Tuesday, April 7, 2020

From The Manhattan Borough President: COVID-19 Update


By Gale Brewer

Friends,
It's Tuesday, April 7, 2020.
At press time, the Johns Hopkins COVID case tracker currently shows New York City has 72,867 active cases and 4,009 deaths.
The City's Dept. for the Aging (DFTA) has to do a better job of managing the senior food program. It's Week Three of the transition from group meals within senior centers to the free home-delivered meal model (with an intermediate stop at "Grab and Go"), and still too many Manhattan senior centers have no list of who DFTA is sending meals to despite weeks of center staff submitting names and information. (And that's just in Manhattan!) The contrast between what is said in televised briefings or by the agency and the reality on the ground is too great to ignore any longer.
To be clear, if you are a senior who needs a food delivery, you are instructed to call your local senior center, or Aging Connect (212)244-6469, or 311 to sign up for this program. But the staff at many centers we talk to are finding that both regular clients and those newly-added are not receiving the food. 
This lack of communication and confirmation compounds the anxiety already felt by many older adults. And it makes a difficult situation all that much harder on the senior center staff who are working hard to assist their clients. Please email me at info@manhattanbp.nyc.gov if you are having difficulty requesting or receiving these meals, and I will try to help.

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This year’s Passover dinners are being done virtually; here is a roundup of the ones I’ve heard of:
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I wrote an appreciation of Arlene Stringer Cuevas, Scott Stringer's mother and a force in her own right in Washington Heights (Council Member, District Leader, women's rights activist, and cousin to Bella Abzug) for the Manhattan Times. Arlene died from COVID-19 at the age of 86. 
I first met Arlene in 1974, on the Mary Anne Krupsak for Lt. Governor campaign, and she was one of the nicest and most upbeat people I've ever met-- and that kindness masked a keen political mind. We stayed friends over the decades since. My warmest condolences go to Scott and his family. ---

Click here for other announcements. 
Source: The Office of the Manhattan Borough President

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