The Citymeals Blog

Today, there are 1.8 million older New Yorkers who call this city home. Over 230,000 of them are members of the Asian American community. Asian Americans make up just under 10 percent of the meal recipients we serve. At Citymeals, we want to meet our meal recipients wherever they are — that includes delivering meals that reflect their own needs and cultural preferences.

Home-delivered meal programs like ours are vital, especially as poverty — and hunger — among older New Yorkers continues to rise. A recent study found that nearly 27 percent of Asian Americans over the age of 65 are living at or below the poverty line, the highest of any ethnic group in the city. And that number has doubled over the last decade.

A rise in poverty also means a rise in the rates of food insecurity, especially among those who already receive home-delivered meals. Many of our recipients who immigrated to this country may not have family nearby to help them as they age. Through our own research, we know that 32% of the older adults we spoke with do not receive social security. Even for those who do, the monthly payments don’t go far enough in an expensive city like New York.

Ciytmeals partners with several meal centers dedicated to serving these diverse Asian communities, including the Chinese-American Planning Council’s Open Door Senior Center. Founded more than 50 years ago by Po-Ling Ng, an immigrant herself who remains the center’s director today, Open Door serves more than 600 older residents of Manhattan’s Chinatown. They cook and serve the kind of meals that are familiar to their recipients, like chicken with oyster sauce with rice and bok choy.

For those who don’t speak English fluently, language can be a barrier to accessing food and social services, as it has been for 87-year-old Shin Ho. She has lived in Queens for over four decades and is fluent in both Korean and Chinese, but relied on her husband to translate for her. Since his death, she has struggled to manage on her own.

In Queens, our partners at the Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York (KCS) are dedicated to supporting older immigrants like Shin Ho. In addition to nutritious Korean meals, they provide bilingual case workers for their recipients. They also offer English classes and workshops on how to use a smartphone for translation and to connect with distant friends and family and access the resources they need.

New York City has always been a vibrant patchwork of different people and cultures. To end elder hunger by 2040, Citymeals will continue to work within these communities, partnering with local meal centers to provide much-needed food and connection in unique and culturally tailored ways.