Cuomo Budget May Shut St. Charles Senior Center

By on March 4, 2011 11:44 pm in Government, Seniors

The St. Charles Jubilee Senior Center at 55 Pierrepont Street, a gathering place for Brooklyn Heights seniors fo many years, may be forced to close as of April 1 because it has been denied funding under Governor Cuomo’s budget.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle: Many of the centers slated to lose funding are in Brooklyn. Although space prohibits this paper from listing them all, among them are the St. Charles Jubilee Senior Center in Brooklyn Heights, the Bay Ridge Center for Older Adults, the Red Hook Senior Center, the Shalom Senior Center in Crown Heights, JASA (Jewish Association for Services to the Aging) centers in Williamsburg and Luna Park, the Fort Greene Senior Action Center and the Midwood satellite office of the Senior Citizens League of Flatbush (which Borough President Marty Markowitz headed in his 20s).

the Eagle story quotes State Senator Eric Adams (D-Crown Heights/Windsor Terrace) as “calling on Cuomo not to stop the ‘millionaire’s tax,’ the resumption of which would produce $3 billion in funds that could easily pay for the $25 million needed to fund the senior centers.”

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  • http://Building Jeffrey J Smith

    The St Charles center has done a world of good for seniors in this
    neighborhood.

    With any such effort to defund a facility like this, there re always a series of background reasons which are critical for New Yorkers
    to understand.

    First of all, as mentioned elsewhere, there is no financial reason
    for such an action. There are not funds to safeguard our seniors and honor thier lives and service? Really? Think again of the hundreds of Billions in public funds carefully hidden from taxpayer’s view. Simply Google “CAFR’s” and see what you find.

    This is not to say that senior facilities are without real problems. Like many such Archdioces programs, there is an intractable problem of a lack of proper management. This has damaged the reputation of St Charles and to my experiance, limited the willingness of residents to come foward with the level of open support which has the power to inhibit such proposals.

  • http://Building Jeffrey J Smith

    What can happen with the kind of management senior citizen’s facilities often have can be seen in the heat emergency of a few years ago. Dispite the really dangerious conditions to those senior citizens lacking any protection against the 100+ degree
    weather, seniors were told by St Charles management and staff
    that they would have to leave the premises at the regular closing time of 6 PM. Seniors were further advised that if they needed to
    they were to go to a facility on Gold Street…which itself closed at 9 PM. I spoke to the sister who was the chief administrator and the staff of St Charles as to what could be done by the center in the
    emergency. (One listen to a scanner tuned to the EMS frequencies during those days would have quickly told any one what the heat was doing to seniors city wide)

    I felt as if I was speaking to a combination of a poor house in Dicken’s London and a blank wall….

    Just as an experiment I spoke to one of the heads of the Casino
    and suggested that the casino possibly serve as a heat shelter
    for endangered seniors…

    The response I received made me expect that the SAS would arrive at my doorstep at any moment…

    Then there is the entire financial syndrome effecting municipalities and the states; There are not funds in this neighborhood? Really?
    This is one of the greatest wealth centers in the nation. Imagine
    what is the real size of the wealth in all the (all but tax free)
    OLD LAW TRUSTS of the households resident between Atlantic Ave and Poplar St…There are not funds in this city? As above, many local governments and states are awash in money. But it is carefully kept hidden fro taxpayers in the accounts and investments which only appear in the CAFR’s and other difficult to access documents.

    .

    It was like speaking to a com

  • http://Building Jeffrey J Smith

    But beyond this, as things financially worsen, there has been NO willingness on the part ofthe banking community to make any modifications whatsoever to the terms of the indebtedness
    which is crushing New York and indeed America at large.

    With the firing of thousands of police, fire and other public safety personnel nation wide. With the closing of scores of hospitals, clinics and other facilities, like St Charles, which safeguard often the most vunerable of our citizens, why are the hidden assets
    of state and local governments and the behavior of the banks never, ever, a part of the general open public debate.

  • lois

    Yesterday, I attended the rally sponsored by our Borough President Marty Markowitz to protest the possible closing of 110 senior centers throughout the city. There were several hundred seniors, center directors and local politicians present. One of the things that surprised me was that the funding for senior centers is approved annually, it is not built into the budget. The local politicians spoke first – some had good suggestions, some not so good. Most frequently mentioned was “reinstate the millionaires tax”. One suggested Mayor Bloomberg write a person check for the $25 million needed. Others blamed the Republicans, since the Democrats no longer control the State Senate. It is difficult to know whether there is a real threat to closing the centers, or it is just the annual threat regarding the budge cuts, especially since we have a new governor. Time will tell.

  • EHinBH

    While sad in many ways, we do need to cut some services. Everyone should be affected and it should not focus on one demographic. We ALL need to get used to living with less government services. We do not live in a socialist society…

  • william

    To EHinBH – How could you live without your trust fund? Some people just don’t have one.

