I am a senior citizen living in a four year old, apartment complex for low income seniors located in Long Island, New York.
The town I live in administers a number of programs to meet the needs of its senior residents. One of them is transportation to medical appointments and food shopping. When I inquired about this from the town's Division of Senior Citizen Affairs, I was told that they did not serve our apartment complex with the shopping bus. They said that the management of the complex was required to provide this service to us.
Several of my neighbors have told me that their requests to the apartment management have been ignored.
I then called the town's law office to ask about the law the management was not in compliance with and was told that there is no such law, but rather it's the town's "policy" not to give this service to apartment complexes built later than about seven years ago. This is due to limited funding, they claim.
The person I spoke with suggested circulating a petition, calling our representative on the town council, attending town meetings, and "lobbying" to get included in the group that gets this service.
I feel that this puts my neighbors and myself in the position of having to beg for something from the town, that other seniors are entitled to. Since we are older women who have very limited income and no transportation to town meetings, we are at a disadvantage when it comes to this kind of thing.
While I could understand that if the town has limited resources, a first come, first served policy might result in some people not going food shopping as often as they would like, at least it would seem fair. Their "policy" as it is seems like discrimination to me.
I don't know the source of their funding for this program, but would it make any difference if it was federal or state money rather than local taxes?
What do you think? Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
The town I live in administers a number of programs to meet the needs of its senior residents. One of them is transportation to medical appointments and food shopping. When I inquired about this from the town's Division of Senior Citizen Affairs, I was told that they did not serve our apartment complex with the shopping bus. They said that the management of the complex was required to provide this service to us.
Several of my neighbors have told me that their requests to the apartment management have been ignored.
I then called the town's law office to ask about the law the management was not in compliance with and was told that there is no such law, but rather it's the town's "policy" not to give this service to apartment complexes built later than about seven years ago. This is due to limited funding, they claim.
The person I spoke with suggested circulating a petition, calling our representative on the town council, attending town meetings, and "lobbying" to get included in the group that gets this service.
I feel that this puts my neighbors and myself in the position of having to beg for something from the town, that other seniors are entitled to. Since we are older women who have very limited income and no transportation to town meetings, we are at a disadvantage when it comes to this kind of thing.
While I could understand that if the town has limited resources, a first come, first served policy might result in some people not going food shopping as often as they would like, at least it would seem fair. Their "policy" as it is seems like discrimination to me.
I don't know the source of their funding for this program, but would it make any difference if it was federal or state money rather than local taxes?
What do you think? Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.