Senior Services

 
“Community means to me togetherness, hopefulness, long life. It means children, young people, old people—everybody—just getting together, and learning to understand and help one another.”
—Violeta Forbes, Tenant, Quincy Senior Residence

Quincy Senior Residence:
A Holistic Living Environment

“Quincy is a place where you feel at home. We’re not family, but we are family,” says Violeta Forbes, who has lived at Quincy since it opened in 2006. “It’s a place where we help each other, take care of each other. And it’s such a beautiful place—the garden, the security—you feel so good, so good.”

Improving senior citizens’ quality of life was a goal BSDC set for Quincy, when we began working on the project design in 2004. The result surpassed even our expectations. Quincy is a holistic environment designed to help low- and middle-income seniors age in place in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a community they have lived in and contributed to for a long time and want to remain part of.

Many of Quincy’s current residents previously lived in substandard apartments and were forced to make choices between rent, food, or medication. Very few had discretionary income for extra-curricular activities. Living at Quincy has drastically improved the overall quality of their lives. Before moving to Quincy, Violeta Forbes lived in substandard housing for five years. “I couldn’t sleep at night. I felt like my life was in danger, all the time,” she recalls. But at Quincy, she says, “It’s a wonderful thing when you can sleep at night without wondering and worrying.”

To provide the privacy and independence seniors want, Quincy residents have a one-bedroom apartment with bath, at an affordable rent. To offer them the support they need, Quincy provides a wide range of services on site and coordinates external providers’ services, such as Medicare, Meals-on-Wheels, Social Security, home health aides, direct deposit, and more.

To counteract seniors’ tendency to isolate themselves, Quincy was designed with a large, attractive open space on the first floor to showcase activities that invite residents to exercise their mental, physical, and social skills. BSDC offers Quincy residents a wide array of programs and services, many provided by our community partners, including:

• Health and wellness lectures and referrals for Home Health Services from the Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation.
• Twice weekly exercise classes—including Tai Chi—to improve strength, flexibility, and balance, conducted by the Bedford-Stuyvesant YMCA.
• Monthly workshops on such topics as diabetes, weight management, heart disease, and HIV offered by various healthcare providers.
• A 250-book library, which is restocked every month by the New York Public Library, and which also regularly hosts public readings.
• Horticultural therapy provided by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
• Non-denominational religious services on site.

Quincy is also home to walking, chess, quilting, reading, gardening and knitting clubs, where residents enjoy themselves and often contribute to their community at the same time.

• The knitting club, A Stitch in Time, has knit hats and scarves for the homeless and baby caps and blankets for newborns, in cooperation with Bedford-Stuyvesant Newborn Wellness program, sponsored by the New York’s Department of Health.
• The Gardening Club sponsors an intergenerational planting program in which residents and Acorn High School students plant raised beds and ground-level gardens at Quincy every spring. Last year, they added a compost heap and began planting vegetables, including tomatoes, peppers, corn, and greens.

Quincy has been such a resounding success that BSDC now plans to use it as the model for expanding senior services throughout the Bedford-Stuyvesant community. Next year, BSDC will begin expanding and enhancing 919 Gates Avenue, a senior center built and owned by Bridge Street Church. BSDC has already begun reaching outside Quincy’s doors to bring senior services to the whole Bedford-Stuyvesant community by providing workshops for seniors and others on Diabetes and Alzheimer’s Disease.