Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez: 

Providing senior citizens with opportunities for meaningful activities in an enriching environment is one of the most important services non-profit organizations can offer our elderly population. Currently, there are more than one million seniors living in New York City alone, many who rely on local community centers as their source of social interaction, healthy meals, medical referrals, and recreational activities.

One of the non-profits providing such services is Grand Street Settlement. Founded in 1916, Grand Street provides support to seniors who live in my district on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. A majority of the seniors who visit the center live in nearby public housing developments, and recent survey data suggest they often lack a strong support network of family and friends. In fact, very few of the seniors served by Grand Street rely on any formal means of support and many lack an understanding of the health care system and may not be taking advantage of certain key benefits.

The Lower East Side senior population currently faces a host of challenges, and Grand Street fills a growing gap by assisting and empowering low‑income elderly of all ethnic and racial backgrounds to overcome their financial, physical, and social difficulties so they can better lead healthy, stimulating, and productive lives.
For example, Grand Street’s Grand Coalition, created in the early 1970s, provides seniors with nutritious meals to meet their multi‑ethnic dietary preferences. It also helps them obtain such essential services as Medicaid, Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP), SSI and Food Stamps, health and mental health care, and housing. By engaging them in recreational, cultural, sports and exercise activities, this program helps to keep seniors active.
Another Grand Street initiative is their Older Adults Program, serving a group of approximately 25 Jewish seniors, many of them now in their 80s and 90s. These Grand Street regulars meet three evenings a week to enjoy music, folk dancing, bingo, or simply to chat with old friends over tea and coffee.

Grand Street also breaks down cultural and linguistic barriers through popular programs like the Asian-American Elders Project (AAEP). The AAEP currently provides more than 400 elderly Asian residents of the Lower East Side the opportunity to take part in English and computer classes, Tai Chi, Chinese macramé, singing and formal dance lessons, while expanding their horizons through cultural exchange with the larger population of Latino seniors at Grand Street.

At a time when New York is experiencing a fiscal tightening due to many factors – including the devastating effects of the attacks of September 11 and the current economic recession – senior programs, both at the state and city levels, are finding themselves on the chopping block. And it is these critical programs that are so important to keeping the social fabric of our communities intact. Seniors are truly a unifying thread and it is centers like Grand Street that take notice of this fact and do something about it.

Right now, Grand Street’s programs are more important than ever. The elderly can add a sense of unity to our communities, they form our collective history, and they can act as mentors and role models to young people. Seniors can fill a void in our city – and in our society in general – that no one else can.

Grand Street Settlement and other centers like it provide our elderly population with a home away from home. Whether it is the Grand Coalition, the Older Adults Program, or the Asian-American Elders Project, Grand Street creates a nurturing and enriching environment for seniors to meet with their peers so they can lead rich, fulfilling lives, late into their golden years. If you want to see a classic community-based organization success story, all you have to do is visit Grand Street. Like the seniors in the surrounding community, they will welcome you with open arms.

Grand Street Settlement

Since its founding in 1916, Grand Street Settlement has provided residents of the Lower East Side community with the tools and support they need to overcome challenging circumstances and build productive lives and futures. Its comprehensive and integrated array of culturally relevant programs and services assists more than 5,000 area residents of all ages annually–from toddlers in Early Head Start and Day Care to school-age youth, young adults, and senior citizens.

Throughout its many decades of service, Grand Street has redefined its programs to respond to current community needs and to the ever-changing ethnic and racial makeup of its residents.

Early Childhood Programs
Early Head Start includes Center-based and Home-based services for infants and children up to age 3; Home-based services are also provided for pregnant women.
Head Start serves children ages 3 to 5 and includes both part-day (8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. or 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.) and full-day classrooms (8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.)
Universal Pre-K serves four year-olds from Day Care and Head Start with extended afternoon hours until 5:45 p.m.
Daycare serves children ages 2 to 6 between the extended hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Family Support Services provide a variety of activities for parents, including workshops and education seminars; volunteer opportunities in the classroom, job readiness/job training, and parent outings. Family Workers and Visitors provide assistance and support for families in crisis or with special needs and advocate with social service agencies.

Inwood House

Inwood House is dedicated to helping adolescents achieve healthy adulthood and self-reliance. A leader and innovator in teen pregnancy prevention and teen family support, Inwood House helps nearly 8,500 New York City and New Jersey youth develop the knowledge, skills and self-esteem they need to make responsible decisions and lead independent, productive lives. We create communities that promote caring and learning and are a source of hope, guidance and opportunity.

TEENS TAKING CHARGE: INWOOD HOUSE PROGRAMS

Located in public schools and in the neighborhoods we serve, Inwood House is an integral part of the social fabric of New York City communities. Informed by rigorous research and a highly qualified staff, we are constantly striving to discover new and more effective ways to address every aspect of teen pregnancy. All Inwood House programs take an asset-building approach which helps our young people acquire knowledge, develop their social and decision-making skills, clarify their values, improve their sense of self worth and empowerment, and connect to their community.

Teen Choice, Inwood House's comprehensive school-based pregnancy- and disease-prevention education and counseling program, reaches 6,500 New York City and New Jersey public school students a year. Teen Choice Masters-level social workers help teens develop the personal resources they need to resist peer pressure and make responsible decisions about sexual involvement and other challenges of adolescence. Inwood House is the lead agency for Morrisania 10456/10459, a South Bronx community collaborative effort to prevent teen pregnancy throughout these zip codes. Teen Choice is a core component of this program which also provides parental support groups, teacher training sessions, and recreational activities. Project Straight Talk helps 5th grade boys and their parents communicate about sex and other risky behaviors. Teen Choice staff and the Inwood House Research Group provide training and consultation to youth agencies throughout the United States and the world.

Boys to Men provides 11 to 16-year-old boys in the South Bronx a safe environment after school, at school and during the summer months to help keep them off the streets, in school and planning for their futures. Mentoring, counseling, and meaningful activities stress the advantages of staying away from gangs, avoiding teen fatherhood and becoming connected to their community. Boys to Men provides tutoring, educational guidance, workshops on social and sexual issues, sports and field trips, male role models and an opportunity to develop healthy friendships.

Youth For REAL (Responsibility, Excellence, Achievement, Leadership) is our Renaissance After School Program sponsored by the Soros After School Corporation. Youth for REAL provides educational enrichment and support and creative arts and fitness activities to 250 South Bronx students grades K through 5.

Inwood House Mother/Baby Foster Care, pioneered in 1968, places a teen mother and her child together in a caring foster home where the young mother learns appropriate family life, continues her education and establishes a career. Inwood House helps prepare our teen mothers for independent living by providing parenting and life skills training, counseling, and educational and vocational guidance.