Poverty and the Elderly

Today is the day we blog about poverty, a world wide issue, even more scary in the current economic climate. In my retiree job as part time director of a small NYC advocacy organization, the New York Citizens’ Committee on Aging, Inc., we took on the issue of elder poverty when we discovered an alarming statistic. According to the data from the U.S. Census Bureau, "2005 American Community Survey", over 20% of New York City’s older adults were poor! And this in a city with such a high cost of living. We have made elder poverty our project for over a year, holding a May 2007 forum with seniors and key leaders in aging services, and following up with our colleagues to find ways to address this issue.

Needless to say, over the past year things have gotten a lot worse. Sometimes I feel that even older New Yorkers, like myself, lucky enough to have savings and a pension in addition to Social Security and Medicare, are just a step away from “poverty”, if that means being unable to afford housing, food and health care. So imagine how much harder the struggle is for our older neighbors on fixed incomes and such limited funds. What follows is an excerpt from our report, Under the Radar: Poverty Among Older Adults in New York City (May 2007 New York Citizens’ Committee on Aging, Inc.)

Poverty is more than a lack of financial resources; it is a serious threat to health and well-being, dignity, and the ability to participate fully in our society.(Economic and Social Council of the United Nations Commission on Population and Development. “Monitoring of population programmes, focusing on the changing age structures of populations and their implications for development, Report of the Secretary-General,” December 28, 2006.)

Unfortunately, in recent years the problem of poverty amongst older adults has become increasingly invisible. Many people believe that the vast majority of seniors are affluent – or at least receiving adequate assistance. The major cause behind this misconception is the success of programs such as Medicare and Social Security, which have greatly alleviated economic insecurity among older adults. In fact, poverty among Americans age 65 and older has fallen from one-in-three persons in 1960 to one-in-ten today. (Whitman, D. & Purcell, P. (2006). Topics in aging: Income and poverty among older Americans in 2005.)

These successes cannot be denied and our country should be proud of this progress. Work remains, however, for too many seniors have been left behind. While poverty among persons age 65 and older in the United States has decreased, it has actually risen in New York City. (New York City Department for the Aging. “Annual Plan Summary, April 1, 2007 – March 31, 2008, For Older Americans Act and New York State Community Services for the Elderly Program and Expanded In-Home Services for the Elderly Program,” September 2006.)

In 2005, the U.S. Census Bureau set the poverty threshold for
individuals age 65 and older at $9,367. (U.S. Census Bureau. “Poverty Thresholds 2005.”) If a senior’s annual pretax income falls below this amount then he or she is considered “poor.” While updated annually, this threshold is the same throughout the contiguous United States and does not reflect regional differences in cost-of-living. According to this measure, 9.9% of older Americans lived in poverty in 2005, which represents a continued decline of poverty among this age group nationwide. Yet, the poverty rate among older adults living in New York City was twice the national rate: 20.3%. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005 American Community Survey.) This is a significant problem that is not mirrored in all urban areas. In fact, among the twenty most populous cities in the United States, New York is second only to Detroit, Michigan in the percentage of its seniors living in poverty.

New York City is home to over 943,000 people who are age 65 or older. Approximately 191,653 of these seniors live in poverty, but what is known about them? According to the U.S. Census: 68.3 percent of these seniors are female; 37.3 percent are male. 47.9 percent are age 65 to 74; 52.1 percent are age 75 and older. 59.8 percent experience one or more physical, mental or emotional disabilities.

Poverty is most prevalent among racial and ethnic minorities …. The poverty rate among the City’s Hispanic elderly population is three times the national average, while the rates for Black and Asian elderly are more than double that rate.

Disability can be either a cause or consequence of poverty. In New York City, the percentage of seniors who are both poor and disabled is over twice the national rate: 5.5% versus 12.1%

In basic terms, poverty results from the discrepancy between income and expenses. A person is “poor” when his or her income is woefully inadequate to cover expenses that meet basic needs, such as food, housing and transportation. In New York City these expenses are immense. In fact, New York City is the most expensive city in which to live in all of North America (NNMoney.com. “World’s Most Expensive Cities,” June 22, 2005.)

