By Carla Zanoni
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
INWOOD — Residents, elected officials and senior service officials are calling for the Mayor Michael Bloomberg to reverse his proposed closure of three of the four local senior centers in Inwood and Marble Hill.
"It is un-American to throw our seniors in the cold, it is unlike this city and state to throw our seniors out on the street," State Sen. Adriano Espaillat said Friday as he , along with Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez and Assemblyman Guillermo Linares, called for the city and Albany to find the $25 million needed to keep 104 senior centers open throughout the five boroughs.
The proposed budget cuts announced Thursday could shut the doors at the Dyckman Senior Center on Dyckman Street and Tenth Avenue and RAIN Inwood Senior Center at 84 Vermilyea Ave. in Inwood, as well as the Marble Hill Senior Center at 5365 Broadway, where many Upper Manhattan residents receive services as well.
The closures would affect 41 percent of the 256 centers that operate throughout the five boroughs and would begin on July 1. Last year, Bloomberg threatened to close as many as 50 senior centers to close the budget gap and ultimately closed 29.
Maria Gomez and her 78-year-old mother Clarisol Alvarez live together in Inwood and often rely on senior centers for meals as well as recreational activities.
"With the economy the way it is, sometimes we need help just making sure we’re all eating properly," Gomez said in Spanish.
Nearly 8,000 senior citizens would be affected in Upper Manhattan should the centers close, according to Rodriguez, who emphasized that nearly 25 percent of households in his district house at least one elderly person, many of whom live below the poverty line.
"This loss would be devastating to the areas elderly, particularly Latinos who face the highest senior poverty rate of any ethnic group in the city," Rodriguez said.
