TESTIMONY
Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez, Commissioner, New York City Department for the Aging on Enhancing Services for Older New Yorkers through Interagency Coordination
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24 min
Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez, Commissioner of the New York City Department for the Aging, testifies on enhancing services for older New Yorkers through interagency coordination and combating ageism.
- Describes the establishment and goals of a cabinet initiated in 2022 to address the needs of New York City's aging population in a coordinated and budget-neutral manner.
- Highlights initiatives such as training healthcare workers on aging services, streamlining rental assistance applications, and combating ageism through education.
- Emphasizes the importance of an age-inclusive city and the proactive measures taken to support older New Yorkers across various city agencies.
- Shares success stories and future plans for expanding anti-ageism education and developing an intergenerational, inclusive approach.
- Advocates for the continued growth of the cabinet and the resolution to promote age-inclusive policies, practices, and programs at a national level.
Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez
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Good afternoon.
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Your honor is done.
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Okay.
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Great.
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Good afternoon, Tier Hudson and members of the city council is great to see so many of you here.
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I am Lorraine Cortez Vasquez, commissioner of the New York City Department for the Aging.
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My pronouns are she, her, and Aya.
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It is a great pleasure to join you today to discuss the New York City Aging's Interagency Coordination.
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On older adult issues, which we are calling the cabinet, which was instituted in 2022, as you've said.
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It is a way to handle the fastest growing demographics, because it what we've been trying to do with this cabinet is coordinate services and try to do it in a budget neutral manner across city agencies.
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And that means that we're looking at existing programs and gaps in services, and that's how we're addressing it.
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The cabinet for older New Yorkers is a unique model.
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That New York City and this administration is using to build an age inclusive city as the chairperson mentioned.
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And it's bringing New York City's agencies to harness the voices of older adults to inform policy systems operations, combat discrimination, and cultivate lasting change.
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And lasting change is what we're going for.
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The current operational issues, but it's with a vision to how should we as a city work towards age inclusive.
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Additionally, NYC does collaborative work with other partner agencies, both within and outside of the cabinet of New York, and I'll give you more on those later.
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As you know, NYC Aging administers arrive a wide range of programs and that enhance the dependence and quality of life for older adult population.
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A key component to NYC Aging's mission is to ensure that all older adults have access to city services and programs at our agencies and within our partners in city government.
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And to work towards reducing barriers that hinder an older adult's ability, the agent place, and with dignity while improving their quality of life.
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As a chairwoman mentioned earlier.
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That is the hallmark of our programs.
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It's a community care plan.
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I am to discuss with you the origins of the cabinet, how it functions, and the recent impacts it has had, and we've seen through the cabinet initiative.
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The cabinet for older adults, for older New Yorkers, ensures collaboration between member agencies, as I said by identifying gaps or barriers in existing services.
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Many of these agents, he's already served older adults in some form of fashion.
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And what we were trying to do is not to do it in silos, but to do it in a collaborative manner.
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Because in the past, it had been, you know, they would come to us if there was an issue.
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And yet they were running older adult services.
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We work to ensure there are no insidious ages and practice as we look at protocols, messages in the operations and outreach and educational messages.
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Today, we have seen impressive progress in several of the initiatives and projects.
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You may wonder why and how does ageism impact service delivery?
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Well, it does.
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It does so due to the work of the cabinet, 972 frontline healthcare workers, about 16% of the total h and h frontline force has been trained to become experts in aging services so that they can or address the older adult when they come in contact to them beyond what their simple what their health needs are.
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Similarly, screen applications are now being processed as a result of the partnership with PEU that is the public engagement unit.
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Where older adults are evaluated by ACS and are now being screened by the I'm sorry.
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It's it's adult protective services.
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And are now being screened for rental up assistance program.
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For 25 years, this program wasn't existed.
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And we have always had a shortage of screen applications.
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And now we're able to say, was a moment.
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Why don't we do a screen applications for every adult protective service applicant?
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Because we know and I'm ad libbing now.
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We know that scree, the earlier you enroll for scree, the greater economic impact it has for the older adults.
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Agism is the last, and you've heard me say this over and over again, is the last critically pervasive social injustice.
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That is pervasive and acceptable of all the discriminations.
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And we must marshal all forms of government and every agency and every member of the council to stand up against ageism.
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That is why I am pleased to see the council's interest and partnership in promoting the work of the cabinet.