  • nabeguy

    Protect the seniors as they have protected us in the past. They have earned the privilege of living out their remaining days in comfort.

  • http://Building Jeffrey J Smith

    Its interesting, the debate instantly defaults back into the classic right/left debate….

    Hey, guys-the SAME people set up BOTH the American left AND
    the conservative/neo conservative movement. Read a little.
    You can start with: “Empire of the City” by E.C. Knuth. Try
    http://www.americandeception.com

    The ONLY people who really decode what is happpening are
    people who can look behind the financial curtian and see the
    huge hidden funds, always present. But the left/right created
    perspective adherents wont stop till the taxes are totally
    confiscatory AND the services are cut to nothing….so where is
    the money going to?

    If we want to free America from its downward spiral, we all need
    to actually read some uncontrolled media and actually THINK
    a little. Think outside the left/right hologram. Think who is running
    the projectors. And we need to think outside the casino mindset.

    JeffreyJSmith.NewYork@usa.com

  • nabeguy

    Thanks for the link JJ. I found this particular passage quite telling:

    “As our visitors will quickly notice, the informational content has rarely if ever been covered by the Major Media. This is of no surprise since the triangle is as one. It is hardly a complicated reality that the corporations own the government as well as the media. Therefore one should not be surprised that what is called news in this country is more omission than commission, and therefore does not reflect accurately what is happening here in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world.”

    Who knew? Thank goodness for the minor media, such as this blog, that allows information like this to see the light of day. You’ve got me thinking that I should reconsider my move to LI and perhaps look at Area 51 instead.

  • http://Building Jeffrey J Smith

    Yeah but the international banking and the tax free NGO’s are always above the business/corporate world. Why? because the NGO’s formulate governmental and much financial policy (outside
    of governmental channels) by which the corporations must operate under and corporate types always at some point have to go to the banking circles for access to CREDIT.

    Also, the basic (visable) way that nations are controlled is that
    private banks get the right to issue a nation’s currency. HA!
    once you give a private bank the right to issue your money,
    they own your country. I have spent many interesting hours
    in the Fed library in Washington. Its AMAZING what they have
    the GALL to have in their open literature. Its true EVERYTHING
    is colateralized to the fed. Everything from My microwave to dozier’s undershirt. Everything.

    What also happens is that the whole society becomes, retuned
    to the priorities of a central reserve banking system. So, quickly,
    the centerpiece of all human activity, the way increasingly we
    judge everything is access to credit. Look at society today, it
    isnt who your family is, it isnt your spirtual or ethical state upon
    you are judged. Increasingly its the amount of your access to credit starting with the credit limit on your cards.

    The erotion this has caused in society our turning away from
    the spirtuial, ethical, moral and sound intellectuial standards
    has devastated western civilation.

    And finally the society becomes so devitalized by having to pay
    eternal interest to a group of parastes to circulate our own currency that the society cannot or can barely function. Look at the vitality, economic and social, in the average American town and city in, say 1950 as opposed to now.

    There is an inevitable race to the bottom in all aspects of national
    life. And there is internationalization of the economy. Want to know what the actuial unemployment is in communities surrounding the Heights really is? Guess what that can mean to
    the security of the Heights. Its simple, parasites, inthis case financial, in the higher functions of a organism have effects from the top to the bottom of the system’s life functions.The conditon of the once world standard dollar is a great example.

    Its really simple, the banks and NGO’s are running the country.
    So now that the streets are filled with drugs, japanese cars
    see thouughs in Midtown Manhattan and no pension is secure
    what now America?

    JeffreyJSmith.NewYork@usa.com

  • Buddy Holly

    I wonder if SJP’s movie producers did anything for the Seniors? After taking 7 blocks of community parking away for 4 days – they should give something back to the neighborhood. No one is more deserving than the folks at the Senior Center.

  • http://Building Jeffrey J Smith

    I’ve watched film crews approaching impared seniors “requesting”
    they walk on the other side of the street so they can get a shot

  • Frida & Merlin Markinson

    We have been attending the St. Charles Senior Center for over 10 years, meeting out friends and playing bridge and eating their
    delectable lunches.
    Now that we have heard of the centers closing as of April 1, we are disheartened, discouraged, and outraged at the governor’s budget proposal to shut down St. Charles and the many other senior centers in NY.
    Are we second class citizens? We pay our taxes just as the next NYS resident, We expect some benefit from doing our duty as responsible citizens.
    Governor Cuoma, you are taking away an important part of our existance as seniors. With the few years we have left, leave us a little pleasure and a place to meet our friends.
    Sincerely,
    Frida and Merlin Markinson (ages 74 and 80)