Since this is such an important topic, to be continued.....

Remembering Ramon

One week ago, my brother-in-law Ramon died. He was one of the first of my husband’s relatives that I met – so many, many years ago. And he won me over immediately with his warm smile and sparkling personality. He was a “people” person, always welcoming, always ready with a joke.

At his funeral, his many friends and family testified to a life well lived and a man well loved. I will miss him but his memory will forever make my heart happy.

My husband and daughters wrote much better tributes to Ramon. Click on to my daughter’s blog on the sidebar for her tribute. My daughter Lisa’s tribute follows.

Co-mess-TAH?

October 7, 2008

Pío, pío, pío my Tío Ramón sang, telling me the story of myself as a two-year old chasing chickens in Rincón by Agapito’s house. He danced and bent his knees becoming me for a moment, the room filling with squawking chickens and hot feathers and dust. His smile filled the room with light. His whole face beamed with joy, kind of like a Santa who had grown up on a tropical island. His cheeks stood out prominently and his nostrils flared above his thick mustache. His eyes moved fast drinking up your whole face under thick eyebrow awnings. I couldn’t help but laugh and remember with him even though it was only the faintest memory for me. I lived it again and again through his storytelling.

My Tío was always handsomely dressed. Quite dapper, GQ I would later say since taking a picture of him in a garden conservatory. He stood facing me, hands in pockets, long coat hanging off of his shoulders. He looked taller than he was in that coat. Muy guapo, Tío! He looked so strong, so powerful, so bigger than life to me. His words were quick and could bite if you weren’t ready, but always love flowed from him to me. He always greeted me with, “Como está?” but it always sounded like Co-mess-TAH to my ears, staccato and fast. I always answered, “Muy bien. Y usted?” and he would laugh and answer, “Bien. Mi que linda, Lisa.” My attempts at speaking Spanish were such a happy time for him.

When I got married, Tío was there watching out for me. My husband, Wes, told me later that my uncle came over to him and said, “Lisa is a very special girl. You take care of her.” Then he held up his index and middle fingers pointing to Wes’ eyes and raised one eyebrow as he said really slowly, “Marriage is for-EVER.” Tío smiled and walked away. Wes wasn’t sure who Ramón was, but he said he felt like he had just gotten a Puerto Rican hex by a little old man in my family. I laughed. We just celebrated eight years, Tío, so I guess your “PR hex” is working for us.

My last memory of you was the day before you died. I was in yoga class thinking of you. I had been looking at your picture for the past week and praying that you would be okay. We did a little prayer asking God to give us what we need because everything else was irrelevant. And when I laid down to rest at the end of class, I saw you surrounded by a bright white light. You were looking up a little to your right and had a little smile flickering under your mustache. Your eyes were black gems, like a charcoal drawing on a cloud. You were bigger than life and I sent all my thoughts and prayers and calm to you. You looked so happy and handsome, Tío.

Give Titi Carmen and Ramon Jr. a big hug for me. I miss you very much. Te amo mucho, Tío. Vaya con Díos! Make Him laugh too.

Lisa

The Great Depression, the New Deal and Today

I was thinking about the comment from Vicki on my blog about history affecting ordinary lives. How her mother-in-law won't eat spaghetti because that was what they got during the depression. Speaking of the depression, my Dad joined one of the New Deal programs - the CCC's (Civilian Conservation Corps)- when he was a young man. He was sent out west to Wyoming and Idaho, where he fought forest fires and planted trees - and developed a deep love of nature which he passed along to us. As I noted in my September 11th blogs, unexpected blessings can come from difficult times of pain and suffering, such as the crisis of the Great Depression. How wonderful that America had such a great leader in F.D. Roosevelt to push through programs that gave people meaningful work, helped build America's infrastructure and energy capacity (Tennessee Valley Authority), and had such an effect on ordinary lives. Maybe our current economic crisis is another opportunity for great leadership and creative programs to come to the rescue of the real victims: ordinary everyday people and their families.

