Elderly New Yorkers Throng City Hall to Protest Proposed Cuts to Senior Centers

Department for the Aging faces $80 million reduction on top of previous slashes to programs that provide free meals and social events.

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• The Roosevelt Island Daily News

May 16 5:52pm EDT

Hundreds of older New Yorkers rallied outside City Hall to protest cuts to the city’s Department for the Aging, which could shutter dozens of senior centers and reduce services like meal delivery.

The agency, which had its budget slashed by $20 million last year, faces an additional $80 million in cuts in the budget City Hall has proposed for the coming fiscal year.

Hundreds of people thronged Broadway on Thursday, and many booed Mayor Eric Adams when he was mentioned. The City Council will be holding a hearing on the Department of Aging’s budget Friday. 

“We agree with you,” Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said to the crowd as they chanted “no more cuts.”

Senior advocates pointed out that the Department for the Aging represents a small portion of overall city spending. 

“The agency’s budget represents less than one half of one percent of the city’s entire budget, but the mayor has remained intent on slashing funding for the agency,” Brooklyn City Councilmember Crystal Hudson, who chairs the Committee on Aging, wrote in an email to constituents. 

At the rally, she decried “indiscriminate budget cuts to the programs that keep our communities afloat.”

Department for the Aging Commissioner Lorraine Cortės-Vázquez denied cuts and instead touted the preservation of services. 

“There is no $80 million dollar cut to the NYC Aging budget for FY25, and no centers will be closed. Any claims about budget cuts or center closings are inaccurate,” she said.

Budget documents show an expected reduction of $80 million in the agency’s budge between last fiscal year and fiscal year 2026, which begins next summer.

The budget tightening comes as attendance at the more than 300 older adult centers funded by the department is inching up after the facilities were shuttered in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last summer into the fall, 111,662 older adults visited the centers — an 11% increase from the same time the previous year, according to the Mayor’s Management Report.

Meals served at the centers also saw a sharp increase from last year, with nearly 2 million served to 86,332 older New Yorkers from July through October. That’s a 26% increase in meals and a 17% increase in meal participants . 

“All older adults should be alarmed by the mayor’s proposed cuts to aging services,” Beth Finkel, State Director of AARP New York, said in a statement. 

‘We Have a Nice Time’

The rally came in the midst of another budget season, with City Council hearings and behind-the-scenes negotiations.

Mayor Adams’ most recent executive budget proposal, totaling more than $111 billion, restored some of the cuts he proposed months earlier – but not everything was put back in the budget. 

On Wednesday, the Independent Budget Office — which is funded by the city but analyzes the budget on its own — predicted a $1.1 billion surplus this year. 

That money, rallying older New Yorkers said, should be given to their crumbling centers and cash-strapped programming. 

Winifred McClarin, 77, has attended the Thomas Guess Older Adult Center in Tremont in The Bronx a few times a week for a decade. 

She’s retired from the psychology department at Columbia University and helps serve breakfast and lunch to fellow participants when she’s not doing Zumba or chair boxing or coloring. 

“We have a nice time, and we enjoy it, and we look forward to it,” she said, noting that the cuts are “frightening.” 

“They need to give us more funding because we have a lot of seniors and some seniors don’t have sufficient food, clothing, housing.”

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Frances Garavuso, 85 and from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has attended the Swinging 60s Senior Center for years — just like her mom, who also attended as a senior, she told THE CITY.

In addition to breakfast and lunch there, along with exercise classes and birthday parties, she joins other regulars for trips around the city. Next week, there will be a belly dancer at the center, she said while holding an “Aging is Awesome” sign. 

“If you close the senior centers, where are they supposed to go? Stay home and do nothing and be bored?” she said. “The next step you know is the cemetery.”

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