 Older adults love the mayor. I want everyone to know that he's been visiting older adults across the city and every older adult club and it has been a blast for them and I believe for him to. Good afternoon. My name is Lorenco Tevasques. I'm the commissioner for the New York City Department for the Aging. And I'm pleased to have individuals here who've made this day possible, none other than our mayor, Eric Adams, our first deputy commissioner and our deputy commissioner, Mark Stewart, who also was instrumental in making this happen, as well as two of the providers in New York. But first I want to get to the importance of this. Who really made this possible? On this same day last year, Mayor Eric Adams, deputy commissioner, Stewart, we sat in the front of City Hall and held a major event, again, announcing World Elder Abuse Day. And on that day, the mayor, we were able to announce that our older adult elder abuse services were increased, doubled what we had before. That is because of Mayor Adams. He continues to be a strong advocate, as you all know for public safety, but more importantly, for older adult public safety, and we're really proud of that. Yes. That wasn't enough for this mayor. Few months later, when he saw all of the action going on, he created the first in the nation, the Cabinet for Older Adults, where he pulled together 20 agencies, 20 agencies and said, I'm looking to you to make sure that New York City is the most age-inclusive city in the world, definitely starting with New York. I am looking to you to make sure that we have no barriers, there is no wrong door, because we're going to get stuff done for older adults in New York. That was Mayor Adams. And as a result of that Cabinet, New York City Aging and the NYPD forged a strong relationship, which is what brings us today. And with that, I'm going to introduce you one of our greatest champions for older New Yorkers, Mayor Eric Adams. We have an amazing commissioner, an amazing team, and I remember my days as a state senator. I was one of the committee members for the aging committee, and I used to get all my ideas from one of the top leaders who was my mother. She would give me all of my ideas on what we needed to do, how we did the adult centers, how do we treat older adults, she would just write stuff down and I would take it up to Albany and push it forward. But I was extremely encouraged when the commissioner sat down and talked about putting together just a committee of people to hear directly from our older adults. And what I learned, and I'm sure Deputy Commissioner Stewart, a former detective in not only the police department, but also in the district attorney's office, he would tell us how often older adults were abused. Over adults had to go through neglect. Older adults were the victims of financial crises. We had a partnership in Brooklyn Borough Hall where we communicated with the banks to look at indicators when older adults was going through some type of financial fraud. We are clear in this administration, with the leadership of our commissioner, that it is about how do you allow people to enjoy the city and country that they built. It is wrong to spend your life in many professions of different capacity, and then when it's time for you to enjoy it, you have to deal with a level of uncertainty. And that is not what we're going to do in this administration, and we're going to be forward thinking in the process. Having a representative in each precinct that is going to specifically deal with the issues of older adults around neglect, abuse of financial crises is crucial. This brings it to the on the ground level. There's a level of confidentiality that will be there, so you won't have to deal with repercussions or reprisals. But you're going to have some of the best men and women who are going to investigate those things that are impacting you. And if we all acknowledge it, no matter who we are, we all are getting older. I got my AARP card many years ago, and I want to make sure the systems I built now will be there to protect me as I continue to move up in years. So we cannot thank you enough. I thank the entire team that have joined us. Councilman Marte has talked about this over and over again. And the beauty of this community lies in its diversity of this community. This community is extremely diverse, and your cross-pollination of ideas, of commitment, of dedication is what's going to produce the product that we know we can produce in the city of New York. And the numbers are startling. When you look at the fact that one out of 10 New Yorkers over the age of 60 go through a level of abuse, neglect, or financial irregularities, and the use in this day as the rural abuse awareness day of older adults is to wait for us to pause for a moment, gear up for the future. We spend this day to reflect what are the goals we want to accomplish in the future. So Commissioner, your cabinet for older adults fulfilled their obligation, lived through it. I was so pleased when you said you was going to stay with the administration and you continue to do some great things for the administration. So thank all of you for coming in today as we acknowledge the importance of this initiative. Thank you so much. Since we started this program, we have had about 300 referrals a day with the