History and Ordinary Lives

When I was in school, I didn’t like “history” class much. It was all about dates and wars and stuffy old men. Much later, long after I had graduated from college, I developed an interest in Medieval History. The books I read, books like A History of Their Own by Bonnie Anderson and Judith Zinsser, were mostly about ordinary life in those times, especially women’s lives. Of course, the wars, plagues and other disasters of the time affected ordinary lives in terrible ways.

A few weeks ago there was a news story about the Rosenberg trial of the 1950’s, how some evidence given by witnesses against Ethel Rosenberg may have been tainted. My daughter asked me to write about my memories of that time. And I was struck about how much that trial affected my life.

In those days, when I was about 10 or 11 years old, my family’s television set was still pretty new. I remember watching the McCarthy hearings and the comedians’ imitations of them. I sort of got the idea that “Communists” were bad but even that concept was mixed up in my 10 year old brain. I remember my Mom saying once that she was going to write to her congressman and I wondered why she would write to someone who was an enemy of America. Obviously, I got the two terms confused.

The cold war of the 50’s meant that we had air raid drills in school, where we would crouch under our desks or stand in the hall, saying the rosary. Once there was a sonic boom (probably a jet breaking the sound barrier) and my Mom came running into the room yelling “Those lousy Russians!”

But I certainly knew what the Rosenberg trial was about. It was a top news story in the early days of TV and the media milked it for all it was worth. What it meant to me was that a mother and father were going to be executed and that children would lose their parents. I was terrified, especially as the day approached for their death by the electric chair at Sing-Sing. I believe that this event contributed to my phobia about electricity. Shortly after the Rosenbergs were executed, I got a slight shock from an intercom in my house and spent a sleepless night thinking I would be electrocuted at any moment. It was downhill from there.

Now, of course I would have been plagued by phobias anyway. But it is interesting how newsworthy events change our lives, even in small ways. And who can deny how everyone’s life has been changed by the events of September 11th. Or Hurricane Katrina. Or Vietnam – but that’s another blog entirely.

Grandma's Story - Chapter 1 Part 2

Let me tell you what my house looked like on the inside. When I was five, I lived on the first floor of 1675 Linden Street with my Mom, Dad, sister Kathy and baby brother Jimmy. Later on I had two more brothers, Johnny and Jeff. Our apartment was called a railroad flat because all the rooms were connected in a straight line that looked like a train. There was a little kitchen off of the dining room, which was also our living room. My Dad turned the real living room into a bedroom because there were so many of us. I shared the big bedroom with my sister and brother for awhile. My Dad took all the doors off the rooms to get air and there was no privacy. I had to walk through all the bedrooms to get to mine. When we went to bed at 9 o’clock, I would talk and laugh with my sister and brother. That made my father very angry and we’d get a smack!

Our house had one great thing. My grandma Nanny, grandpa Pop-Pop, and great aunt Kiki, lived on the second floor. So if it got too noisy or crowded, I could sneak down the long entry way or “private hall” into the big hall and up the stairs to my grandparents house. It was so peaceful there. Nanny would be reading the Journal American, a newspaper, at the big dining room table and peeling an orange. Pop-Pop would be sleeping in his easy chair. He could fall asleep as easily as ‘Buelo. He loved to tell us corny jokes but he would laugh so hard, he would be crying and we couldn’t hear the end of the joke. Sometimes Pop-Pop would sit in the living room. My cousins, sister, brother and I would sit around him and beg him to tell us stories about Jack the Giant Killer. They were scary and we loved them!

