Improving Home Delivery meals for Older Adults Affected by Food Security in Disasters (MPA Capstone)

Introduction

In March of 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus forced NYC to lockdown and authorities enacted a shelter-in-place order for all residents. Aside from essential workers, the public were instructed to stay indoors at home and limit their activity with others. As a result, many older adults (seniors) were isolated from their everyday communities and the services that they depended on. These services include healthcare, economic support, and food security. Many older adults throughout the city rely on New York City’s (NYC) Department for the Aging‘s (DFTA) older adult centers (formerly senior centers) and partner organizations for these critical services. Contracted organizations are defined as providers and prior to the pandemic, served congregate meals and home-delivered meals program (HDM) for homebound older adults to provide nutritious, healthy, and culturally appropriate hot meals. The pandemic heavily tested the city’s and DFTA’s planning for supplies, resources, and the capacity of providers.

Many older adults not originally part of HDM applied for the program when the city went into lockdown but were soon referred elsewhere as DFTA’s HDM could not adapt to an emergency of this scale. New applicants were referred to other city programs created to tackle  growing food insecurity. The disruption of services further aggravated existing socioeconomic vulnerabilities for many older adults and amplified hardships for the vulnerable. The pandemic tested the limits of the existing HDM program’s ability to alleviate food insecurity during a crisis for older adults that showed the need for another look at DFTA’s priority when it came to their HDM policies.

How can DFTA improve the HDM program for emergencies to improve food insecurity for older adults? The policy analyst’s role in this memorandum is to answer that question. As the nature of emergencies evolve, the assurance of providing nutritious and culturally appropriate food options is a necessity to prevent further aggravation of older adult vulnerabilities. Food security, especially culturally appropriate foods, are a major part of emergency management’s cycle that includes response and recovery which helps victims to find comfort and support while they overcome a disaster. Critical gap areas need to be addressed with policy options that can strengthen DFTA’s emergency response.

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