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For older New Yorkers and also the chairwoman and the speaker have made commitments to write up ads against ageism.
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The commission the commissioners of NYC Aging will continue to facilitate success for older adults today and tomorrow.
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I applaud you for looking at codifying this cabinet for the future.
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We look forward to discussing a the bill further and to ensure full alignment.
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When the concept of an age friendly environment was first developed more than 10 years ago, differing levels of government and community organizations explored the issue that AG should not be siloed into desperate organizations or structures.
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Because we saw the need for component parts of government to collaborate and innovate to address issues affecting older adults.
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They tried at the time to identify problems between the agencies as needs were identified.
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That's one of the issues where that was one of the times where universal design came up as a practice for the department of HPD.
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While this was necessary first step, the gaps which remain in that need to go further, to collaborate on issues grew organically, originally into the cabinet.
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We are building off the same successes that Collaborative Task Forces have seen on domestic violence, on children's welfare issues, in addressing the needs of older adults.
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This age inclusive approach ensures that we are supporting 2 pillars of our community.
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Which form the bridge of effective social services, which also stabilizes community.
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And that is children or young adults and older adults.
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Through Mayor Adams' commitment to the age inclusive city and the interagency collaboration and promoting government efficiency We are fortunate to have the cabinet.
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It is the first of its kind.
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It is a multiagency collaborative that was created to support services project look at policies, look at practices that benefit older adults across the city.
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The cabinet first met on September 21st 20 22.
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And included at that time were 17 agencies across New York City, intent on coordinating and leveraging their shared resource and their services to develop solution based initiatives and projects to benefit older adults.
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During the inaugural meeting of the cabinet, I was stunned to see that the principles, the commissioners present, all were March of were the majority of them connected to what we were trying to do.
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Because when we asked the question, how many are caregivers?
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More than 80%, I am a caregiver.
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As I know, the the the chairwoman Hudson has also been a caregiver.
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It is a major role in a taxi role, but it immediately was a galvanizing force.
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In the creation of this cabinet.
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And in some ways, everyone that was either taking care of a parent or having a parent take care of their child.
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That initial realization of how fundamental aging services is through New York City was the start of several moment and several moments.
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And we have seen throughout the last 18 months.
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As I have previously said to the committee and to the cabinet members, the cabinet is not a white paper endeavor.
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We don't mean to study demography or social societal impacts on the older adults or to do more research.
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And then simply release a report.
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We are instead using collaborative and collective knowledge across member agency to address real problems that we know about and where we can make a difference and a tangible impact on the life of an older adult.
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That screen example is one of those moments.
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And just like that, we changed a 25 year practice.
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And just like the needs of older adults, cabinet members are diverse and wide ranging.
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They span across the entire administration in a range of government needs, service provided by New York City.
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Participating agencies were identified because of their overlapping focus areas relevant to older adults and to break down any of the silos between the agencies and to accelerate the pro process.
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We wanted to really eliminate any of the hindrances to older adult access to critical services.
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At present, that number has grown to 24, including the Department of Transportation, Department of Health And Mental Health, and mental hygiene, police department, NYPD, Department of Parks And Recreation, Department of Veterans Services, and housing and preservation and development just to name a few.
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There are 4 working groups, essentially, function as subcommittees.
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Their health, housing, intergenerational, and then outreach and engagement.
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And that is where ages and comes in place.
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We make make sure that language is important.
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How you call me, what you say I am, you need to be accurate and not ages in it.
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The working groups are populated by 45 agency staff liaison who are and regular liaison meetings hosted in person by New York City aging in our small quarters.
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These layered zones work independently with their counterparts and initiatives developed in the working groups.
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All focused on those four areas I discussed before.
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On a quarterly basis, the working groups present the initiatives and the outcomes to the larger group.
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This is very outcome based.
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And that's the focus.
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And then the working groups then developed and set the ground rules for systemic change and long term impact.
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While responding to current gaps and needs.
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And while liaisons regularly attend meetings where they report out on their status of the initiative, it is incumbent on the liaisons to meet independently and continue working on their pieces ahead of the quarterly meeting to the principal.
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I also submit a monthly report to each of the commissioners on the progress that's being made by their working and the staff on their groups.
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In the past, these cabinet initiatives had yielded tangible impacts for older adults by making meaningful changes through agency collaborations.
