*Central Brooklyn Insights elder
SUMMARY •
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•
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Brooklyn Community Foundation received from two endowed field of interest funds a total of over $10 million in late 2018 to serve older adults in Brooklyn. The Foundation then completed an Elders’ Insights process of community-informed strategic planning, including stakeholder interviews, 15 community conversations involving approximately 150 older Brooklynites, and 2 leader roundtables Four areas of need emerged from the community conversations: older adult programs, accessibility, program qualification, and healthcare coverage Leader roundtables focused on and responded to these themes by discussing potential opportunities for advocacy, existing services, and current service gaps
• Final Strategy and approach as well as grant guidelines will be released in fall 2019
INTRODUCTION Community foundations steward the growth of charitable assets to meet community needs by working with donors strategically to address local issues. As such, in late 2018 Brooklyn Community Foundation launched the Brooklyn Elders Fund, seeded generously from two endowed field of interest funds 1 totaling $10 million. The source of the funds is the result of the sale and closing of two Brooklyn nursing homes, assets from which will remain and continue to serve older adults in Brooklyn in perpetuity. This permanent fund will support the welfare and care of Brooklyn’s older adults, with a portion specifically allocated towards supporting elders of color in Central Brooklyn. As a result, the Brooklyn Elders Fund will be distributing approximately $500,000 annually towards the benefit of our older adult community.
1
These funds were received under the name of the CABS Community Foundation Fund and The Fund for the Health and Integrity of Seniors. Elders’ Insights, July 2019 | 1
OUR APPROACH Brooklyn Community Foundation takes pride in its history of communityinformed strategic planning. In January 2014, Brooklyn Community Foundation launched the Brooklyn Insights community engagement project in a unique effort to hold a dialogue across neighborhoods about Brooklyn’s future. Nearly 1,000 residents and local leaders participated in the process, sharing their concerns about challenges in their communities and sectors, as well as opportunities they saw for positive change in a borough where nearly half of all residents are living in or near poverty. Five major themes emerged as a result of that project: Neighborhood Cohesion, Youth, Criminal Justice, Immigrant Communities, and Racial Justice. These five themes have helped guide the Foundation’s vision and mission for its work and approach to funding community-based initiatives.
In developing an approach for the Brooklyn
Elders Fund, the Foundation maintained a commitment to community-led solutions in developing a vision and mission for the Fund. A smaller scale Insights project was conducted called Elders’ Insights, to inform community priorities and how the Foundation works to support them.
AGING IN BROOKLYN By 2035, older adults – defined as age 65 or above – will outnumber children younger than 18 for the first time in U.S. history. 2 Brooklyn is at the forefront of this unprecedented demographic change as the county with the largest older adult population in New York State. 3 In fact, our borough’s older population increased by 18% between 2007 and 2017, a change driven almost entirely by
2
United States Census Bureau. “Older People Projected to Outnumber Children for First Time in U.S. History.” census.gov Mar. 13, 2018. www.census.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/2018/cb18-41-population-projections.html 3 González-Rivera, et al. “New York’s Older Adult Population Is Booming Statewide.” Center for and Urban Future (CUF), Feb. 2019, nycfuture.org/research/new-yorks-older-adultpopulation-is-booming-statewide. Elders’ Insights, July 2019 | 2
the 39% growth in the older immigrant population over the past decade. 4 These statistics show yet another significant demographic change in the aging population experienced across the state and particularly evident in Brooklyn – that is, a more diverse older adult population than ever before. Older
adults
also
face
unprecedented challenges as the borough continues towards increasing
financial
inequity.
