2 THE QUEENS COURIER • DECEMBER 30, 2021 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Looking Ahead to 2022 with
Stronger Aging Services in Place
This year will be known as another challenging
year for our City, but it was also
a year of hope and renewal. Great strides
were made, and we began to see our City
bounce back from a pandemic that upended
our lives.
At the Department for the Aging, we
continued our work in ensuring older
New Yorkers received the critical services
they needed during this crisis. And we
did this while also keeping an eye towards
the future and preparing for a post-COVID
New York City.
I’m proud to say that it has also been a
period in which we achieved significant
goals. Not only were we able to physically
reopen more than 280 older adult centers
and welcome back center members gradually,
we also expanded our services with
new initiatives and introduced a groundbreaking
Community Care Plan that is
changing the landscape of aging services
in our City for the better.
Below are some examples of the work
we have accomplished in the last two years
with the support of our providers, partners
and the older New Yorkers we proudly
serve:
Increasing Department funding:
One of the first things I noticed when
I joined Department for the Aging as
Commissioner is that many of our services
hadn’t changed in 20 years. Meanwhile,
New York’s older population had grown by
38% since 2000 and is expected to continue
growing, with one in five New Yorkers
over the age of 60 by 2040.
To address this population growth, it
was vital that we increase funding for our
services. This required reversing budget
cuts the Department for the Aging had
received between 2000 and 2013. Thanks
to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration,
we were able to reverse all budget cuts
and secure substantial increases in funding
that has been instrumental in executing
numerous initiatives for older New
Yorkers.
Community Care Plan: COVID was
especially devastating for older adults in
institutional care settings. Older adults
who lived at home and close to family
and friends fared better. Yet, to age at
home requires community support and
resources. Without them, families and
older adults sometimes find no other
recourse than institutional care
The Department for the Aging worked
on a plan that would build a network of
support services that enable older New
Yorkers to age in their homes. From this
work came the Community Care Plan, a
groundbreaking five-year plan that will
benefit older New Yorkers, families and
future generations.
In the next five years, this strategic plan
will connect existing City programs and
expand aging services, including transportation
services, virtual programming,
caregiver support, and in-home care services.
For the first year of the plan, the
City has invested $58 million. This investment
will add 31 additional older adult
centers or naturally occurring retirement
communities (NORCs) in underserved
neighborhoods. This will be the largest
expansion of aging services New York City
has had in more than 20 years!
Ageism: Another top goal of mine was
to combat ageism, which is insidious and
rampant in our society. In spring 2021,
we launched Ageless New York a multimedia
campaign that featured real older
New Yorkers who defy stereotypes and
asked individuals to rethink their views
on aging. This fall, Ageless New York was
featured in MTA subways and was translated
to Spanish, Russian and simplified
Chinese.
Addressing Food Insecurity: The physical
closure of older adult centers at the
start of the pandemic meant that thousands
of older New Yorkers no longer
had a place to socialize or receive a hot
meal. We quickly worked with private vendors
to set up a meal delivery system that
distributed more than 1.2 million meals
from mid-March to April. As demand for
emergency meals grew, our meal service
merged with the City’s emergency meal
program, GetFoodNYC.
With the City reopening, our network of
older adult centers reopened their doors
this past summer, welcoming back older
New Yorkers and serving daily nutritious
meals.
Home Delivered Meals: During the
pandemic, we saw an uptick in the need
for our traditional Home Delivered Meals
program, which for the past 30 years has
served homebound older New Yorkers.
This uptick in service need was coupled
with rising food costs. But we were able
to secure additional funding, which will
defray costs to our providers and allow
them to continue providing high-quality,
ethnically diverse meals.
Limiting Social Isolation: Even prior to
pandemic, social isolation in older adults
was a serious issue, causing health problems
like depression, cognitive decline
and heart disease. COVID-19 exacerbated
social isolation in older adults who were
asked to stay indoors. To limit social isolation,
our network staff began placing wellness
check-ins, case management and
social engagement phone calls to older
adults. They continue and to date over 6
million wellness calls have been placed.
We also aired a radio PSA campaign
voiced by Broadway star Lin-Manuel
Miranda in summer 2020. This was successful
in increasing volunteerism for our
Friendly Visiting program, which matches
volunteers with homebound older adults
for weekly check-ins. To expand on this
success, we launched a new volunteer initiative
called Friendly VOICES, which is
based on the Friendly Visiting program
model and is available to all older adults
who are feeling socially isolated.
Bolster Mental Health Programming:
Five years ago, the Department for the
Aging obtained funding to provide onsite
mental health engagement, assessment,
and clinical services at 48 older
adult centers. This program has been a
game changer in reaching and helping
older adults with mental health challenges.
With support from the Mayor’s Office
of Community Mental Health and the federal
grant funding, we plan to expand the
program in 2022 and offer it at 118 older
adult centers!
PSA Campaigns to “Get the Word
Out”: In the past two years, we also
launched public service announcement
(PSA) campaigns related to key issues
affecting older people, including elder
abuse, caregiver support, ageism and
social isolation. Such campaigns not only
educate the public, but also raise awareness
about available services. Recently, we
launched a COVID-19 PSA vaccine campaign
which focuses on engaging and
empowering older adults. The campaign
introduces “Rampage” a sly menace that
is waiting to infect vulnerable older adults
Aging Connect Call Center: One of
our first major accomplishments of 2020
was launching our in-house contact center,
Aging Connect. When the pandemic
hit and the City was under quarantine,
our Aging Specialists were well positioned
to take calls from concerned older adults
and their family and provided important
information on available City resources
and services. To date, Aging Connect staff
have helped more than 100,000 callers and
they continue to help. Anyone with questions
about aging services and resources
can call them at 212-Aging-NYC.
Expansion of virtual services and
technology resources for older adults:
To keep older New Yorkers active and
engaged during COVID-19, our provider
network offered virtual programs and
classes. Being connected online to virtual
services, family and friends was a
lifesaver for many older New Yorkers.
Unfortunately, not all older New Yorkers
have the technological resources to be
connected online. To counter this, we
began distributing 10,000 free Wi-Fiequipped
tablets in November to older
New Yorkers in need. This initiative was
based on the partnership with NYCHA in
2020 to distribute 10,000 tablets to isolated
older NYCHA residents. We have also
started working with the Mayor’s Office of
the Chief Technology Officer to launch a
virtual service finder app that will easily
connect older New Yorkers with a whole
world of virtual programming. We plan
to have the app available for download
next year!
In the last two years, all New Yorkers
have had to readjust their lives to a new
normal. It’s been challenging to say the
least, but it has proved, once again, our
resiliency and adaptability.
I hope you join me in looking forward
to the new year. I also want to take the
opportunity in welcoming Mayor-elect Eric
Adams and his new administration, who
have already
been hard at
work getting
ready for 2022.
It has been a
privilege to
serve older New
Yorkers. Happy
Holidays and
best wishes for
the New Year.
The year 2021 was a year of renewal. For older adults, it meant older adult center
reopenings, COVID-19 vaccine availability, and taking part in new Department for the
Aging services and initiatives.
NYC Department for the Aging
Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez
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