changes), and indoor programming.

• Be posted on each agency's websites and shared with City Council, non-profit providers, older adults, and other stakeholders. 

• Be released as soon as is practicable, taking into account community input, including input of providers, upon drafting.

In addition to such a plan, providers must be fully reimbursed for cleaning and other costs incurred to ensure safety upon the resumption of each service.

We appreciate the consideration of the recommendations, and look forward to working with the City to reauthorize in-person Senior Services at an appropriate time.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

LiveOn NY Coordinates Delivery of 225,000 Meals to Seniors Amidst COVID-19

Executive Director Allison Nickerson praises efforts of non-profits and partners for their work throughout COVID-19, while warning that funding gaps jeopardize NYC’s home-delivered meals (HDM) program

Press Contacts: Allison Nickerson, Executive Director (anickerson@liveon-ny.org | 212-398-6565 x. 224) or Katelyn Andrews, Director of Public Policy (kandrews@liveon-ny.org  | 212-398-6565 x.244)

New York, NY – June 24, 2020 – Senior advocacy organization LiveOn NY has announced that it has coordinated the delivery of more than 225,000 meals to older New Yorkers to help fill the demand for food since COVID-19 began. These meals are in addition to the thousands of meals provided by the City and non-profits through the City’s nutrition programs such as the newly created GetFood effort.

Not having coordinated the delivery of meals prior to COVID-19, LiveOn NY was supported by its membership of more than 100 community-based organizations that serve seniors, who helped route and distribute the meals to older adults most in need, primarily as the crisis began. Members and other senior-serving organizations reached out by identifying entire buildings that could benefit from meal delivery as the City worked tirelessly to prop up its more expansive meal delivery effort.

“While our work has historically been focused on advocacy to bolster services for older adults, we recognized a need for this type of coordinated nutrition effort and quickly jumped in to help, stated Allison Nickerson, Executive Director of LiveOn NY. “Our core mission is to make New York a better place to age, so this effort just made sense.”

LiveOn NY was able to immediately and dramatically scale operations to meet an onslaught of demand by forming critical partnerships with several organizations with philanthropic arms, including:

• Project Isaiah, a new non-profit that funded the airline catering company Gate Gourmet, so that it could continue preparing and packaging shelf-stable food items for distribution to seniors instead of airline passengers. The non-profit helped provide more than 170,00 meals.

• World Central Kitchen, a continued hunger relief effort that acts as “food first responders” when emergency strikes, provided more than 55,000 meals.

“We are deeply grateful to the generosity of those who recognized the dire need among the senior population — those most at-risk to COVID-19 — and rushed to fill it,” said Ms. Nickerson.

In addition to meal delivery, LiveOn NY has continued prioritizing its ongoing efforts to ensure that non-profits are fully funded to provide older New Yorkers throughout New York City with nutrition and other supports. Currently this means advocating for a $26.2 million new City investment to fully fund home-delivered meal services in FY21, which would not only ensure non-profits can meet demand, but that they can also adequately compensate front-line workers putting their lives at risk to prepare and deliver meals. 

“Illustrative of the need for funding, non-profit providers of these city-contracted meals currently lose money on every meal served, as the City reimburses at a rate 20% below the national average,” said Ms. Nickerson.

As stopgap philanthropic efforts ramp down, Nickerson anticipates that non-profits will continue striving to support older New Yorkers who are homebound and in need of services and nutrition support. She believes meaningful government investment is critical to ensuring non-profits can continue to meet demand, and the home-delivered meals program is a clear choice to be supported and expanded to fill this space.

“New York City must fulfill its commitment to those who have historically relied on home-delivered meals and need them now more than ever,” said Ms. Nickerson. “Currently, the lack of funds puts numerous non-profits financially at risk, threatening the stability of the entire HDM program.” 

For more information on LiveOn NY, please visit http://www.liveon-ny.org. 

About LiveOn NY

At LiveOn NY, we believe that all people have a future. Our work is centered on making sure that New York is a great place to age. We do this through targeted advocacy, data-driven policy, direct assistance & innovative programs. As a membership organization, we represent 100 agencies from small, single-site centers to large multi-service organizations. Through our work and membership, we represent the 3.2 million older New Yorkers and their caregivers.

