Senator Addabbo: "Our Seniors Should Not Be Used As Tools of The City & State Budget Negotiations...

NYS Senator Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr. (D-Queens), a member of the Senate’s Committee on the Aging, today released the following statement on the proposed transfer of Title XX funds from senior centers to children’s programs:

Our growing senior population has enough to worry about these days, and I believe it was wrong for the mayor to release the list of possible senior center closures and use our seniors as tools of the budget negotiations with the state.

Our senior centers do not have to close, regardless of the amount of money the City receives from the state budget. If the City collects the outstanding liens and judgments owed to it and alters its outside contracting practices, it would have more than enough money to keep the senior centers open. By simply utilizing our city workers more efficiently, the realized savings would more than pay for the centers. For example, if the City used its sheriffs more than the outside marshalls, it would witness significant savings.

I also intend to continue my efforts to ensure that the Title XX funding in our state budget is used for the purposes of retaining our senior centers.

We have a growing senior population that should be respected, not used as victims by the City or State during budget negotiations.

Petition Drive Held To Save Queens Senior Centers by: CeFaan Kim- NY1.com

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State budget shortfalls may force more than a hundred senior centers to close in a matter of months, and that has many seniors in Howard Beach angry and frustrated.

Queens Senior Center at Risk: State Budget Cuts Could Close Lifeline by Lisa L. Colangelo - NY Daily News

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Eleanor Errante (left), 89, and two pals socialize at the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Senior Center

The neighborhoods of Woodhaven and Richmond Hill are so close that their borders often blur.

But when a senior center closed in Woodhaven nearly two years ago and residents were offered the chance to go to a facility in Richmond Hill, many opted to stay home.

Thanks to an unusual partnership, a new senior center opened on Jamaica Ave. in Woodhaven - also providing a steady stream of income for a struggling volunteer ambulance corps.

"This has made my life much happier," said Stella Pyatok, 89, who played cards at the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Senior Center last week with friends while waiting for lunch. "I'm here practically every day."

The center celebrates its official opening on Friday. It serves more than 70 seniors a day at its renovated space at the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Volunteer Ambulance Corps site.

The cash-strapped corps gets a monthly rent check.

"I'm just so glad to see they have somewhere to go," said Kathy Sexton-Dalbey, chief operating officer of the ambulance corps. "People don't realize how much these senior centers mean. I see what happens when they live alone and don't get checked on."

Queens Borough President Helen Marshall and other elected officials came up with the funds to renovate the facility so it can be used as a senior center.

Everyone is hoping those efforts weren't for naught. Catholic Charities of Brooklyn and Queens, which operates the facility under a contract with the city, just found out that it is one of 22 centers that could close if vital state funds aren't restored.

Eleanor Errante, 89, who has lived in Woodhaven since 1933, said the center is a safe place for seniors to get a nutritious meal, companionship and mental stimulation.

"Sometimes this is the only hot meal some seniors have for the day," Errante said.

Debbie Hoffer, director of field operations, and site manager Pat Critelli said the center also focuses on senior health with exercise classes, including yoga and t'ai chi.

"The number of people coming grows every day," said Hoffer. "And all we keep hearing is 'wait until the weather gets better' because even more will be here."

Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Senior Center Gets New Sign...

When I attended the last Woodhaven Residents Block Association meeting at the Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Volunteer Ambulance Corp there was a new sign for the newly relocated Woodhaven-Richmond Hill Senior Center hanging outside the building. It's a lovely new sign, one problem though...maybe someone should have proofread the sign before accepting it...the word Neighborhood is spelled wrong..!

The sign might be a moot point if Mayor Bloomberg gets his way since this is one of the many seniors centers on his list to be closed...

Shame on you, Mayor Bloomberg,,!

Assemblyman Mike Miller: Keep Our Senior Centers Open...

It's budget season - which means that, once again, vital services are in jeopardy to our most vulnerable citizens. Over the past several weeks I have heard concerns from worried senior citizens that their centers are going to be closing. These senior centers give our seniors a place to go, eat, and socialize with other members of the community. When money is cut from these programs, these services are put in serious jeopardy and are at risk. 

