Elderly Bay Ridge residents are still uncertain about the future of their senior centers eight months after the city nearly shut two of them down because of proposed state budget cuts.
According to New York City’s latest budget function analysis report, state and federal funding provide more than half of the city’s finances for senior centers and prepared meals. When Governor Andrew Cuomo sought to change how federal funds are used earlier this year, 105 senior centers were slated to close, including the Bay Ridge Center for Older Adults and the Fort Hamilton Senior Recreation Center.
Hundreds of Bay Ridge seniors use these popular centers to socialize, for counseling and administrative advice, and to receive benefits from programs such as Meals on Wheels.
“Unfortunately in America, they don’t take care of seniors,” says Janice Shiavo, a senior who works as a receptionist at the Bay Ridge Center for Adults. Shiavo led past petition drives to save the centers.
“If I was [Governor Cuomo’s] grandmother, would he have then closed the center and thrown me out in the street?” she says.
In March, for a second consecutive year, Albany considered redistributing the $103 million the state receives in Title XX federal funding, which is supposed to be for child and family services. An estimated $25 million of the funds are discretionary and the state has been giving it over to senior citizen services. Both Governors David Paterson and Andrew Cuomo have recommended that the entire budget go to child and family services.
Without federal support, the city could lose half of its budget for senior centers and distributed meals.
Cuts to senior services would be problematic for Bay Ridge, a neighborhood recognized by New York state as a Naturally Occurring Retirement Community, which happens when a neighborhood naturally evolves to have a large population of senior citizens. According to the 2008 American Community Survey, 28% of the population in the district that includes Bay Ridge is 50 years old and over.
The scene at the Bay Ridge Center is typical of senior center.
Created by the Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church in 1976, the center is adjacent to the church, in a room with a large open space filled with wooden tables and metal chairs. Most of the seniors who visit the center live on their own; they come to take advantage of the center’s transportation services, subsidized meals, and recreational activities.
William Bosworth and Louis Celi have been visiting the Bay Ridge Center with their senior friends for almost ten years. “People like it here. They got some place to go every day,” Celi says. “They get a meal if they want. They can leave; they can stick around. Two days a week they have two hours of exercise. It keeps them busy.”
The men laugh as they mockingly twiddle their thumbs to show what they when the center closes for the weekend. The center used to be open all week until previous budget cuts forced it to close for the weekend.
Both Bosworth and Celi are in their 80s, live at home, and – besides being hard of hearing – they are relatively healthy. Like most of the seniors who use the center, the two say they enjoy the opportunity to socialize while still maintaining the independence of living at home.
Senior centers like the Bay Ridge Center act like an intermediary service for elderly residents, before they need to heavily depend on full-time help. The center’s staff provides services that don’t require a social or healthcare worker. The staff do things such as arrange transportation with the MTA’s Access-A-Ride or apply for rent control programs.
Samantha Ciegel, a case assistant, is primarily responsible for helping the seniors. Even though she’s nearly 60 years younger than most of them, she acts like their counselor, especially if they seek further government assistance.
“Legally, I can’t do anything. All I can do is refer [a senior] about the steps she can take,” Ciegel says. She is not a licensed social worker and cannot make official recommendations on matters such as entering a nursing home or healthcare facility.
As Ciegel speaks, she already has a line of impatient elderly women waiting for their appointments with her. This is Ciegel’s first job since graduating from university, and she maintains a busy schedule because she is the only case assistant at the center.
Bay Ridge’s city and state elected representatives support continued Title XX funding for senior centers. Senator Marty Golden is on the Senate Aging Committee, which called for Governor Cuomo to keep the senior center funds. Councilman Vincent Gentile sits on the city’s aging committee.
For now, the center also receives funding from the state’s Naturally Occurring Retirement Community program, among others. The church’s pastor, Paul Knudsen, declined to comment on how much of the church’s senior center funding currently derives from Title XX funds or whether the center will remain open in the future without it.
City officials say that their hands are tied for the time being. One official from the Department for the Aging said that her agency has no way of knowing what to expect from the state and federal government or how to plan for the future.
She stressed, however, that even if some centers close, the city will help transport seniors to nearby others.
The city, she added, is also working to create a new model for senior centers: the Innovative Senior Center. The city plans to establish at least two of these new centers in each borough, though it is unclear in which neighborhoods.
Janice Schiavo says she has no idea where the local seniors would go if Bay Ridge Center closes.
For now, seniors there have learned to cope with past service cuts. After losing their fitness instructors, the seniors pooled their money to bring one back. They pay for one lesson while the center pays for the second lesson during the week.
Some of the residents are interested in more than just the services anyway. “I don’t have a girlfriend anymore,” says Bosworth with a chuckle as he looks around the center’s room. “Do you know anybody?”
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