partnership with NYPD. And more importantly, as the mayor said, these liaisons, one in each present, will be able to be not only your voice, but also will be our teachers. One of the things that we are doing with the 12 organizations that we currently fund under this administration to address older adults' abuse in the community is that they will be training us on what are the latest crimes so that we can then adapt our services and prepare ourselves to be able to address that. And so with that, again, I want to thank you, First Deputy Commissioner, and I also want to thank you, Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart. It wouldn't have been possible without you. I am going to now introduce Mark Stewart to give us a few words on this initiative. Deputy Mayor, how about you? All right. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here. It should go without saying that respecting older adults is a matter of basic human dignity. It goes to the core of bigger New Yorker. And yet, every year, many of our communities from the age of 60 and older experience abuse and neglect. But on this, World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, the women and men of the NYPD are joining with our partners in government and the many community-based organizations who provide programs and services for older adults to raise awareness about the important issue and to help stop elder abuse in our city. We want every New Yorker to know that if they need help, if their parents, their neighbors, or anyone in their community is struggling, the NYPD and New York City is there for them and has devoted resources and programs to assist. Every NYPD priest across the five boroughs and every police service area covering Niger developments has liaison, designated to help and connect older victims with the many services that are available. Every complaint report involving older adults is carefully reviewed, after which we reach out and we offer assistance. Our liaison officers are also spending time in the community providing safety tips and keeping the public informed about our ongoing efforts to look after our older adults. So in partnership with the Elder Justice Network, which has been receiving hundreds of referrals from our offices, we are also connecting people to the essential and life-changing support that they need. As the population of older adult continues to grow, it is more than ever very important that we reaffirm our commitment to their care so they may age with the dignity, security and appreciation that every New Yorker deserves. In addition to these efforts, I encourage our greatest force multipliers, our 8.8 million New Yorkers to join us in this critical work. To be mindful of our neighbors or anyone who might be subjected to elder abuse, neglect or even exploitation, the NYPD has been and remains focused on this work, is a vital part of our public safety mission. We will never allow those who are subject to abuse to suffer in silence and remain steadfast in our commitment to eliminate these types of crimes altogether. Thank you very much. Thank you, First Deputy Commissioner, Eric Cavanaugh. We're not tall, forgot to say that earlier. And we have also, I forgot to say earlier. Thank you. Now I want to introduce the people who make this possible on the ground. New York City Aging does an incredible work and there is nothing that I can do without an amazing team at New York City Aging. And part of that team are our community partners, our non-profits who do this every day, who are in the community, who know the older population, who forge relationships and make every day possible that older adults can live with dignity and pride and live in the communities that they help build. And with that, I bring you Catherine Martinez, who is the Executive Director of Neighborhood Shop from the Boogie Down Bronx. Thank you, thank you, Commissioner. And thank you, Mayor, for allowing me to be here. Hola, como están todos. My name is Catherine Martinez. I'm the President and CEO of Neighborhood Shop in the Bronx and we have been supporting older adults in this initiative in terms of producing and informing and educating communities in regards to ending elder abuse. So on this World Elder Abuse Day, I want to challenge each and every one of you. I mean, they've said it, they've talked about, they talked about how important it is to ensure that we have this conversation. I think the biggest thing is to ensure that the information is spread and to know that each and every one of you are just as committed as we are. So educating yourselves on the topic of elder abuse and understanding what programs are out there because it takes a village, right? And we are that village. We are a community, whether it's your neighbor, whether it's your friend. If you see something, say something, right? It's so important. I'm gonna say this in Spanish. I'm gonna try at least. Pero es muy importante que nosotros, como vecinos, como la comunidad, familia, de saber que hay servicio para todos ustedes en términos de combatir el elder abuse. Es importante que usted sepa que tenemos servicio para todos ustedes y para su vecino y su familia. Gracias. Gracias, Catherine. Catherine is also part of the city's Department for the Aging, New York City Aging's Advisory Council. She is a very