Media Advisory: Northeastern NY Facing Caregiving Crisis

Demographic Shift Spells Disaster in Area as NYS Ranks at Bottom of Barrel in Providing Support for Booming Population of People Who Need Care

  WHAT: New York state ranks 48 ^th in supporting caregivers, who provide unpaid care for loved ones. AARP New York says that’s got to change. Making matters worse, a looming population shift in New York will find fewer caregivers to care for more elderly residents, stretching caregivers even thinner. More than half of all Northeastern New Yorkers 50 and older expect they’ll have to provide care in the next five years. Friday, Dec. 13, joining with key advocates and caregivers, AARP will announce tackling the issue as one of its top 2014 state legislative priorities, releasing a blueprint for improving New York’s approach to supporting the 4.1 million people who provide $32 billion annually in unpaid care to loved ones, including many elderly and frail.

  WHO:  Erin Mitchell, Associate AARP New York State Director for Northeastern New York

Christie Sabo, Director of the Warren/Hamilton Counties Office for the Aging

Gretchen Moore, Alzheimer’s Association of Northeastern New York

Joan Tarantino, Executive Director of the Glens Falls Home

Northeastern New York Caregivers – sharing their stories, struggles and stresses.  

WHEN: 11 a.m. Friday, December 13, 2013

WHERE: Greater Glens Falls Senior Citizens Center, 380 Glen Street, Glens Falls

WHY: New York has frozen funding for caregiver programs in recent years even as the proportion of New Yorkers who provide care increases. AARP and its partners will urge Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state legislators to adopt ideas for strengthening supports to caregivers - ideas generated by caregivers themselves at a series of listening sessions across the state including Glens Falls on August 22. These mostly non-medical investments will save money by keeping more New Yorkers out of costly institutional care and in their own homes and communities with their families, and will help businesses, which lose billions annually because of employees’ caregiving obligations.

Contacts:  Erik Kriss, (518) 360-9213 , ekriss@aarp.org; David Irwin, dirwin@aarp.org