Brooklyn is home to the largest
“It is not easy to live in Brooklyn. If you can live here, you can live anywhere else.”
number of older adults living in
— Flatbush Insights elder
poverty in New York State. 5 Furthermore, there are stark differences in the poverty rates of older adults based on race and ethnicity. Among older New Yorkers, about 11% of White older adults live below the poverty line compared to 18% of Black older adults, 23% of Asian older adults, and 28% of Latinx older adults. 6 Despite the persistent presence of such challenges to the city’s increasing aging population, the state’s Office for the Aging spends 40% less per older New Yorker than it did in 2000, after adjusting for inflation. 7 This comes at a time when the average cost for an elder couple renting a one bedroom and living independently was $3,216 per month in 2016 8 with costs likely skyrocketing since, as a result of increased gentrification. Such alarming circumstances highlight the need for additional support for Brooklyn’s aging population.
4
González-Rivera. González-Rivera. 6 New York City Comptroller. “Aging with Dignity: a Blueprint for Serving NYC’s Growing Senior Population.” Comptoller.nyc/gov. 21 Mar. 2017, comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/agingwith-dignity-a-blueprint-for-serving-nycs-growing-senior-population/. 7 González-Rivera. 8 “Elder Index Result.” IWPR, 2016, www.basiceconomicsecurity.org/EI/location.aspx. 5
Elders’ Insights, July 2019 | 3
ELDERS’ INSIGHTS Stepping into the older adult space provided the Foundation with an opportunity to conduct a brief landscape analysis to understand the ecosystem of both public and private support available to Brooklynites and to ground our process in the latest research from institutions working
“In my golden years, I want to live good.” — Central Brooklyn Insights elder
towards an age-friendly Brooklyn under the World Health Organization (WHO) framework 9. Two tracks of data gathering emerged from our initial landscape analysis – stakeholder interviews and community conversations.
Stakeholder interviews served a dual purpose: to introduce ourselves as new funders in aging to local government, nonprofit institutions, and foundations and to gain deeper knowledge of the aging ecosystem in Brooklyn. Key leaders at both the community and the institutional levels provided us with valuable insights and observations that complemented the voices of the 150 older Brooklynites engaged via our fifteen community conversations.
9
“The World Health Organization (WHO) Age-friendly Cities framework developed in the Global Age-friendly Cities Guide proposes eight interconnected domains that can help to identify and address barriers to the well-being and participation of older people.” “The WHO Age-friendly Cities Framework Cities Framework – Age-friendly World.” World Health Organization, 2017, extranet.who.int/agefriendlyworld/age-friendly-cities-framework/. Elders’ Insights, July 2019 | 4
Community conversations, ranging in size from two to twenty elders, were held in partnership with nonprofits that serve older Brooklynites at local neighborhood offices. The Foundation used the Age-Friendly NYC Image Map 10 to understand and target key demographic populations whose voices were sought out in the Elders’ Insights process and who represented a wide range of experiences, including but not limited to: documentation status, home owner and homeless, and those that live in proximity to gentrification and threats of displacement. The Foundation also engaged homebound older adults via a survey administered by telephone 11 that mirrored in-person community conversations. Our approach was a qualitative method that questioned elders on the issues and challenges they faced in five domains: home, health, transportation, relationships, and money.
Emerging themes arose from each broad prompt as elders shared experiences, opinions, and concerns. Some conversations had an idea-generating approach to different issues while others dived deeper into shared challenges. The Foundation received invaluable support from our nonprofit hosts in providing translation in Arabic, Cantonese, Haitian Creole, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish when needed. This allowed us to incorporate the experiences of our highly diverse older adult population. Following the discussions around our five main areas, elders were invited to state individually which two areas were
10
“NYC / New York Academy of Medicine.” IMAGE, www.imagenycmap.org. The input from home bound older adults was made possible by the volunteer services supplied by the Jewish Association Serving the Aging (JASA). 11
Elders’ Insights, July 2019 | 5
the most important to them. This helped the Foundation understand where we might best meet the concerns of older Brooklynites.