vocal and active member. I love it and then some days I'm not so sure I do. The other person that I'm gonna bring up is another person that is no surprise to any of you because she's hosting us today. She's the president of the New York City Advisory Council for older adults and she is also the president of Hamilton Madison House which has intergenerational programs, has served this community. She was telling me since 1953 and she was just telling us that in this square block there are over a thousand older adults and that's why this is considered a naturally occurring retirement community. And with that I bring you another wonderful, phenomenal woman, Isabel. Thank you. Wow, thank you. I guess I'm gonna say my board of directors here so thank you, that's my performance evaluation. So welcome, thank you so much. Welcome to Hamilton Madison House at the Alpha East Smith Houses and to Jim's Gym. One of our board members helped us redo the whole gym here for our community. So welcome, mayor. I'm very pleased to have you here. We're very excited to have a mayor to come. Thank you, Commissioner. Courtese Vazquez for always supporting our communities, particularly our aging communities. I think without their help and support our communities would not be where we are having healthy and livable apartments for our communities is very important. I have a script, but I'm gonna go off script. Sorry, it's just that I think you've heard a lot from our guests and thank you again for our first deputy commissioners and deputy commissioner, how do you say that? Okay, thank you deputy commissioners. Sorry about that, but thank you very much. No, I think it takes a village but it takes really a lot of commitment from a lot of people, volunteers. I do wanna do a shout out for all of our staff here who really work very hard. Can we just give applause and have them raise their hands? All of you volunteers. But this work is so important because we wanna make sure that people are safe in our communities. It is very important because I've been doing this for the last 27 years and this is just the thing that we need is these partnerships that go through every interagency and that everyone's on the same page. I wanna say thank you very much. This work is very important and welcome to Hamilton Madison House and I'm gonna leave it to the other guests to say other things. Thank you very much. And we're gonna answer yours too. Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you. Y'all I wanna give out, we got one more thing, DJ is coming with. Just sit tight, yep, yep, yep. We have, we have one of the things that the Department of Aging is doing is that what we learned when there's an emergency situation at your home that oftentimes when the first responders come they have to follow, find some of the basic items that you have as in your identification, your medicine, your name, your emergency contact. So we created a card that you hang on your fridge that if emergency responder comes it's automatically there and it's ready for you to display. And so we want to make sure we give you one now that you could have in your home so there's ever a time you need EMS police to come you don't have to search around for that information. You know, we have any? Okay. And so we wanna make sure we, you, who's having a baby? So we wanna make sure we give you one now so that you can see and fill it out and share it with your loved ones and family members. Okay. So this, this, thank you, DJ. So this fits, it's a magnetic back. It goes right on your fridge and it tells it ask you your full name, your emergency contact number, your primary care doctor, your chronic, any chronic conditions, allergies and medication. So this way the EMS or the police that come they know to look at your fridge and it will be right there for immediate notification, okay? Sal gives, thank you so much. You needed something? Volunteer here. My name is Agnes Sly and I'm a volunteer here at Hamilton Madison House. I started here October 3rd, 2022. It is an honor to meet you. Forgive me. That's okay. But I am a senior, I am a senior myself. I'm 58 years old and I must tell you it has been an honor for me to be here with this wonderful group of seniors here. They have actually, please be quiet, please. And they have actually taught me so, so much. They taught me how to really accept my failures, how to accept help, how to give help and how to accept other cultures because to be honest, I didn't know how I was gonna work out with the Asian community. But you know what? I'm here and I must say they have taught me how to really love other people. And you know what? Thank you, Hamilton Madison House. And honor. You're welcome to be my guest. I would like to present this stuff animal. This is actually not for you. Okay, what? This is for your mom. Okay, I have a mom transition. Oh, I'm sorry, but you know what? No, but you know what? I'm going to name it Dorothy after my mom. Okay, this will be an honor of her name. Oh man, that's really nice. And we really appreciate you being here. And I'll tell you, I'll talk to you about something else. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you very much. Oh, I'm sorry, but I'm a hugger. Oh, come here. Thank you, Mayor Adams. Thank you, Agnes. Thank you, Mayor. Our event has come to an end.