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One incredible example is the step we've been taking to ensure that agencies and member agencies are experts on aging services.
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And we can see that overlap where their services combined with the other needs of older adults.
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In the past, he is something like and I mentioned this before, the old adult protective services, had never done before, that now has become routinized.
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And that is to just add screen or d as part of the application process.
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Notably, it's through this collaboration with the mayor's office of public engagement.
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That also is a frontline staff on training program requirements and learn how to complete the application.
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So there's a dual role that we all have.
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It's the what's the gap, and then how do we fill that gap, and then what's the training that's needed?
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Think think of how many older adults are now better served when they're encountering APS staff.
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With and then now the city can ask them how are they are their screen tenant, and how can we assist them completing that application.
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Similarly for the New York City Department, police department, deputy commissioner Mark Stewart, was part of a of the cabinet's quarterly principles meeting since its inception.
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As commissioners would organically discuss issues facing older adult, public safety came up repeatedly.
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Through previous commissions and working groups on domestic violence, NYPD established a domestic violence officer in each precinct who is trained to handle those specific services.
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When deputy Stewart heard of such early ideas regarding making NYPD officers experts in aging issues.
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It was his present that pulled that idea across the finish line.
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And saw the creation of the new NYPD older adult liaisons.
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Last year on World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, I was joined by Mayor Adams, and the leadership from NYPD to announce the alignment of the older adult liaisons.
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In every precinct and every police service areas, the PSAs, to better enhance public safety for older adults.
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But it's also so that The officer sees the older adult, not just as a victim, but what are some of the other needs that they may have?
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This shows how important is to have the correct people in the room as we discuss and develop cabinet initiatives to really see the success of these ideas and who can navigate them through their agency.
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Finally, across many agencies, we have seen the power of intergenerational relationship between young people and older adults in combating ageism.
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When young people see what older adults experience, They and they feel too that they're connected to an older adult's experience.
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That brand is what breaks cycles of ages, and we've seen that in our family.
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We can see that in our community.
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Through NYC Public Schools, DOE, work on the cabinet.
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We've developed an anti agism curriculum.
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Which has so far toward over 1350 high school students, a on New York and New York and their families to address ages and discrimination at an early age, which is the most effective way for systematic change.
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I want you to know that this idea of bringing in agism into the school was generated by a high school student who interned at New York City AG.
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I wish I could take credit for it, but it was from from the mouth of them saying, Everything that we see about older people, either in Disney or elsewhere scary, and it's dumb.
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And it's negative.
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And so they gave us the idea to start, how do we do this differently?
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And as a result of that, we develop a guide which is now used in in New York City Public School Systems.
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The initiative helped students identify ageism And then they learn what they can do as youth to stop the you know, how to stop perpetuating that, and how to stop themselves aging having aging stereotypes.
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And if you really ask yourself, we all have them, and we need to constantly be conscious of of that.
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Our next step here, which is still underway, is to expand this program to more than city high schools and to begin teaching younger students in the middle and elementary schools to further bolster anti agism education.
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And as I always say to everyone, These are gonna be our future employers.
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These are gonna be our future employees.
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And we want them and our future members of society.
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We want them to have anti ageism.
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Categories.
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We want them to embrace age inclusive.
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Start that young.
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This is a true system of sensation of the work of the cabinet.
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Through our collaborations, we were able to bridge a gap in educational understanding to combat a form of discrimination.
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We believe that this is new information on stereotypes help our future employees and leaders have productive attitudes and behaviors.
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Towards their older workers who will be colleagues and probably fellow employees.
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That is why we was never pit, and I'm gonna say this over and over again.
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Yes, our budget is let yes, I agree with and I the facts that you have mentioned in your opening chair.
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But we must never pick the needs of these 2 vital pillars in our community against each other.
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Those needs are equally important.
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Together, younger people and older adults are the foundation of this city.
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That can make and build our communities.
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And the work of the cabinet is fundamental to building community at the local level and eventually, and the strongest society across this city.
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The next steps.
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In 2023, directly because of the work happening with cabinet of older New Yorkers.
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New York City Aging submitted a resolution to the US conference of mayors calling on cities to promote and adopt age inclusive approaches to local policy, practices, and programs in a commitment to achieving an elevated standard of being as an age inclusive city.
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It was not enough to say that we were just an age friendly city where we were having benches and parks and accessible buses.