I even remember my great grandmother, Granny. She was your great, great, great grandmother. She would show me black and blue marks on her wrinkly hands. She said the marks were from being old. I’m not so sure. She lived in Nanny’s house and died when I was five years old. I had to be very quiet, my Mom said, because Nanny and Kiki were very sad.

My other Grandma and Grandpa (my Dad’s Mom and Dad) lived down the block on Linden Street. Grandma had beautiful embroidery hanging on the walls with Hungarian writing. She had statues of Jesus and Mary on her dresser, with lighted candles in front of them. I loved to go to her house and stare at the pictures and candles and smell the delicious smells coming from her kitchen.

Grandpa was a carpenter. He built a wooden staircase outside our dining/living room window. When we wanted to play in the backyard, we would climb out the window and go down the steps. My Pop-Pop took care of the garden. His specialty was roses: white, pink, red and yellow rose bushes. My favorites were the yellow roses because they smelled so sweet and they were short, so it was easy to sniff them. Pop-Pop made us a dirt box at the end of his garden with a little seat. I loved to play bakery and make dirt pies and cookies and cakes. But I didn’t taste them!

There were no clothes dryers back then. There was a tall pole at the end of the yard and a clothes line attached. My Mom hung the clothes on the line from the kitchen window. In the winter, the shirts would come in frozen stiff with their arms sticking out, like invisible people.

It was lots of fun being five when I was a kid! (June 15, 2005)

Grandma's Story - Chapter 1 Part 1

Before you read this, go to "Grandma's Story - Introduction" (September 7, 2008).

Chapter 1 - For Sam, Age 5

Once upon a time, Grandma was five years old, just like you are now. I lived in a house that was very different from yours. It was in a place called Queens in New York City. My neighborhood was Ridgewood. It didn’t have big buildings and “too many people”. The streets were called blocks and had sidewalks and brick houses, three stories high, all stuck together.

I remember my block being a long, sunny street with three skinny trees across from my house. Each house had a gate and a stoop, four fat cement steps that led to the outside door. In the summer, we bounced our Spaulding balls (the best bouncing balls!) against the stoop. The big boys played stick ball in the gutter, where the cars drove by. Only there weren’t too many cars back then so we could even draw in the gutter with chalk and make games. I liked to play Potsy, which is like Hopscotch.

We didn’t have air conditioning either. On summer nights everyone sat in the gate on benches or on the stoop and waited for the Bungalow Bar truck to come with its ice cream pops. It was a white truck that looked like a little house and its bells were music to my ears.

It was fun living on Linden Street, my block. We rode our bicycles and scooters on the sidewalk or roller skated. Those roller skates were metal with metal wheels and you needed a key to tighten them to your shoes. I liked the feel of my tingly feet after I took off my skates. One time I was riding my bicycle and I saw a neighbor kid, Dennis W., coming up the street. It was too late to stop and I hit him and knocked him down. I fell off my bike. Later his big sister came to my house and yelled at my Mom. I was so scared. I learned a good lesson – don’t ride bicycles on the sidewalk.

When I was five, I started Kindergarten in the Catholic school down the street called St. Brigid’s. My Mom had also gone to St. Brigid’s. I was so excited to go to school. It had a sandbox and see-saw and jungle gym right inside the classroom. One day my cousin Joseph and I were playing on the see-saw with another girl. We thought it would be funny if we sat on one end and kept her up in the air. She didn’t like it at all. And we soon got tired of the game, so we got up. To our surprise, the girl came crashing down with a bang! She started crying and told the teacher, Sister Rita. Joseph and I got punished. We had to sit down and skip recess. We were also supposed to tell our mothers what we had done. I felt very sorry but I learned another lesson, a Physics lesson. I knew what happened when you take a weight off of one end of a balance. The other end comes down really fast. Oh yes. I did tell my Mom what had happened but Joseph didn’t tell his mother. I guess I learned another lesson that time.

