Helping Older Adults Make Ends Meet

The Chanukah menorah sits nestled between photos and glass bowls on Marina Rosenbaum’s piano a week before the holiday.

Her Weinberg Senior Aid social worker, Alex Chernis, spots it and asks if Rosenbaum, who is 71 and homebound, has Chanukah candles.

“No,” she says.

“I’ll bring them to you,” he tells her.

Marina Rosenbaum, a client of UJA-Federation of New York’s Weinberg Senior Aid program.

A simple exchange, but one that represents the lifeline that UJA-Federation of New York’s Weinberg Senior Aid has brought in matters both big and small to Rosenbaum and more than 2,600 older adults living in poverty in Brooklyn and Long Island.

Weinberg Senior Aid, which started in 2009, has made it possible for Rosenbaum to remain in her New York City Housing Authority apartment in Brooklyn after she fell behind in her rent, receive heavy-duty cleaning in her home after a mouse infestation, obtain an artificial limb after her leg was amputated due to diabetes complications, and get home visits by a nurse to check on her medical condition.

Weinberg Senior Aid assists low income, Jewish older adults ages 60 and older through a collaboration of social workers, attorneys, and nurses from four UJA-Federation beneficiary agencies: Jewish Association for Services to the Aged, Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, Selfhelp Community Services, and New York Legal Assistance Group.

“Often elderly people who present one serious problem have multiple needs, and to truly stabilize their situation requires the comprehensive and coordinated efforts of a number of agencies and professionals,” explains Lauren Rothschild Epstein, planning associate of UJA-Federation’s Caring Commission.

Aging With Dignity

Marina Rosenbaum, a client of UJA-Federation of New York’s Weinberg Senior Aid program, with her social worker, Alex Chernis of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.

Weinberg Senior Aid makes it easier for older adults to access benefits, entitlements, and comprehensive human services by providing services in the homes of clients and conveniently located offices in the community. That all helps older adults make ends meet and live more independently and with dignity, Epstein notes.

Rosenbaum, who survived the Jewish ghetto of Genichesk, Ukraine, with her mother during World War II, immigrated to the United States in 1981. On the way, she stopped in Italy and survived a terrorist bomb attack there, which left her with tremors that exist to this day. As a result, Rosenbaum did not continue as a music teacher and receives disability benefits.

She has been hospitalized eight times in the last year and is now facing surgery for another medical complication. But Rosenbaum does not despair.

“Alex has helped with everything,” she says of her Senior Aid social worker. “He saved my life.”