To the Editor:
Thank you for your column “Another Tale of Two Cities” (Senior Living column, July 23). All that you said was accurate and poignant. If I was going to add anything it would be that the city’s crumbling infrastructure is another worry for seniors: broken sidewalks, rutted streets, crumbling subway stairs, all are hazardous, potentially life-trajectory changers for mobile seniors.
On the television station NY1, it was mentioned that there are homeless shelters for seniors. I’m assuming that they were not referring to SROs but to actual shelters. Where are they? What are they like? Is anything being done by the de Blasio administration to ameliorate senior homelessness?
While I empathize with the need of families with children for shelter, it seems a particularly egregious reflection on our society that people who supported this city when we were young, are discarded when we are old.
In some ways, the proverbial being set adrift on an iceflow seems a more honest, and honorable, way to end the lives of elderly people than to have us waste away out of sight, and out of mind. I look forward to your future columns.
Barbara Maddox