PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Kevin Kiprovski, Director of Public Policy at LiveOn NY
2:00:22
·
3 min
Kevin Kiprovski from LiveOn NY testified about the urgent need for increased investment in services for older adults in New York City, emphasizing the importance of addressing housing issues and preventing budget cuts to aging services. He highlighted several key recommendations to improve the Community Care Plan and support the aging population.
- Called for bold new investments from the mayor to address the growing crisis in older adult services, particularly in housing
- Urged against any budget cuts to aging services, recommending instead a significant increase in funding for DFTA and all aging services
- Emphasized the need for dedicated city capital funding to repair and upgrade older adult centers, along with reforms to allow easier access to these funds
- Recommended reassessing case management caseloads and creating a special program for high-needs clients
- Advocated for reforming nutritional programs to increase the number of meals provided to homebound older adults and those attending centers
Kevin Kiprovski
2:00:22
Good afternoon, everybody.
2:00:23
My name is Kevin Kuprowski, and I'm the director of public policy at Live On New York.
2:00:27
Thank you so much for your continued work and for the opportunity to testify here.
2:00:31
Just for context, Livon's members include more than a 110 community based nonprofits that provide core services under the NYC aging portfolio and many other home and community based aging services in our city.
2:00:41
I just wanna open by saying, we all know what the problem is.
2:00:44
The that the community care plan document was written years ago and outlines the fact that our demographics are changing and there's huge needs that comes with it means that the background I have written here is just kind of already accepted in this hearing.
2:00:55
So that's good that we're all on the same page here.
2:00:58
But we really need the mayor to make bold new investments now.
2:01:01
I feel like for the past couple of years, we've been talking about a precipice about, you know, a crisis that's coming.
2:01:06
But I think we're kind of starting to to hit that, especially when it comes to housing as an issue.
2:01:12
Mentioning that with the community care plan because a lot of these services become moot if people don't have places to live.
2:01:17
You can have a home care aid if you don't have a home, which is a huge problem that we're facing.
2:01:21
I mean, right now, the rate of homelessness for older adults is at an all time high and growing at a rate three times higher than any other population.
2:01:30
So one thing that we would recommend is that any future work with the community care plan in the next decade shows a lot more work with HPD to understand how we can ensure older adults can stay in their homes.
2:01:40
Because without a housing component, There is no community.
2:01:43
We're gonna have a lot of folks on the street.
2:01:45
We're also just like Tara was talking about fighting to make sure that we don't cut the already low budgets for any of our service programs.
2:01:51
$80,000,000, $71,000,000, a $121,000, any of those numbers for the fiscal cliff could could catastrophic the budget's $460,000,000.
2:01:59
All of those are on an entire quarter of the budget.
2:02:01
So we absolutely cannot make that cut.
2:02:04
If we're talking about meeting the upcoming needs, we actually need an incredible investment and Care Hudson, you've called for this as well, and we're so grateful to have your leadership on this is just doubling, tripling the DIFTA budget, and also all budgets for aging services.
2:02:16
We're gonna be doing a lot more work in that, so stay tuned for that.
2:02:19
Next is creating a dedicated city part of capital funding to keep centers in good repair.
2:02:23
You don't have a place to provide services, you can't provide services.
2:02:26
A lot of centers like Council member banks was saying earlier are falling apart and there's actually no way to repair them because as our next recommendation says, capital funding rules don't actually allow people to get money.
2:02:37
There's a lot of site control issues, which means that if you don't have specific leases with specific people, you can't actually get money.
2:02:43
We have places who have gotten tens of 1,000,000 of dollars from outside actors, but can't use it through their DIFTA contracts because of these arcane rules.
2:02:50
So even if we are able to get a capital pot, we have to make sure people can use it.
2:02:54
Otherwise, we're gonna fall into the, oh, people aren't using money.
2:02:55
So we have to take it away from them line that o m b loves to say so much.
Darcy Connors
2:02:58
Yeah.
Kevin Kiprovski
2:02:58
So we need to make sure oh, sorry.
Crystal Hudson
2:03:00
No.
2:03:00
I was just saying yes.
2:03:01
Yeah.
Kevin Kiprovski
2:03:02
Oh, yeah.
2:03:02
Absolutely.
2:03:03
I think we all are in that boat too.
2:03:05
The last two things I want to say is, 1, we really need to look at our case management program that was mentioned in the community care plan as well.
2:03:11
But the reality now is different than 3 years ago, where we have some really high needs clients, and we have folks who are spending most of their times on clients who are released from the hospital to homes that have fallen apart, and then they're expected to do 72, 85 clients a year when they can't even, you know, meet the needs of that one client.
2:03:28
So we're calling for a reassessment of the case management case loads down from 1 to 72, but also having a special program for high needs clients that gets as low as 1 to 20.
2:03:37
And the last one is reforming nutritional programs to match the reality of those using them.
2:03:41
I think we've really been fighting around the edges of nutrition issues over the last couple of years, and we talk about increasing rates, but we really need to increase the number of meals.
2:03:49
Homebound New Yorkers only get 5 meals a week from the city and are usually unable to get more food.
2:03:53
And a lot of folks who go to centers, that meal is the only meal they get in a day.
2:03:56
And I don't know about anyone else here, but I usually 3 meals a day, and we really need to take that seriously for everyone in our city, especially when we know that a lot of folks aren't getting any more food than that.
Crystal Hudson
2:04:07
I'm just gonna ask ask you to wrap up.
Kevin Kiprovski
2:04:09
Yep.
2:04:10
Since we're over.
2:04:10
Absolutely, you know, I think I was just done there.
2:04:11
So I
Crystal Hudson
2:04:12
was gonna say
Kevin Kiprovski
2:04:12
thank you so much for the opportunity.
2:04:13
I know that you're you're an incredible champion for aging, and we're so lucky that we get to work with you.
2:04:18
I know.
2:04:18
Yeah.
2:04:18
Thank you.
Crystal Hudson
2:04:19
Thank you so much.