We needn’t put our seniors in this position every year, and we certainly shouldn’t. There are two sources of funding that can save these services that are not being currently utilized.

First is Title XX funding. Title XX money is a grant given to New York from the federal government. There is mandatory spending ($66 million) on Adult Protective/Domestic Violence Services, and there is discretionary money ($36 million). About $24 million of this discretionary funding is spent on senior centers. In this year’s budget, Governor Cuomo is attempting to take the discretionary Title XX money and use it to cover other state expenditures unrelated to senior programs. This will cost the seniors of New York City around $24 million in cuts. If we were to mandate that the $24 million must be spent on senior services solely, senior centers across the city could remain open and fully operational.

The second source of funding is through member items. Several years ago, each member of the Assembly was allotted a certain amount of money that they could give to the organizations in their communities. This funding allowed civic organizations to operate, services to be provided to the needy, and senior centers to remain open and fully functional. Last year, this funding was completely cut by the Governor. If this funding was restored, every senior center in the City would have multiple sources of revenue and could keep their doors open.

I hope you will join in me in saying enough is enough. It is time to stop playing games with services to our senior citizens. I ask everyone reading this article to reach out to the Governor and ask him to mandate Title XX money for seniors and restore member item funding so we can finally give our seniors the peace of mind they deserve.

Forest Park Senior Center Faces Closure by Anna Gustafson - Queens Chronicle

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The proposed state budget cuts to senior services could force the Forest Park Senior Center to shutter its doors for good, leaving older residents from throughout southern Queens without a place many said gives them a reason to get up in the morning.


“It’s very dismal,” said Donna Caltabiano, executive director of the center located at 89-02 91 St. in Woodhaven. “We’re looking at closing in June.”

Forest Park Senior Center, which relies primarily on funding the borough president’s office typically gets through the state, is one of about 110 centers city officials said could close if state legislators approve Gov. Cuomo’s proposed budget.


Cuomo has called for about $25 million to be carved from monies usually allocated for the city’s senior centers, which represents about one-third of the city’s funding for the programs, according to officials from the city Department for the Aging.


“Any senior center that gets state and city funding has to be concerned at this point,” said state Sen. Joe Addabbo Jr. (D-Howard Beach). “Forest Park is a snapshot of other centers who will find themselves in dire circumstances.”


Addabbo said he is pressuring state officials to cut elsewhere and restore funding for seniors.


“I don’t care if a center has 300 or three people,” Addabbo said. “That center is needed, certainly in these tough times.”


Seniors gathered for lunch and to play their daily round of bingo at Forest Park on Tuesday said news about the potential closure was devastating.


“It really keeps us alive to come here,” said Anna Luongo, 95, of Woodhaven. “The center means everything in the world to me.”


Many of those who attend the center are older seniors in their 80s and 90s and said the support they receive from friends and employees there is crucial, particularly because many of them have lost spouses and friends.


About 55 seniors come to the center for lunch four days a week.


“We need each other,” said Evelyn Yantis, 88, of Richmond Hill. “This is what makes me happy, coming here. I wake up, I get dressed, and I want to come here.”


Joseph Palladino, a decorated World War II veteran who lives in Woodhaven, echoed others’ sentiments and said the center provided a much needed support base after his wife of nearly 60 years died in 2004.


“It gives people an incentive to get up in the morning and go out and be with people,” Palladino said. “If they didn’t have this place, they’d just stay home, put the television on, skip lunch and just rot away.”


For Palladino, the center has become not just a place to play bingo and cards but to do what he has become quite adept at — flirting.


Nicknamed the “kissing bandit,” Palladino noted he is legally blind so he has had to pursue hobbies other than reading or watching television.


“I’ve had to take up catching girls,” Palladino said and winked.


Other senior center officials said they were unsure as to whether or not the facility would have to close, but Howard Beach Senior Center Director Ike Albala said any cuts to funding for elderly residents in the borough would be a harsh blow to a vulnerable population.


“If they don’t have a place where they can go and interact with their peers, where they can go for meals and access services, it becomes a stifling kind of existence,” Albala said. “It would be quite a shock if we closed. A lot of our members are within walking distance, and there’s no other center within walking distance.