Senior Center still set to close

Plans to close St. Mary’s Senior Center remain on track, despite the protest of local elected officials. The Center, located on 10-14 49th Avenue, is slated to close on Friday, June 29 because of dropping attendance, the influx of young professionals to the area who do not use the center’s services, and the rising costs to maintain the building, the senior center’s management said.
Still, several Western Queens politicians complained that the center is closing its doors and leaving local seniors with no place to turn. For the past 20 years, St. Mary’s has been run by Builders for Family & Youth, Inc., an affiliate of Catholic Charities of Brooklyn & Queens, with the assistance of the New York City Department for the Aging (DFTA).
St. Mary’s serves 30 lunches to seniors daily, officials estimated, and delivers meals to homebound seniors through another Catholic Charities program that will continue even after St. Mary’s closes. In addition, the senior center provides social activities and assistance to local elderly residents of Long Island City.
“Closing the only senior center in Long Island City without any plans to reopen a comparable facility, leaving seniors with no option but to travel far to an alternate center is simply unacceptable,” said Councilmember Eric Gioia, after a recent rally outside of the center.
Gioia has called on the DFTA to find a new building for St. Mary’s, and Assemblymember Cathy Nolan has asked that Catholic Charities keep the doors open to the Long Island City facility until a new place is found. As of Thursday, May 24, a spokesperson for Gioia said that the Councilmember was working on an agreement with several local organizations to find a space for St. Mary’s by June 29.
“This decision is not only a disgrace but it is shortsighted considering that the elderly population will only continue to grow in the coming years as baby boomers reach senior citizen status. More importantly, we cannot have our traditional neighborhoods gentrified to the point where longtime elderly residents cannot be part of the community lunch program,” Nolan said.
In a statement, Builders for Family & Youth said that arrangements will be made so that the lunch program would still be available to seniors who have received it at St. Mary’s through other, nearby senior centers. In addition, transportation services, which shuttle seniors to nearby shopping centers, will continue after St. Mary’s is closed.
“In the past five years, the number of seniors accessing services at the center has declined significantly. Today, St. Mary’s Senior Center has gone from serving 100 seniors to 30 seniors a day. This has to do with the changing landscape of Long Island City; seniors are leaving the neighborhood, and young professionals and families are moving in. In addition, the St. Mary’s Senior Center is housed in a building that is over 100-years-old, the cost of maintaining and upgrading it is prohibitive,” a statement from Catholic Charities read.
However, local elected officials, who have allocated money to St. Mary’s in the past, said that they would have found more funds, if made aware of the issue.
“I question why we were not made aware of the dire straits of the building and proposed closure of St. Mary’s when we were helping to secure a recent grant from Citicorp used to purchase a new boiler,” Nolan said.