LiveOn NY Testifies on the Executive Budget to City Council

New York City Council
Joint Hearing
Committee on Finance and Subcommittee on Capital Budget
Chair Dromm and Chair Gibson
May 21, 2020
Remote Hearing

Thank you to Chair Dromm and the full Finance Committee and Chair Gibson and the Subcommittee on Capital Budget for holding this important hearing amidst these challenging times. 

With a base of more than 100 community-based organizations, LiveOn NY’s members provide core services that allow older adults to thrive in our communities, including senior centers, home‐delivered meals, affordable housing, elder abuse prevention services, caregiver supports, NORCs, case management and more. DFTA’s network provides services to over 50,000 older adults and caregivers daily. 

Seniors are the most at risk to COVID-19. Their funding for services should not be at risk too.

Just this Tuesday, LiveOn NY held our 25th Annual Aging Advocacy Day. We did so virtually, with more than 200 individuals registering to participate in the event and a shared commitment to calling on the City to make critical investments in senior services, as well as thanking fellow providers for their work throughout COVID-19. Many Council Members engaged via Zoom and social media, as well as fielding calls from constituents; thank you all for participating in this exciting event.

While we couldn’t be physically on the steps of City Hall, the calls for support somehow felt louder and more clear than ever. Amidst our calls for support, one provider shared a story of receiving a call from a senior whose food supply had run out, a call not unfamiliar during this time; another confided that their organization had lost more than forty clients during this time, not unlike many providers who speak regularly about struggling with the loss of clients and colleagues; and participants having shared messages of how essential their teams have proven. With every point made, the need for increased support from the City became both urgent and undeniable.

To respond to these stories, and the abundantly clear need for robust support of older New Yorkers throughout our City, LiveOn NY and our partners request the following key investments to be made.

$26.2 million for home-delivered meals for seniors

This program—unique from GetFood in that it serves seniors who were homebound prior to COVID-19 and will remain so after—has been chronically underfunded for years. Today, the reimbursement rate for meals is 20% below the national average, even as providers have experienced a 20% increase in demand amidst the pandemic. Together, it’s a recipe for leading our City’s non-profits to the brink of insolvency. Even worse, providers have yet to receive any additional funding to provide drivers incentive pay as they continue to make door-to-door deliveries in spite of the increased risk. This is unsustainable and wrong. The funding requested will compensate for: increased demand; incentive pay for essential workers; adequate support of the weekend meals; and will close the per-meal reimbursement deficit. Together, the funds will enable the program to meet demand resulting from increased need and awareness of the City’s incredible senior service sector, as well as ensuring providers can continue to provide high-quality, culturally competent meals provided by local, community-based non-profits. 

Please also note that the Request for Proposal (RFP) for this contract is currently due June 1st, meaning that providers—who are already inundated with increased demand, as well as concerns for staff and participants—must also grapple with responding to an RFP that would substantially alter the system at-large. This procurement, and all similar procurements, should be delayed until COVID-19 has subsided and its effects can begin to be understood.

$10 million for Senior Centers, which was already promised in 2017

In 2017, the City undertook a “model budget process” for numerous contracts, including senior centers, to bring these in line to reflect true costs, with particular emphasis on right-sizing contracts to allow for more competitive wages of the oft underpaid human services staff. During this time, the senior center portfolio was promised $10 million to be received by FY21; senior centers even received notices of how much assistance would go directly to their programs. This funding, however, remains excluded from the Executive Budget, despite initial promises in 2017 and further promises during the preliminary budget hearings. This must be rectified by budget adoption. Beyond being wrong to renege on such a promise to seniors and providers, these funds are critical to supporting a predominantly female and minority workforce that—as evidenced throughout COVID-19—can no longer bear the burden of such persistent disparities. 

Restore all one-time senior services funds

Funding for services must be permanently maintained 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 as we are requesting, providers are unable to use funds to address salaries or fill budgetary gaps as is most urgently needed.

Additionally, City Council’s $1 million case management investment should be baselined, as waiting lists for this program continued to grow prior to COVID-19, and have skyrocketed along with an intensification of client needs since the pandemic began.

Continue City Council Discretionary Funding

City Council has long been a staunch supporter of City and district-wide senior services programs through allocations in Schedule C. We thank you, and while recognizing the budget challenges that are upon us, we continue to advocate for full restoration for all Senior Service Programs funded in Schedule C. At the outset, these funds helped to fill gaps existing in the infrastructure of support for seniors, they therefore remain as critical as ever to supporting older New Yorkers as we embark on our new normal. Examples of key initiatives that support the wellbeing of older adults include: NORCs, Support our Seniors, SuCasa, Senior Centers for Immigrant Populations, Health Aging Initiative, Social Adult Day, and others.