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But we are also say proud to say that we wanted policies and legislative changes.
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New York City was named 1 of the was named the 1st age friendly city in the United States.
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So we were pushing further to ensure age inclusive.
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Became a broad spectrum of needs for older adults.
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Additionally, this accepted the additionally the conference of May has accepted and ratified our resolution and is working with NYC Aging to convene a national age inclusive working group.
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So far, we have shared this information, and I believe that we have 13 cities involved in this initiative.
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Albuquerque, Chicago, Des Moines, Houston, Kansas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Seattle, Lassem.
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We've targeted other cities across the country that have large populations and growing populations much like New York City.
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Many of the cities in volunteers have over 20% of their population.
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We're meeting regularly with their area agencies on agings.
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They've triple a's to explore collaborative opportunities and addressing the needs of older adults.
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It's not just important to change the impact here.
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When we talk about ages and we know that ages and is national.
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And if we can do it here, we can make sure that we can serve as a model for other cities.
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Next, we'll be our 3rd meeting with these groups to discuss models and models of engagement.
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And I've been real clear with these cities This is not about New York, you know, the finest and the greatest.
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We know we know that.
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But it's also about showcasing some of the advances that they've made because it's just that's just as important.
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We look forward to what is is in store for the cabinet for older in New York.
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As I stated earlier, a number of partner agencies has grown.
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And we are deep into phase 2 initiatives.
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As those initiatives wrap up, we'll release another report, which will be posted on the cabinet website, which is online, and all those goals and outcomes are also listed.
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Additionally, I was NYC Aging is working towards the upcoming release of an older adult needs assessment, a survey of older adults throughout New York City.
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Beyond those who just participated in services.
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And this came to us from one of our our cabinet members, Mitch Katz, doctor cats from h and h.
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And he said, no.
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Let's not just ask for needs because people don't even know.
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That some of their needs are being met because they're getting services now.
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We wanna get a whole picture of what needs are being met and which ones are not.
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And so our needs assessment now includes all services, whether your your needs are being met by current services.
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That was important to us.
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We've identified key community districts in all five boroughs.
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And we're reaching out to your offices to further develop opportunities to reach out to older adults.
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And we are reaching out communities where we see the diversity and where we also see the growing number of older adults.
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Beyond the cabinet for older New York, all the New Yorkers.
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We're continuing to find opportunities to work with our partner agencies on a range of issues.
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Some opportunities do not reach cabinet level initiatives.
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But typically have and do do not mean that they're any less important.
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Our work with DOT in the past and we've worked on a pedestry older adult pedestrian service, a survey for years, and and it's always been informative.
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And as a result of that earlier work, we were able to place no standing zones in front of older adult centers so that they can have it.
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Easy access and egress.
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And we're in the path of doing that for all sites.
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We have a plan to do that for all sites.
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But right now has developed other initiatives such as their recurring traveling surveys.
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They include older adult perspectives and outreach and considering what and hearing what they're from older adults directly.
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So they do these tours of the community.
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So that they can in real time show the city's engineers, are the lights too long, are the lights too fast, are, you know, the curve cuts there and all of those things.
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Additionally, we work with our department of finance colleagues to create a series of events at older dog clubs in targeting neighborhoods to increase subscriptions to Scream.
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This collaboration is reoccurring and has made an impact on getting more information to older thoughts about the benefits.
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In conclusion, I love this work.
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This cabinet has really made a difference.
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And it's made a difference in a lot of ways.
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It's made a difference because not only is it collegial, but it shows other agencies how we can work together and how we can get past the morass that we each built.
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In some of these agencies and how we can just cut through that.
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These are proactive upstream solutions for downstream issues.
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Many of these have been occurring for a long time, and we're just gonna go past them as fast as we get.
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While we continue this extensive work to ensure older adults can have access to programs, as well as other city services, We recognize there's a lot to be done, but the most important thing is we want older New Yorkers to stay in New York and to live vibrant lives.
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Older New Yorkers allow us to this cabinet allows us to continue to break down barriers to look at what legislation is needed and to always think what should be the horizon as agencies that we should be doing.
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So I'm gonna thank you, Chairwoman Hudson and the committee members, and I look forward to some of your questions.
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I look forward to having all of you write articles about ageism.
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I will give you drafts if because this has to be of a company of sound throughout the city.
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And also, I love your input.
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So anyway, I look forward to answering your questions.
