Connection and Community – Key Tools During the COVID Crisis

It’s hard to believe that this March will mark three years since COVID-19 swept across our nation. All of us in the NYC region will certainly recall those early days – whether our initial reaction was bemusement, fear, or denial, it would not be long before hospitals were at capacity.

When New York City emerged as an early epicenter of the crisis, Selfhelp Community Services, a nonprofit with 25,000+ clients, found itself on the front lines of providing social services and healthcare to those most at risk – older adults. Selfhelp staff banded together, pooling knowledge and resources, doing all they could to provide care whilst keeping themselves, their families, and their clients safe.

In a paper published last year, Selfhelp staff shared firsthand experiences from those turbulent days, with insights that touch upon social work, affordable housing, aging services, and healthcare. Largely focused on the impact of existing relationships between social workers and residents in Selfhelp’s affordable housing buildings, we hope that sharing our findings might contribute to better community preparation in the face of our next emergency.

According to the New York State Department of Health, over 86% of COVID deaths statewide were individuals aged 60 and over. This means that out of 67,000 confirmed fatalities, a whopping 58,000 were older adults.

During an all-encompassing crisis like COVID, intersecting hardships compound into exponential levels of stress, which can have an outsized impact on overall well-being. In Selfhelp’s affordable apartment buildings for seniors, the longstanding presence of an onsite social worker resulted in increased trust with residents, faster response time to the changing needs of older adults, and stronger compliance with safety measures. Findings in Selfhelp’s white paper document how an expert social work team was able to implement the SHASAM service model – a program designed to help older adults remain in their homes – to meet the needs of affordable housing residents during this exceptional time.

Three years in, we all hope that the worst of COVID is behind us. Nevertheless, we continue to share our findings and experiences, and solicit the same from other organizations, as learning and collaborating is the best preparation for any future crisis. By coming together to pool our expertise, social workers, housing experts, policymakers, and nonprofit leaders can together agree on the guidelines and protocols that will keep us all healthy and safe.

In the meantime, we can offer one simple recommendation that requires no expertise and benefits us all: recognizing that social connection is not just a nicety, it’s a fundamental human need. Multiple studies confirm the link between social isolation and negative health outcomes, a pressing concern as our world becomes increasingly “virtual” and remote. However, there is an upside: these same findings also show how we *all* have opportunities to improve our quality of life, starting in our own homes and communities.

Now that COVID has granted a bit of a reprieve, let’s take this opportunity to reach out. Introduce ourselves to neighbors. Offer to lend a hand if needed. Establish relationships that lead to increased trust and support. Build a sense of community that will strengthen everyone’s position when the next crisis arrives. In doing so, we heal our bodies, minds, and hearts.