Invest $1.7 Million to Achieve Pay Parity for NORC Staff

Currently, there are 11,000 older adults spread across dozens of NORCs across New York City. However, the NORC staff that provide 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. $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. 

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.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify and for your consideration of the above needs.

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Please contact Katelyn Andrews, Director of Public Policy at LiveOn NY with any questions (Kandrews@liveon-ny.org).

LiveOn NY Strongly Opposes Federal Government Attacks on Older Adults in Need of Assistance

Date: August 19, 2019
Press Contacts: Allison Nickerson, Executive Director (anickerson@liveon-ny.org | 212-398-6565 x. 224) or Katelyn Andrews, Director of Public Policy (kandrews@liveon-ny.org  | 212-398-6565 x.244)

New York, NY – LiveOn NY unequivocally opposes the continued, systemic attacks on older adults in need of assistance, namely low-income seniors, immigrants, communities of color and other marginalized populations. 

We remain resolved in our continued efforts to advocate for policies that will safeguard against hunger, ensure housing, promote health and address economic inequality. 

LiveOn NY will in no way be deterred by the Federal government’s most recent attacks, specifically the institution of the Public Charge rule, which threatens older immigrants’ ability to receive assistance in the face of hunger and housing instability; and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) proposal, which, if actualized, would undercut the ability for seniors with limited income to afford food.

LiveOn NY also looks forward to continuing to work with our locally elected officials to curb the effects of these policies and we thank all who stand as allies to our communities during this time.

In the face of these attacks, we must continue to strengthen our support for the human services organizations working to serve the very populations these proposals seek to harm – from senior centers to home-delivered meals providers we know that these community-based services are lifelines to so many older adults.

At LiveOn NY, we uphold that we all have the ability to continue to thrive, contribute, and find meaning in our later years, especially when afforded the basic tools necessary to do so. We are dismayed and disturbed to see the Federal government’s continued efforts to take these same tools away.

Neither the institution of the Public Charge rule nor the proposal to take SNAP away from more than 3 million Americans will break our resolve to making New York a better place to age and we encourage you to join us in doing so.

About LiveOn NY

At LiveOn NY, we believe that all people have a future. Our work is centered on making sure that New York is a great place to age. We do this through targeted advocacy, data-driven policy, direct assistance & innovative programs. As a membership organization, we represent 100 agencies from small, single-site centers to large multi-service organizations. Through our work and membership, we represent the 3.2 million older New Yorkers and their caregivers.

News & Press Releases Featuring LiveOn NY

At LiveOn NY, we work hard to make sure that the public hears about the issues affecting older New Yorkers, as well as the incredible momentum that exists as we grow old. To this aim, we are proud of each and every time we are able to share this narrative with our local communities or to comment on a topic effecting older New Yorkers.

Below are a few articles & press releases including our work: 

January 16, 2019 “De Blasio Administration Financed More Than 34,000 Affordable Homes in 2018 – A New Record” press release from NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development

“LiveOn NY is appreciative of the monumental effort that goes into every unit of affordable housing and we are heartened by the impact that these homes will have, particularly on the lives of New York’s older adults.”

— Allison Nickerson, Executive Director

December 6, 2018 “The Housing Crisis Continues for NYC Seniors” article by Maitefa Angaza in Our Time Press

November 27, 2018 "From Rent Regs to Rezonings, 2019 Will Feature Key Housing Policy Fights" article by Sadef Ali Kully in City Limits

November 19, 2018 “Mayor de Blasio Announces Donna Corrado Stepping Down as DFTA Commissioner” press release from the Office of Mayor de Blasio

November 16, 2018 “New York City nonprofits had a big day at the City Council” article by Zach Williams in New York Nonprofit Media

November 13, 2018 “New Coalition of Affordable Housing Industry Leaders, Tenant Advocates and Labor Calls for Crucial Reforms to State Rent Laws” press release from Enterprise Community Partners

November 8, 2018 “NYC approves its first CCRC” article from Advanced Senior Care, also reported in Crain’s New York and the Jewish Voice

We look forward to continuing to weigh in on aging issues throughout New York City, for upcoming press inquiries, please reach out to Katelyn Hosey at khosey@liveon-ny.org or 212-398-6565 x. 244