Sound alarm for seniors
ALMOST 20,000 senior citizens are languishing on wait lists for affordable housing on the Upper West Side, with an average wait time of — wait for it — more than a decade, according to a new survey.
“These aren’t just statistics. These are your neighbors, these are people in your community,” said Andrea Cianfrani, director of public policy at LiveOn NY, the senior advocacy group that conducted the study.
LiveOn NY found 19,700 senior citizens on waiting lists in the Manhattan neighborhood. Among those polled, the average wait time was a whopping 10.6 years — or more than a decade for which seniors are stuck in walkup apartments or market-rate units where they struggle to pay the rent.
“That’s 10.6 years of having to make adverse choices in their lives — that might mean going without medications, skipping meals, really just having to make these tough choices that make it difficult to truly thrive in New York City like an older adult
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Rodney should be able to,” Katelyn Hose, a public-policy associate at LiveOn, said. “There’s really a human impact to the numbers that we put out.”
The West Side Federation of Senior and Supportive Housing, a nonprofit that builds affordable senior housing and is seeking to build more on the Upper West Side, said it had to close its waiting lists in the neighborhood.
“The length of time that a senior would have to wait would be literally decades,” said Paul Freitag, the executive director.
The group believes the housing crunch is indicative of things citywide — where a previous survey found 200,000 seniors waiting for affordable housing.
And while the city is looking to develop more affordable units as part of Mayor de Blasio’s housing plan, the population of seniors is only increasing — it’s the fastestgrowing population in the city.
Cianfrani said LiveOn is hoping to educate communities on the need for senior housing and argues that as communities seek to balance issues surrounding new development, they need to consider their older neighbors.
“Seniors need to be part of that decision-making process,” she said.
Freitag’s organization has run into some resistance as it seeks to build a project at W.108th St., on the site of three city-owned parking garages. Plans call for an extension of a senior shelter from 92 beds to 110 beds, along with about 200 units of senior and family affordable housing, which would come with a community clinic open to all.
Affordable senior housing makes it easier and cheaper to deliver social services more quickly, allows for coordination of medical appointments and removes anxiety around safety and security, he said.
A spokeswoman for Mayor de Blasio said building housing for older New Yorkers is a top priority.
“To meet the needs of a burgeoning seniors population, the mayor has doubled down on his commitment to create affordable homes for older New Yorkers — to 30,000. It’s seniors who built this city. Now it’s time to build for them,” Melissa Grace said.
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A FORMER city schools chancellor isn’t ruling out the possibility of taking over the top job at the City University of New York.
Rudy Crew, president of CUNY’s Medgar Evers College, has emerged as a potential candidate to lead the network after Chancellor James Milliken said this week that he will leave at the end of the academic year.
“Of course, it would be an honor to be considered for one of the greatest jobs in the world,” Crew said. “By the same token, I have not had time to even really think about the position, given that Milliken’s announcement is quite recent.”
Crew, 67, said he was mainly focused on his current gig — leading the Brooklyn college named for the slain civil-rights leader.
“Medgar Evers College will remain my focus as we continue to rise and gain attention for our innovative approaches to the most pressing issues in urban education,” he said.
The buzz around Crew comes after Milliken’s decision to step down from running the nation’s largest public urban university system.
“My prognosis is very good, but it changes your perspective on things a bit,” Milliken, 60, told the Daily News.