The New York City Council’s Committee on Aging on Monday held a long overdue hearing to better understand what’s happening with the Community Care Plan for older adults. What’s happening is obvious: the city’s Department of Aging has not received the funding it needs to fully implement what could be a brilliant model for making New York City a better place to age.
The plan, announced in 2021 by then-Mayor Bill De Blasio, was intended to help older New Yorkers age in place, with programs and services in their existing communities so they can continue to live at home. Not only is helping keep people safely in their homes 20% of the cost of institutional care, it’s better for our older loved one’s physical and mental health and reduces social isolation.
I know how important it is for this plan to succeed. At Encore Community Services, the organization I lead, we have close to 1,300 registered homebound people who get home-delivered meals, but one meal a day five days a week is not enough. We are funded by the city to match only 150 of those people with friendly visitors, although more than 90 percent of them live alone.
We have close to 2,000 older adults registered at our Older Adult Centers with only three city-funded case workers to help them navigate the many issues that come with aging in New York City on a fixed or limited income. Those caseworkers barely make a living wage themselves. And this doesn’t even touch on the crisis our city faces with connecting people to high quality and affordable homecare.
Polling shows that older adults want to remain at home and in their communities. But they may face impaired mobility, health challenges, economic insecurity because of a reliance on low-paying government programs and require unique housing support and in-home services.
Helping them is critically important for the future of New York City. Older adults are projected to make up 15 percent of the city’s population by 2040, a 40 percent increase in the 20 years between 2020 and 2040. Nearly one in eight older New Yorkers is currently living in poverty, with higher rates for Black, Hispanic, Asian, and immigrant older adults. Many older New Yorkers are uninsured, underinsured, and/or food insecure.
For New York City to truly be a great place to age, the Department for the Aging needs a massive infusion of cash, we believe at least three percent of the city budget, so the Community Care Plan can become a reality. Our city’s older adults deserve it.