Analysis of our community conversations revealed four common themes which emerged from the conversations as the areas of most concern to the daily lives of community members: older adult programs, accessibility, program qualification, and healthcare coverage. 1) Older Adult Programs Elders were enthusiastic about the positive impact that local centers funded by the New York City Department for the Aging (DTFA) and other privately funded programs had on their mental and physical health. While DFTA centers are currently only available weekdays and are accessed by a small percentage of the eligible population, they provide the crucial service of alleviating feelings of loneliness by hosting social events and facilitating shared meals, often the
Elders’ Insights, July 2019 | 6
main meal of the day. In addition to
“We need to learn how to be advocates for ourselves and for others.” — Central Brooklyn Insights elder
the services provided within centers, staff assist older Brooklynites with navigating complex resources such as
the
healthcare
system
and
housing. Staff experts aid older adults in not only their day-to-day needs, but also during critical transition points. This warm guiding hand, the importance of which is grounded in research, is particularly important to older adults who do not have robust familial, social or financial safety nets. 2) Accessibility Accessibility presented itself in two main categories throughout our community conversations: home and transportation. When reflecting on their living conditions, elders cited many examples of services and infrastructures that were not age friendly, and, as a result, were a hindrance to aging in place. Many lived in apartment buildings with no elevators, had bathrooms without grab bars, and had difficulties maintaining their homes to meet their changing physical needs. Several deep conversations also emerged about accessibility to affordable housing as many could not afford to live on their own, pushing them to live with their children against their personal preference. One elder was forced to live in his mosque after recently facing eviction. When interacting with the outside world, public transportation presents a major barrier for older Brooklynites. Unreliable schedules, lack of shelter and seating, and elevators make navigating public transport nearly impossible. Those eligible for Accessa-Ride, one of the few available resources, brought up the service’s unpredictable routes and unrealistic protocols, as well as the staff’s lack of professionalism in helping older adults use the service with dignity.
Elders’ Insights, July 2019 | 7
3) Program Qualification A major concern across our community conversations was the lack of access to available programs due to qualification requirements. Documentation status, for example, excludes a growing number of older adults who worked in either the informal economy or the formal economy under a pseudonym from collecting social security benefits because they fail to meet the forty credit requirement for receiving annuity. Other programs have strict income guidelines that preclude even older adults whose only source of income is social security from accessing benefits, much to the frustration and dismay of community respondents. 4) Healthcare Coverage The Foundation’s own landscape analysis foreshadowed the challenges Elders’ Insights
participants
described
in
understanding the myriad healthcare programs,
all
with
rapidly
“Healthcare is a mess from beginning to end.” — Flatbush Insights elder
shifting
eligibility and coverage limitations. According to conversation participants, exorbitant co-pays consume a disproportionate amount of fixed incomes resulting in a lack of funds for other basic necessities such as food. In addition, enrollment and re-enrollment into Medicare and Medicaid are extraordinarily difficult to understand, even for professionals. Many community conversations became mini Know Your Rights trainings, as elders swapped knowledge of programs and coverage. We learned that many older adults do not receive all of the coverage they are eligible for due to a lack of information, a gap that is particularly pervasive amongst foreign-born older adults. Elders expressed frustration at the lack of dental and eye coverage under the main national programs, despite how critical those coverages are to their health and quality of life. Lastly, our conversations revealed that there is a lack of resources for the most vulnerable older adults due to program caps for home attendants. Elders’ Insights, July 2019 | 8
Following surgery or when facing critical illness, older adults in need of full time care are only allocated part-time services. Additional Issues that Emerged While not discussed in depth by groups, other salient issues arose across several conversations which significantly impact the lives of older Brooklynites, including fraud concerns, ageism in finding work, food security and the rising costs of groceries, and fear regarding the national anti-immigrant climate. Following the analysis of our community conversations,
we
held
two
leader
roundtables to respond to the issues and challenges elders face. These convenings included executive directors of nonprofits that serve older Brooklynites, funders in aging, and researchers on aging in New York City. Leaders affirmed the themes identified by elders and discussed the
“Advocacy is about creating awareness around the agefriendly movement, but the second part is action. How do we move towards this?” — Nonprofit Executive Director
potential entry points for the Foundation. Discussion fell into three categories within each of the four themes that had emerged from the community conversations: 1. Opportunities For Advocacy 2. Existing Services 3. Current Service Gaps These two roundtables helped to expand our initial landscape analysis while grounding it in the experience of practitioners. Roundtables also provided the opportunity for cross-sector conversations on aging in Brooklyn and discussion of potential areas of collaboration for greater potential impact. Leaders emphasized that while the Foundation’s monetary contribution would be small Elders’ Insights, July 2019 | 9
compared to the vast need for services and advocacy for older Brooklynites, the Foundation would benefit from making strategic investments focused on leveraging systemic change with the support of other funders.
