High poverty rates for seniors, not surprisingly, can be found in community districts with a low average income. But seniors in booming one-time working-class neighborhoods also are facing a financial crutch.

On the Lower East Side, where the average rent has increased by 50.3 percent since 1990, according to a report by NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, the poverty rate is 37 percent. The poverty figure is 38 percent in Bushwick and 27 percent in Greenpoint, both areas where rents have jumped in recent years.

Overall, 60 percent of city seniors spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, meaning they are “rent-burdened” under federal guidelines.

“In Chinatown, we are hearing of seniors doubling up some sleep with friends on couches,” said Katelyn Hosey, of LiveOn NY, an organization that advocates for seniors.

Hosey joined the crowd that gathered outside of City Hall in May to call for more funding for senior services in a city whose elderly population is expected to double by 2030.

He is receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and benefits from the HASA program administered by the city’s Human Resources Administration. Through that program, he, like many others living with HIV, are able to receive assistance with rental costs, transportation and other necessities. The city will pay 70 percent of rental costs, leaving the person to pay the remaining 30 percent.

This assistance can be used to rent a new apartment at one of these developments.  

Construction began with a ground-breaking on the Crotona site last Thursday.

New York State Commissioner of Homes and Community Renewal RuthAnne Visnauskas was at the event and said the state is proud to be working alongside SAGE and HELP USA.

“All New Yorkers deserve a safe, affordable home with the support and companionship that a robust community offers,” she said. “We are proud … to serve the needs of the aging LGBT community – and all seniors – here in the Bronx.”

The developments are set to be opened in 2019.

On settling in a new home, Phipps is excited at the prospects.

“When I move, the first thing I’m doing is cooking a turkey … I’m gonna cook and tell y’all to come over and eat,” he said. “My blood family won’t deal with me … my new family? I know they’re gonna be there for me.”

 

Even after living in the United States for 43 years, Han-Young Song finds it difficult and often embarrassing to order food in English at American restaurants. And he never likes the Western-style entrees.

Instead, the 77-year-old Song heads to the Korean Senior Center in Flushing, where he can purchase a Korean breakfast for 75 cents and lunch for $1.50.

Breakfast usually includes jook, or porridge, that ranges from savory (vegetables) to sweet (red bean). Lunch includes rice, kimchi, soup and meat.

“Even if it’s the same meat, it’s different,” Song said in Korean. “Here, beef has a Korean marinade. It’s Korean-style cooking. There, they just serve a thick cut of steak.”

In New York City, the senior population is increasingly ethnically and culturally diverse. But most senior centers are not providing culturally appropriate meals to meet the needs of the immigrant population.

“There’s definitely more demand than is being met now,” said City Council Member Margaret Chin, chair of the Council’s Committee on Aging.

More than 300 Korean seniors travel to the Korean Senior Center in Flushing to meet other Koreans, make new friends and play rounds of Go. On Fridays, the center offers seniors extra bagged lunches to take home for the weekends.

“Making sure that senior centers have culturally appropriate meals is crucial to making sure that senior centers are relevant to the multicultural senior population of today,” said Christian González-Rivera, senior researcher at the Center for an Urban Future.

“Because food brings people together, the kind of food a senior center serves speaks volumes about who and who is not welcome there,” she added.

The city’s Department for the Aging distributes Korean meals in Queens, Spanish food in the Bronx and Chinese meals in Lower Manhattan. Overall, the agency provided 7.2 million meals to seniors in its 250 senior centers in 2017.

Some DFTA administrators worry, however, about health risks from comfort foods that are rich in sodium.

In 2017, for the first time since the end of World War II, the number of elderly New Yorkers born outside the U.S. (49.5 percent), nearly matched the number of native-born seniors, according to a report from the Center for an Urban Future.

The senior immigrant population is also growing faster than the native-born elderly population, the report found. The number of immigrant seniors increased by 21 percent between 2010 and 2015, compared to a 6 percent hike in the population of native-born seniors. This trend was most prominent in Brooklyn: The foreign-born senior population rose 30 percent, while the native-born senior population fell 4 percent.

At the Christopher Blenman Senior Center, which caters to a predominantly Caribbean population in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, program director Merlyn Bruce manages the food orders for the kitchen. She ensures that the senior center serves culturally appropriate foods that are compliant with DFTA health standards.

“Most of our food, we don’t cook with salt… [we] enhance the food with the different spices, fresh thyme, oregano,” Bruce said.

The center serves meals with oxtail, peas and rice to the predominantly West Indian senior community. The facility hosts “culture days” where one country is recognized. In March, the seniors celebrated Jamaica.

“Our motto is come to the center and feel a home away from home,” Bruce said.