Paulina Morabia has a private hiding place in the bottom drawer of her desk. There, she stashes a small, clear box that only comes out on Fridays. She removes it carefully, making sure to keep it slightly hidden, as if it were a secret contraption. She takes off the lid to reveal an array of colorful glass vials, cotton balls, a few instruments and a number of liquids in plastic tubes.
“This is my manicure kit,” she says. “This is what helps to keep Friday our most busy day here.”
While Manicure Fridays might be the busiest time at the Bushwick Houses Seniors’ Center, nail treatments are only one of the many activities offered to elderly residents. They can take cooking classes, go on group excursions, play bingo and dominoes, attend health care seminars (including one recently by Dr. Mary Ann Poe on how to prevent falling) or just watch television among some familiar faces.
According to Census Data, of the 684 housing units at Bushwick, seniors over age 65 occupy the largest share, 27.8 percent of the units. By 2030, the New York City Housing Authority estimates that one in five of all residents in the city’s public housing developments will be 65 or older.
Evelyn Alcaide, the Tenant Association Vice-President at Bushwick Houses.
Being able to provide services normally found in seniors-only communities to residents “aging in place” in conventional public housing developments is one of NYCHA’s key focuses. Its “Plan to Preserve Public Housing” addresses the needs of older residents and involves equipping senior centers with adequate resources to deal with this changing population.
The plan lays out a number of options to deal with the growing senior population. Funded through private organizations and public funds, these include providing extra social services, specially adapted housing, senior-specific programs and activities and designating more developments as NORCs—naturally occurring retirement communities.
NORCs are intergenerational communities that have developed in apartment buildings, neighborhoods and housing complexes where a majority of elderly residents have decided to “age in place.”
“NYCHA is one of the biggest landlords of seniors in the country,” said Fredda Vladeck, Director of the United Hospital Fund’s Aging In Place Initiative. “New York City has a long tradition of community housing. People don’t move. They are not going anyplace. By definition, they wind up becoming NORCs.”
NORCs provide such services as on-site nurses, transportation and support networks that have been developed specifically for the elderly.
“In New York City Housing, the population grows old together,” said Vladeck. “It permits you to rethink how you organize and structure services.”
In 1999, NYCHA first started working with the Department for the Aging (DFTA) to help housing developments become more senior-friendly by providing special funding and zoning them as NORCs. Only seven of the original 37 NYCHA developments that applied for the designation and funding received it.
Bushwick was one of the applicants. According to Vladeck, it met the eligibility requirements, but its bid for NORC designation was unsuccessful.
“It was astounding,” said Vladeck of the decision to omit Bushwick and other NYCHA developments from the original group to secure joint NYCHA and DFTA funding.
As one of the architects of the NYCHA/DFTA partnership Vladeck said that she expected more NYCHA developments to receive funding, since they can easily be turned into NORCs.
Still, NYCHA has fostered the further development of NORCs, and the DFTA now supports eleven such communities at NYCHA developments. This year, the department spent $6.4 million funding 28 NORCs that serve 45,000 people in the city.
NYCHA’s NORC programs are also funded by the New York State Office for the Aging. All the NYCHA NORCs are operated by local community organizations, which provide the services.
To get NORC funding, the Seniors’ Center at the Baruch Houses on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, had to show it had enough seniors in need of the services and benefits of a NORC, said Baruch’s program director Yacyrenia Ortiz-Soba.
The Grand Street Settlement, a community services organization, accepted Baruch’s proposal, and the housing development was officially designated a NORC in October 2003. It now receives funding from the city, state and federal government, as well as from Grand Street Settlement.
Baruch is Manhattan’s largest public housing development with nearly 5,400 residents. Ortiz-Soba estimated that about 1,200 seniors use the center regularly.
The activity list from Baruch Houses. It says "Today - Haircuts, Bingo. Tomorrow - Yoga, Bingo, Latin Dance."
Inside Baruch Houses, a small group of those seniors lined up patiently outside an office in the Seniors’ Center on a recent morning. Nurse Katherine Scanlonpon tended to one resident. Most of her work is pretty simple, like checking blood pressure and changing dressings.
“This is the biggest difference between NORCs and normal Seniors Centers,” said Ortiz-Soba. “NORCs also provide health care.”
Scanlonpon and her colleague Margaret Torres cover shifts from Monday through Thursday at Baruch, offering basic health care, but also helping with seminars on a range of topics that include dealing with summer heat, shingles and fall prevention (the perennial favorite).
“Having this type of program helps the seniors have independence,” said Ortiz-Soba. “It helps seniors to be able to continue in their homes, provide social services and live.
“They want to stay in home as much as possible.”
This is precisely the sentiment that is expressed at the Bushwick Seniors’ Center.
“Where are we going, first of all?” said Evelyn Alcaide, the Tenant Association Vice-President and Bushwick Seniors’ Center regular. “The apartments are pretty comfortable, you have a shopping area nearby, supermarkets and clothing stores. Everything is right near in the neighborhood.”
These factors have meant that tenants are now staying longer and not wanting to leave developments like Bushwick, as they feel everything they need in their retirement can be accessed within or nearby the development.
Officials are aware of the need for housing developments to add services that serve an older population.
New York State Senator Velmanette Montgomery has been trying to designate some developments as NORCs, including Kingsview Houses, Ryerson Towers, St. James Towers and Willoughby Walk, all located in Montgomery’s 18th Senate District that takes in most of downtown Brooklyn.
With NYCHA expected to announce a $200 million deficit in the coming year, funding NORCs in these developments may not be possible without the kind of external assistance that Baruch receives.
Patricia Maloney, the Deputy Director of the Family Services Department at NYCHA, said that despite issues with funding, a distinct plan for “aging in place” has been developed by the housing authority.
For instance, two community organizations, Enterprise Community Partners and Leading Age, recently paid for a team of NYCHA residents and officials to attend a conference in Atlanta on issues and needs for supporting aging in housing. NYCHA is hopeful that relationships with such organizations will lead to further NORCs being established and better services for seniors.
“The point of being a beneficiary of the grant, is that residents and resident leaders are trained,” said Maloney.
As services for seniors develop and increase, many seniors are actually trying to move back into public housing in order to enjoy the benefits that senior-friendly communities can offer them.
Of the 155,000 people on NYCHA’s waiting list for public housing, nearly 22,000 are senior applicants, according to NYCHA.
Joseph Billa, 54, another regular at Bushwick’s Seniors’ Center, said that he has been trying to get his mother, Mary, 77, back into the development after she left a number of years ago.
“She wants to come back because she likes the community,” he said. “She moved away before, and she doesn’t want to stay where she is now.”
As more NYCHA developments like Bushwick trend toward becoming NORCs, senior centers may need to stock up on a few more nail polish colors to keep the growing crowd happy.
“They really love it here,” said Morabia. “We always enjoy ourselves. People are coming in all the time and enjoying themselves.”
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