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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Member of Public on Senior Life and Housing in New York City
5:31:40
·
3 min
An unhoused senior testifies about the importance of senior centers in New York City, emphasizing their role in providing essential services and fostering community cohesion. The speaker highlights the challenges faced by seniors, particularly in housing, and the stabilizing effect senior centers have on neighborhoods.
- The testifier is currently unhoused but paying rent to friends in Councilwoman Hudson's district.
- Housing is identified as the biggest problem for seniors, both historically and currently.
- Senior centers are praised for providing activities, food, case management, and peer support across diverse ethnic groups.
UNKNOWN
5:31:40
Good afternoon.
5:31:43
And Councilman Brennan, I congratulate you on your being able to listen to all of this very difficult testimony from beginning to end.
5:32:01
And I do thank you very much for your work, all of you on the city council, in trying to keep the senior life of New York City livable, especially in the face of what is coming down from Washington.
5:32:23
I myself am unhoused right now and am paying rent though to good friends who live I'm sorry she's not here, in the district of councilwoman Hudson.
5:32:43
I am very grateful to the other people of this city, some of whom are seniors, who are helping each other with housing.
5:32:52
Housing has always been the biggest problem of seniors.
5:32:56
I worked for a subliman Woody Lewis for years ago and housing was the biggest problem then and it still is now.
5:33:06
I have with me Carolyn Johnson who is the president of the Albany Senior Center and also the president of the NYCHA Albany houses.
5:33:22
She has two incredible jobs to deal with because the Albany, houses are also, a nonprofit, and are not the city does not own the building neither do they own the other buildings under Fort Greene.
5:33:42
So that is really why we are here today.
5:33:45
We are here to learn because we've heard of how difficult it is for these senior centers to stay open, and it's what we wanna see because we need the activities, the food.
5:33:59
We need that experience of of the case manager, which I am using and used to be a case manager myself.
5:34:07
We we also, Carolyn has pointed out how important it is that the peers are helping each other in these places.
5:34:19
And I would point out that we are in Crown Heights.
5:34:24
We are in a rapidly changing community everywhere with ethnic groups that are competing at times for scarce resources.
5:34:35
And the seniors who come to these centers from all these different ethnic groups and come and try to get together across their religious and their and their racial and their every other kind of similarities and differences, it is very important, I believe, that we are a stabilizing factor in our neighborhoods because we go to those centers and we learn how to work out problems and work together.
5:35:05
So when you are trying to get that money out of OMB, which I know is probably the hardest place to get it, I hope you will remind them that we are helping to keep the peace in New York City.
5:35:21
We have the experience.
5:35:22
We have the years of doing it, and we are still doing it.
5:35:27
So thank you very much for your time, and there is a lot more I would have liked to say, but know, I think we said it Carolyn.