TESTIMONY
Kimberly George, President of Project Guardianship, on Addressing the Guardianship Crisis in New York City
2:39:07
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3 min
Kimberly George discusses the critical need for effective and adequately funded guardianship services in New York City.
- Project Guardianship is a NYC-based nonprofit providing legal guardianship and preventive services to New Yorkers in need.
- Clients generally lack decision-making capacity due to disabilities, illness, or ageing, and often have no one to act as a guardian.
- The organization stresses guardianship as a last resort, focusing on preserving client dignity and advocating for surrogate decision-making reform.
- George highlights the staff's intensive work and the current crisis due to a shortage of guardians and insufficient funding, referencing a case reported by ProPublica.
- She insists on the necessity to prioritize and adequately fund guardianship services to protect vulnerable residents' rights, health, and safety.
Kimberly George
2:39:07
Thank you.
2:39:08
Thank you, Chair Hudson, for the opportunity present today.
2:39:11
My name is Kimberly George, and I'm the president of project guardianship.
2:39:15
As you know, we are New York City based nonprofit that provides legal guardianship services to New Yorkers in need of surrogate decision making.
2:39:24
We also provide a range of preventative services to help New Yorkers access critical health and social services prior to guardianship.
2:39:31
Doing so helps to ensure that guardianship remains the tool of last resort as it is intended to be.
2:39:37
Because of our varied boots on the ground expertise, we inform guardians ship reform policies and practices.
2:39:43
The people for whom we provide guardianship services have a few things in common.
2:39:48
First, they have experienced an event in their lives that caused them to lose decision making capacity.
2:39:54
That event could be onset the onset of a disability, dementia, serious mental illness, substance misuse, traumatic brain injury, or other conditions that impact their ability to manage their daily activities and potentially put them in harm's way.
2:40:08
The second thing our clients have in common is an absence of family member or friends willing or able to service their guarding.
2:40:14
The majority of our clients are older adults who are aging alone.
2:40:18
This reflects a national trend.
2:40:20
That one third of older adults are living alone.
2:40:23
Finally, our clients have no funds to pay for a private guardian with 96% of them living under 80% the area medium income.
2:40:32
These three factors, loss of capacity, social isolation and lack of financial resources make our clients among the most vulnerable residents of our city.
2:40:40
As such, it is essential that they have advocates looking out for their health, safety, and dignity.
2:40:45
These are our priorities of project guardianship, and we achieve them by deploying multiple multiple disciplinary teams of social workers, lawyers, finance associates and housing and benefit specialists.
2:40:59
We keep our client to staff ratio low because the work that we do on behalf of our clients is intense and time consuming.
2:41:05
We make every effort to keep our clients aging in their homes and communities and out of institutions.
2:41:10
What I'm describing is not only challenging work for our staff is also expensive.
2:41:14
On average, our per client cost is $10,000, and that's for good reason.
2:41:19
When we become somebody's guardian, we manage all aspects of their lives usually for the remainder of their life.
2:41:24
When our docket is full as it is today, we have to tell appointing judges in guardianship parts that we cannot take their appointments because we are at capacity.
2:41:33
We recently heard that in New York City, judges cannot find guardians for half their cases when a guardian is needed any given day.
2:41:41
This crisis and the lack of funding that has led to a shortage of guardians is partly responsible for the case of Judith of Bienovich, which ProPublica did an article that was published yesterday.
2:41:53
If you haven't read the story, it's an account of what can happen when don't invest in good guardianship, mainly the erosion of human rights, dignity, health, and safety at the hands of unscrupulous guardians.
2:42:04
In this case, a guardian posing as a nonprofit To be clear, nonprofits are exceptionally fit to do this work.
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They have deep ties to their communities and diverse skills and knowledge to navigate complex situations.
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Patients.
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They often surpass the court's minimum care requirements for guardian guardians.
2:42:19
And critically, their success is measured not by ability to turn a profit, but rather by their ability to improve outcomes for the people in their care.
2:42:27
New York City's, as you know, population is booming we cannot look away from this crisis any longer, good guardianship must be prioritized and funded adequately.
2:42:36
Thank you very much.
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Jolene Boden, Director of Case Management at Sunnyside Community Services, on the Impact of Funding Cuts on Older Adults Services in New York City