Budget Cuts Could Close Seven Local Senior Centers

The poor state of our economy doesn’t discriminate – it could hurt our senior citizens next.

Seven local senior centers are in danger of closing as part of system-wide cuts that’ll see 105 centers shuttered across all five boroughs, and 31 in Brooklyn.

The seven senior centers of our area are:

• JASA Luna Park Senior Center at 2880 West 12th Street
• JASA Scheuer House of Coney Island at 3601 Surf Avenue
• Marlbolo Senior Center at 2298 West 8th Street
• Young Israel Bedford Bay Senior Center at 2114 Brown Street
• CNNS The Bay Senior Center at 3643 Nostrand Avenue
• JASA Manhattan Beach Senior Center at 60 West End Avenue
• Midwood Senior League Satelite at 1625 Ocean Avenue

The closures are part of a $25 million budget cut handed down from Albany, and the Bloomberg administration is saying that the 105 centers account for a whopping 40 percent of the entire system.

If the closings go into effect it would leave as many as 8,000 of 28,000 people in New York City’s 256 centers without meals, friendly visits and activities.

Seniors and their families are grappling with an even larger question: where will they go if the centers are taken away?

“There will be no place for these people to go,” Councilwoman Jessica S. Lappin, chairwoman of the Council’s Committee on Aging told the Times.

“Without neighborhood senior centers, more older adults will end up at risk and isolated in their own homes or in institutions,” Nancy Wackstein, executive director of United Neighborhood House told the Times.

Department for the Aging Commissioner Lilliam Barrios-Paoli plans to travel to Albany next week to persuade state legislation to restore the financing. However, the bleak economic outlook, and a power shift that left the Senate in the hands of Republicans suggests she has a steep, uphill battle to fight.