Friday, May 17, 2019

A dozen senior centers are on de Blasio's budget cutting chopping block.


Budget battle over Queens senior centers 1

Queens Chronicle

 
Four senior centers and clubs in Queens are among 12 in New York City Housing Authority complexes that have been targeted for closure in Mayor de Blasio’s 2019-20 executive budget.

The administration says the centers up for closure are underutilized, are in poor condition or both; under the mayor’s plan seniors in the affected centers or clubs would be bused to ones nearby by the city’s Department for the Aging.


In Queens, the sites on the list include the centers or clubs at the Baisley Park Houses and Shelton Houses in Jamaica; the Bland Houses in Flushing; and the Astoria Houses.

In response to an inquiry from the Chronicle, the Mayor’s Office submitted a quote from the mayor in last month’s budget address, and comments made by DFTA Commissioner Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez during her testimony to the Council.

“There will be a cost effective new approach to providing seniors in public housing with access to senior centers rather than the ‘senior clubs’ that had been provided by NYCHA directly,” de Blasio said. “Those clubs, we found were underutilized, could not provide the same quality of service as our DFTA programs could. So, seniors will go to an established senior center that specializes in supporting seniors. There’ll be free transportation provided that will also save us money while providing a better product to our seniors.”

“[M]any of these senior centers were not meeting essential senior center health and safety standards,” Cortes-Vazquez said. “Many are not [Americans with Disabilities Act] compliant and have chronic leaks, flooding and sewage back-up. Additionally, several have low participation rates that resulted in higher than usual per-participant costs.”

But the administration is taking fire from all directions from the City Council.

Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Fresh Meadows) acknowledged that the Shelton Houses building is not a sprawling complex like some other NYCHA developments; and that its senior club is a modest one.

“But it provides vital services,” he said. “And for the sake of saving a few bucks, they’re going to force elderly residents to travel a half mile every day ... It’s just another effort to try and squeeze money out of the NYCHA budget.”

Councilwoman Adrienne Adams (D-Jamaica) said the proposed $800,000 in savings is relative pocket change in the context of a $92.5 billion budget, and that the Baisley Houses center long has suffered from neglect by the city.

“Of course when you don’t offer programs and you don’t keep them in good condition, people are going to stop coming — and then you say they are underutilized?” Adams said. “We’ve seen that closure method before in communities of color.”

In response to de Blasio’s budget proposal last month, Council Speaker Corey Johnson (D-Manhattan) expressed disappointment that the mayor did not consider savings of $1 billion that the Council recommended in order to keep some of its priorities funded.
“We made a good-faith effort,” Lancman said of the Council’s counteroffer. “And we got the back of the hand from the mayor.”

And if the mayor’s intention is frugality, Councilman Costa Constantinides (D-Astoria) and state Senate Deputy Leader Mike Gianaris (D-Astoria) are questioning why the Astoria Houses center is set to shut down just weeks after a $500,000 refurbishment is going to be completed, with money Constantinides secured from the Council in 2014.

“Astoria Houses seniors’ excitement about moving into an upgraded center quickly turned into despair over these proposed budget cuts,” the councilman said in a statement issued with Gianaris. 

“Instead of paying for buses to another center almost two miles away, I ask the administration keep this center open to not disrupt the daily lives of Astoria Houses seniors.”

“Seniors rely on this center for hot meals and recreation but even more importantly to foster a sense of community we cannot put a price on,” Gianaris said. “I urge the administration to do the right thing by our seniors and revisit this proposal so we can keep the doors open.”


14 comments:

georgetheatheist said...

And don't forget the senior centers are hot to trot pick-up spots. Especially those with the djs and the afternoon dancing. Trust me.

JQ LLC said...

Fascinating.

georgetheatheist said...

62 is the new 26. 71 the new...17! I know of where I speak.

Anonymous said...

If 62 is the new 26, is 9:00 PM the new 4:00AM?

Anonymous said...

DeBlasio, champion of the people.

Anonymous said...

How about some of that $850 million Dumbassio STOLE with his wife to finance his ridiculous "presidential campaign"? That would fund a lot of senior centers, along with the gazillions of taxpayer dollars used to feed and breed illegal criminal invaders.

ron s said...

Isn't this guy the great progressive running for President? Closing Senior Centers = another of DeBlasio's long list of accomplishments.

Anonymous said...

Alas, this 'Tall & Stupid' manlet/shithead (and lethal scourge of intense incompetence), is the quintessential, class A narcissist: Arrogant, deceitful, manipulative, greedy, selfish, cowardly and monstrously self-serving. He's also: anarchist, cognitive dissonant, controlling, dishonest, dishonorable, disloyal, derelict, depraved, disingenuous, evasive, 300% false, fake, failed, grandstanding, grotesque, heinous, immature, immoral, indecent insipid, INTENSELY unqualified (for ANY and ALL public service that he's never served), kleptocratic, ludicrous, mad, narcissistic, obscene, pandering, passive-aggressive quixotic, repulsive, revolting, sarcastic, sardonic, tyrannical, unapologetic, unrepentant, vile, vapid and PROFOUNDLY vacuous.

Ignore the facts and issues—but, KEEP ON attacking TRUMP, ad hominem, and watch the dominoes topple in the DNC criminal lineup of epic, humanitarian fail. Also, beating TRUMP is NOT A PLATFORM, YOU IMBECILES!

On the other hand, the DNC, incredulously, have ALWAYS made a tidy living off of stirring a big old pot of shit. Beats honest work, right?

What? WHAT?? THIS IS NEW???

❝Democratic Party: stop scapegoating, look in the mirror, and ask yourself why you cannot landslide the worst, the most ignorant, the most corporate indentured, the cruelest Republican Party in history.❞ — Ralph Nader

❝The brilliance of Bill Clinton was that he transformed the Democratic Party into the Republic Party, and he pushed the Republican Party so far to the right—that it became insane.❞ —Chris Hedges

❝A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?❞ —Marcus Cicero

❝To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist; that is all.❞ —Oscar Wilde

❝The system cannot be fixed by the system.❞ —Tom Morello

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exnaY0l4XsM

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1769957319694866&set=a.292964274060852&type=3&sfns=mo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AajslFuPro

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/343397/Demon-Seed-Movie-Clip-Try-To-Behave-Rationally.html

Anonymous said...

Maybe they forgot why the city started funding senior centers. Nightly news reports of seniors living on dog and cat food because they couldn’t afford anything else. Senior centers were supposed to be close by so they could serve meals to seniors without the need for seniors to spend money on carfare.

ron s said...

This is almost Trumpian---squeeze pennies from the needy to further line the pockets of the rich.

Mick Jagger said...

75 is the new 57.

Anonymous said...

@ron s said...
"This is almost Trumpian---squeeze pennies from the needy to further line the pockets of the rich."

Yes we all know Ron S #orangemanbad #DTS

Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder so I get were you are coming from!

Anonymous said...

That's why he supports the New York Medical Aid in Dying Act

fiscus1 said...

Many facilities "have chronic leaks, flooding and sewage back-up". And they wonder why they are underutilized?