“Structures have been drastically underfunded in a field affected by ageism.” — Nonprofit Executive Director Leaders also discussed the pressing needs of the community as a whole that did not fit into one of the four themes, underscoring the following: 1. The threat and reality of dementia in older adults, cutting across all populations 2. The lack of work opportunities for older adults, including both paid and volunteerism 3. The digital divide that prohibits older adults from accessing services to which they are entitled from government agencies through online platforms
BROOKLYN ELDERS FUND PORTFOLIO Grantmaking for the Brooklyn Elders Fund remains in line with our core strategic principles. The Foundation is committed to multi-year general operating support, when possible. In addition, the Foundation believes that all people should be equally seen, heard, valued, and respected. In order to support this vision, we use a racial justice lens focused on the systemic redistribution of power, opportunities, and access for people of all races. We strongly believe addressing racial disparities in this borough is the first essential step towards our mission of building a more fair and just Brooklyn for everyone. We support efforts that increase the ability of people of color to determine and sustain a more equitable future for themselves and their communities. We are Elders’ Insights, July 2019 | 10
also committed to a community-informed process beyond our initial community conversations. To that end, Brooklyn Elders Fund will be advised by a small group of rotating older Brooklynites that will work alongside program staff to inform our grantmaking and advocacy efforts. Lastly, through a network of local aging funders, the Foundation will leverage our collective giving by identifying and supporting timely advocacy issues focused on expanding opportunity and access for older Brooklynites. Grant guidelines will be released in fall 2019.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Elders’ Insights was authored by Program Officer Sabrina Hargrave, with editorial support from Program Intern Marysol Fernandez. The Elders’ Insights process was completed by Program Officers Amy Chou and Sabrina Hargrave from December 2018 through May 2019, with the support of Program Interns Marysol Fernandez and Keren Kedem.
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APPENDIX Host Organizations For Community Conversations
Organizations Represented In Stakeholder Interviews
Organizations Represented In Leader Roundtables
Age-Friendly BedfordStuyvesant and Crown Heights
AARP-NY
Asian American Foundation
An-Noor Social Center Center for Family Life Chinese American Planning Council Council of Peoples Organization Flatbush Development Corp. GRIOT Circle Jewish Association Serving the Aging in Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach and Starrett City Jewish Community Center of Greater Coney Island RAICES - Spanish Speaking Elderly Council Southside United HDFC – Los Sures
Arab American Association Asian American Foundation
Bay Ridge Center Brooklyn Arts Council
Bay Ridge Center
Center for an Urban Future
Brooklyn Community Housing and Services
Council of Peoples Organization
Brooklyn-wide Interagency Council on Aging
Flatbush Development Corp.
Center for an Urban Future Community Aging in Place-Advancing Better Living for Elders Program Council of Peoples Organization Heights and Hills Jewish Association Serving the Aging Jews for Racial and Economic Justice
United Jewish Organization
LiveOn NY
University Settlement
New York Academy of Medicine New York City Transit Authority
Heights and Hills Jewish Association Serving the Aging New York Community Trust Rita & Alex Hillman Foundation Samuels Foundation Healthy Aging Program Social Strategy Associates The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation The Ittleson Foundation The New York Academy of Medicine Vera Institute, Guardianship Project
Release Aging People in Prison Social Strategy Associates
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