Grandma's Story - Introduction

A few years ago I began a project for my six grandchildren called “Grandma’s Story”. In honor of Grandparents Day, I’ve decided to share this with you on my blog for several reasons. First, it will be another place to save my story and give my own family a chance to read all about it again. Second, it may give grandparents and older relatives another idea on how to share their own stories. It is also a wonderful opportunity for educating a new generation about ordinary life in extraordinary times: World War II, the Civil Rights Movement, Vietnam, etc. Finally, I hope that by blogging I will be encouraged to continue writing – there’s a lot more to tell.

I began writing my story for children and tried to write in that style. I will post the introduction today and then continue with short segments from Chapter 1. I welcome your comments.

Introduction to Grandma’s Story (June 2005)

This book will be all about life in the times when Grandma was growing up. Since I was born in 1941, that was a long, long time ago! The first chapter will describe my adventures when I was five years old and since Sam just celebrated his 5th birthday, this is Sam’s chapter.

Later there will be special chapters for all my precious grandkids. And the best part is every one gets to share the whole story and read about how it was to be a kid 60 years ago! I look forward to writing chapters for Marina, Chase, Sierra, Jackson and Baby Punkin’ (who turned out to be Aidan!) Maybe you can give me ideas about what you’d like to hear about. Or even interview me. We will see.

When it’s all finished – a long time from now – you will all have a story to show to your children and grandchildren. A special story that you can add to with your own stories. The story of our family!

Summers on Wheels: part two

When I had my own family, summer car vacations were more about the journey than the destination. We stopped often along the way and discovered all sorts of surprises. But another reason for long meandering car trips was the many lemon cars we owned. The kids will never forget our “Fred Flintstone” VW 411 – they had to keep their legs up on the seat in the back because there was a hole in the floor, where they watched the road roll by.

Once my husband and I visited the Montreal Worlds Fair in a car that barely did 20 mph on hills – and we had to drive through the Adirondacks! On the way home on a Sunday night, we couldn’t find an open gas station. We ran out of gas on the Northway near midnight as huge tractor-trailers whizzed by. A kindly truck driver stopped and drove us to a small town gas station he knew, then proceeded to wake up the proprietor to pump us gas, which was probably under $1/gallon back then.

But our most memorable adventure was spending a night sleeping in one of our junkier cars in an upstate New York gas station. After the mechanic got it running and we were on the way home, the car conked out for good and we hitched hiked on Route 17 with the three little ones. A man who was moving from Binghamton to Poughkeepsie – his car packed with possessions – picked us up. Enroute we witnessed a nasty motorcycle accident and just avoided running over the victims. After stopping to help, we barely made it to Poughkeepsie in time to catch the last train to NYC. We arrived in Harlem at midnight and walked across 125th Street to get the subway home.

Still later, I took many trips on wheels with my daughter Lisa. We traveled back from the Florida Keys along Route 1 - stopping at Cape Kennedy; driving through rice paddies, sometimes via ferries, in the Carolinas; and discovering the outerbanks and Kitty Hawk along the way. When we explored the back roads of Maine, we came across a Mama moose and her baby. Lisa and I had many wonderful California adventures on wheels. Each road presents a more magnificent vista - earthquake tortured rock formations; Dr. Seuss-like Joshua Trees in the desert; breathtaking mountain views; tarantulas crossing the road on a back route out of Death Valley; and of course, the Pacific Coast Highway PCH 1, with its unobstructed view of the Pacific.

For us, it’s all about the journey.

Summers on Wheels: part one

Many of our summer vacations were spent in the family car. My Dad always had a well-planned itinerary in mind. He would pack my Mom and the 3, 4, and then 5 kids in the car – no seat belts or A/C in those days – and off we’d go for two weeks of adventure. It’s funny the memories that stick. Like the accident we had in Erie, PA when a car’s brakes failed and plowed into us at an intersection. Or the trip to Cleveland, OH that resulted in a pen pal relationship with one of my distant Hungarian cousins. Or meeting another Hungarian cousin, Tibi, a gifted commercial artist in Ottawa, Canada.

