Fliers announcing weekend diabetes workshops and a crooked whiteboard featuring today’s lunch menu immediately greet the seniors who enter the Casita Maria Senior Center.
“I come every day to eat,” said Ana Dominguez, 86. “Some people, they play bingo, they watch television, and the food’s always fresh.”
The Casita Maria Center (which operates out of the Carver Community Center on East 102 St. in East Harlem) serves as a social hub for the local seniors. The center receives about 120 to 140 visitors a day, 99 percent of them of Hispanic descent, according to Assistant Program Director Leonore Terreno.
With the June 27 announcement of the City’s allocations for its $59.1 billion budget, which cut approximately $1 million from senior centers, Casita Maria is one of the many predominantly Latino senior centers that may soon be feeling the pinch. The mayor is proposing to close down senior centers that are underutilized, meaning they do not serve all their allotted meals.
Elderly Latinos may be especially affected because they are one of the fastest growing populations in the city: According to a 2000 census, by 2020 Latinos will comprise 9 percent of all people 65 and older in the United States, up from 5 percent in 2000.
In addition, Latinos often look for senior centers to provide other key services besides hot lunches. One such service is Latino cultural events, such as salsa music and dancing.
“I did a survey asking our seniors why they came to the center, and the number one reason was the food, number two was the social workers, and number three was the parties,” said Casita Maria Program Director Maria Rivera. “They dance reggaeton, they dance merengue. They don’t go home until 6 p.m.”
Another service that elderly Latinos heavily rely on is caseworkers, who often provide translation services when it comes to making doctor’s appointments or filling out Medicaid and Medicare forms. Part of the mayor’s plan to overhaul senior centers also involves reducing the number of centers that provide case workers.
“We have seniors come to this office all the time and we refer them to the local senior center where they can work with case workers who help them fill out forms and so on,” said Council Member Melissa Viverito (D-Bronx). “Diminishing the number of case workers we have is going to have a very detrimental impact.”
Others say that the food served at senior centers is a central concern of many elderly Latinos. The mayor’s plan proposes to centralize the way food is distributed, both at senior centers and through Meals-on-Wheels programs, by contracting more out of state food vendors and by providing more frozen meals.
“We can’t support frozen food,” said Rivera. “It doesn’t have the nutrients, and the seniors aren’t used to it. Some of them don’t know how to use a microwave.”
Senior Options, a pilot program that served home-delivered frozen meals to Bronx seniors, reported in a March 8, 2007 evaluation that most seniors were satisfied with receiving daily frozen meals. Out of 1,244 surveys, 87 percent either agreed or strongly agreed that they were satisfied with the program.
Residents at Casita Maria remained doubtful.
“I wouldn’t want that,” said Dominguez on the possibility of frozen food. “We’d have to find another place to go.”
The City expects to create a more complete plan for its overhaul of senior centers after receiving proposals from each center this October. At Casita Maria, Program Director Rivera said she remained apprehensive about the impact on the senior Latino population.
“They won’t receive person-to-person service,” she said. “It’s more than about giving them services, it’s to love and understand them.”
