Age-friendly NYC is a comprehensive blueprint for promoting active aging released last summer by Mayor Bloomberg, the City Council and the New York Academy of Medicine. The blueprint's 59 initiatives spell out the City's plans for enhancing New York's "livability" for older residents in light of demographic changes that are expected to increase the City's older population by almost 50% within 25 years.

While the initiatives are grouped into four main areas - community and civic participation; housing; public spaces and transportation; and health and social services - they range from issues as public as pedestrian safety and the design of public seating to more private concerns such as management of health and the role of palliative care.

Several DFTA-managed initiatives are already underway. Through Space for Art, selected senior centers in each borough are offering "free" workspace to local artists in return for artist-led creative activities for center members. DFTA, the Department of Cultural Affairs, borough arts councils and senior centers are collaborating on this project. The artist selection process is near completion, and artists are expected to start their center "residencies" in March.

For the past several years school buses and their drivers have been taking senior center members on trips during the hours when kids are in school and the buses would otherwise be sitting idle. This arrangement between the Department of Education (DOE) and the Department for the Aging (DFTA) has provided hundreds of seniors with visits to museums, parks or other public places. Now DFTA and DOE have raised the program up a notch with MarketRide, an initiative focused specifically on providing seniors with trips via school bus to supermarkets and green markets where they can find fresh produce and healthful foods.

MarketRide was launched at the beginning of the school year, when roughly two dozen seniors from Raices Times Plaza Senior Center climbed aboard Bus 2261, which normally ferries students across Park Slope. The bus headed to Fairway on Atlantic Avenue in Red Hook, where the seniors loaded up on everything from apples to Caribbean cooking spices.

MarketRide addresses a goal of the Mayor's Age Friendly NYC Initiative. "The City wants to make it easier for seniors who live in neighborhoods where there are few supermarkets and limited access to fresh fruit or vegetables to obtain nutritious foods," said Commissioner Barrios-Paoli of DFTA. And there's an additional benefit. "It's like a little outing," said Carmen Senda, one of the riders, appreciatively, as she settled into a conversation with her seatmate.

MarketRide is now available to senior centers in all five boroughs. Seniors should contact their local senior center to inquire whether it is participating in the program.

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Great Service Great City: DFTA Prioritizes Customer Service

Mayor Bloomberg's "Great Service Great City" initiative, now in its second year, aims to make New York City government world class in customer service. The Department for the Aging and other City agencies are committed to ensuring that every person who interacts with city government receives the best customer service possible.

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Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption (SCRIE) Program Transfered

This past fall, DFTA officially transferred administration of the Senior Citizen Rent Increase Exemption program, or SCRIE, to the Department of Finance. SCRIE provides eligible elderly renters with exemptions from most future rent increases through tax exemptions to landlords.

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Neighborhood Medicare Part D Sites See More Seniors than Ever Before

DFTA's 30 Part D enrollment and information centers saw a greater number of seniors than ever before during the Medicare Part D enrollment period between November 15th and December 31st. Close to 3,000 counseling sessions were conducted during the three month period. "As New Yorkers learn about the program and how it can help them make the right enrollment choice in terms of terms of both dollars and coverage, we've seen a tremendous increase in people seeking our assistance," said Amy Bernstein, Director of DFTA's Health Information Assistance and Counseling Program (HIICAP) which oversees the enrollment centers.

Bernstein pointed out that New York State seniors were offered 48 pharmaceutical plans to choose from, and close to 50 Medicare Advantage Plans as well as straight Medicare. "We have experts available to help beneficiaries and caregivers compare plans and select and enroll in the one best for them," she explained. HIICAP has been assisting older New Yorkers to select the best plan for them since 2003 when Medicare Part D first went into effect.

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DFTA Expands Chronic Disease Self-Management Program

The NY State Office for Aging (NYSOFA) recently renewed funding for a fourth year of DFTA's Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSMP). Developed by Stanford University with funding from the US Department of Health and Human Services, CDSMP and its Spanish version, Tomando Control, has been proven to delay or reduce the disabilities that frequently accompany chronic diseases. The program will continue to engage seniors living in NORCs (Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities).

At the same time Emblem Health is helping DFTA extend the program to senior centers citywide. Emblem will provide trained leaders and resource materials at no cost to interested senior centers. Roll-out of the Emblem-funded initiative has begun at seven centers in Brooklyn.

CDSMP and Tomando Control consist of six weekly workshops of two and one half hours each that are attended by people with different chronic health problems. Each participant receives a copy of the course workbook and a certificate when the course is completed. As they work through the different topics in the classroom format, participants share their experiences and efforts to change their health behavior with each other. They begin to develop the skills and confidence to manage their chronic health problems and to be more active.

A study of CDSMP effectiveness conducted by the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality showed that participants had improved on a variety of health related measures including more energy and less fatigue, reduced health stress and fewer visits to physicians and emergency rooms.

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Program Spotlight: Short Stories Spark Lively Discussion at Sirovich Center

The weekly short story discussion group at Sirovich Senior Center in Manhattan has a loyal following. On November 9, the last day of fall's eight-week session, nine center members with a love of reading gathered to share with each other their reactions to the Primo Levi story "A Tranquil Star" that had been assigned by their instructor, Cindy Ofer. The nine were diverse in many ways. Two were Russian immigrants, two were Chinese and one was Japanese. They were diverse in background as well, including a former dentist, a musician/psychotherapist, a bar and restaurant owner and a ballet dancer.

Everyone had something to say about the Levi story, which is in two parts with no apparent connection. The first part is about the lifespan of a far-off star and the second is about the impact of that star's explosion on the plans for a Saturday excursion of an observatory-dwelling astronomer and his family. "How do you connect the parts?" asked Ms. Ofer. "That's the challenge."

Ivy remarked that despite her difficulty as a non-native speaker with the story's syntax, the story itself made her smile at the absurdity of how far-away things can affect everyday life. Ed talked about the different levels of reality in the story. Others spoke about the narrator and his cool objectivity "like a scientist;" about how as one ages one becomes more aware that "everything goes on"; even about relativity and issues of self-determination and destiny in a cosmos where "most of us are grounded in our own species, tied into the human dimension although in reality there are galaxies and galaxies outside us."

At times the discussion turned personal. Takami challenged Ed at one point with "you're a man and I'm a woman and we see things differently" and Ninette talked about her own life as the wife of someone whose first priority, like that of the astronomer, was not her but his work. It turned philosophical as well, with Marilyn offering her view that the more huge and impersonal the universe, the more you've got to affirm yourself. "I created something," she said, "I'm proud of my son and my grandchildren… when a nova falls apart it creates something, that's the cycle of life."

At the end of the session, participants rated the story, giving it scores ranging from 6 to 10 out of 10. The 8.5 it averaged put it as sixth well-liked of the eight stories in the session. Isabel Allende's "Tosca" came in on top with a 9.4 from the group.

A new session began January 25th. Ofer spent her time between sessions reading up on stories from all over the world to make her selection for this upcoming session. She estimates that over the past 10 years she has read thousands of stories. Hers was the first short story discussion group of its kind at a NYC senior center. "I learn, and they learn from each other," she says of her students. "And they've had such diverse experiences, I never know when someone will have actually lived through an event we're reading about."

Ofer would love to have her discussion group replicated at other senior centers. She is willing to share her syllabi and what she has learned about teaching. She can be contacted through Sirovich Center.

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