View Letter

-Comptroller Urges No Closures Until Full Analysis is Complete-

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. today demanded that the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) and Department for the Aging (DFTA) keep the doors open at community and senior centers throughout the city.
In a letter to both agencies, Thompson strongly faulted NYCHA – the largest landlord of poor elderly in New York City – for indicating that these centers are not part of NYCHA’s “core services” and should therefore be either reduced or eliminated.
“I recognize that NYCHA confronts substantial budget shortfalls and must make some extremely difficult choices,” Thompson wrote. “However, these choices -- largely necessitated by the Federal government’s reduced funding of public housing -- must not be allowed to disproportionately impact our City’s vulnerable seniors and displace community centers which serve the urgent needs of our City’s youth.”

You can read Thompson’s letter at www.comptroller.nyc.gov.

Earlier this year, Thompson joined with senior advocates and other elected officials to challenge DFTA’s plans to revise service delivery to seniors, and urged the agency not to close senior centers as a result of any reorganization. As a result, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the City would slow its efforts to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP).

“As you know,” Thompson wrote, “DFTA announced that it, too may close a number of smaller senior centers and will establish centralized multi-service facilities in each borough. Unfortunately, closure of DFTA centers, combined with the shuttering of community and senior centers within NYCHA facilities, would profoundly, and negatively, affect the delivery of critically important services for thousands of community residents.”

The Comptroller said that this scenario compels the City to explore readily available opportunities to better use its resources. “This, he said, “would include retail development within NYCHA facilities that would both raise much-needed revenue as well as provide tenants with services that are often lacking.”

Thompson also expressed concern about the lack of publicly disclosed information regarding these planned closures and the absence of a thorough examination of the impact senior center and community center closures would have on New York City residents. 

“I urge in the strongest terms possible that there be no reduction in services until a comprehensive analysis is undertaken and ask that my office be provided with a copy of this analysis,” Thompson said.

###