We took a long trip one year to St. Petersburg, FL to visit my Aunt Helen; I can still taste those Hungarian crepes she made. On the way, we stopped at cabins or the early version of motels. I remember one evening in the 1950’s on the lawn of a South Carolina motel. I was listening to a conversation about segregation that my Dad and the motel owner were having. His argument for “white only” motels was that integrated motels would lead to interracial marriage. He pointed at me – “You wouldn’t want your little girl to marry a colored boy!” And at my tender age, I just couldn’t understand how a motel that welcomed all races could lead to my marriage; I couldn’t even imagine getting married! Later I noticed the separate hospital entrances and water fountains – “Whites only”. It made an impression and seemed strange, sad to me.

Those trips were so educational. Geography comes alive when you actually set foot in a capital city. My love of maps began on those trips. Having grown up in New York City, the other “big” cities of states paled in comparison. “This is a city?” was my reaction. But I discovered that each city was unique – like Charleston, SC so beautiful and clean, and Lexington, KY with its wonderful horse farms. When we finally made it to Florida, after several nights in sweltering cabins, I was so looking forward to a swim in the Gulf of Mexico. To my disappointment, it was not refreshing at all – more like soaking in a hot tub! Another disappointment – I so wanted to see the legendary Fountain of Youth that led Ponce de Leon to St. Augustine, FL. When we arrived, it cost too much money for the whole family to visit, so we just stared at the gates. I made up for this with my credit cards when I took my grown up vacations many years later.

At some point during every summer car vacation, we kids would get on Dad’s nerves (how many games of license plates can you play!) and he would scream at us, threaten beatings when he stopped the car, and vow “No more vacations!” Lucky for us, it never came to pass. And the next year, we’d be off on another adventure.

Summer in the Country

Just got back from a week in the New Jersey countryside at the home of my son and his family. Walking along the rural roads with my grandson Sam took me back to my long ago summers in the country, starting when I was about five or six. My grandparents and great aunt Kiki treated me – and later my younger sister Kathy – to a few weeks at a farm in Ellenville and a resort in Calicoon, New York. Many years later, one of our lemon cars actually broke down on the Route 17 exit for Ellenville. That was the time that we hitched a ride with the three kids and had many adventures along the way – but that’s another story.

At the farm, we played with the young farm kids, William and Francis. One of the games was leaping over the trap door in the hayloft; of course I fell through and was knocked out momentarily. Another great game was chasing the pigs when they got loose. Although there was no TV in those days, we never lacked for entertainment. We took daily walks along the road, where we would find lizards and wild flowers. In the evenings we played rolls of melodies on the player piano and had sing-a-longs. We even spent many hours writing and performing little plays. Kids haven’t changed all that much. Just last week, my grandkids, Marina, Chase and Sierra performed in 3 plays, written by their home school friends. I am happy to report that talent has grown remarkably in our family since the plays of my youth.

While I was in New Jersey last week we went to the Warren County Fair. It was great fun, especially the Demolition Derby. And I realize that part of my childhood country summers must have included a trip to the fair. I remember clearly wanting a special prize at a festival in the country – a Bambi stuffed animal, perched atop all the other prizes. My grandfather tried all evening to win it for me. Checking to see if it was still there, I discovered that it was gone. I was heartbroken until my grandfather came along with my Bambi tucked under his arm; he did it! Again, grandkids have not changed over the years - at every fair or theme park, they are lured by the games that promise stuffed animal prizes.

Home cooked country dinners were part of the farm vacation experience, a big draw for my grandmother and aunt. I guess Grandmas haven’t changed all that much either. One evening, the dinner menu was hot dogs and potato chips. Well, we kids were delighted. Needless to say, my grandmother was not amused and that ended our summer stays at Ellenville.