New York Field Office To Close

From the Ridgewood Times of New York:

Residents of Ridgewood and Glendale seeking Social Security or Medicaid benefits may be forced to travel farther to find them as the Social Security Administration has announced that it will close and merge the Glendale office with its Rego Park branch as soon as this summer.

Vincent Arcuri, chairperson of Community Board 5, announced the proposed merger during the advisory body’s May 11 meeting at Christ the King Regional High School. He subsequently sent a letter to Rep. Anthony Weiner, calling on him to “use your substantial influence” to keep the site open, adding that its closure “would be destructive to the local Myrtle Avenue rental property situation, currently suffering from the recent financial crisis.”

Weiner joined Arcuri at a press conference outside the Glendale Social Security office on Tuesday morning, May 17, calling for the Social Security Administration to overturn its decision, charging that thousands of seniors and others seeking public assistance such as Medicare and Medicaid would be denied a convenient location to apply for benefits and resolve related problems. ...

The consolidation is a cost-cutting move by the Social Security Administration that will reportedly save $3 million over the next decade. Shallman noted that the merger “makes sense,” adding that there are five Social Security offices located within a 25 square mile area around the Glendale site, including locations in Jamaica, Cypress Hills and Bushwick.

“We just got our 2011 budget, and it was less than 2010, and 2012 is looking very austere as well,” he said. “We’ve got a high concentration of offices in a relatively small geographic area.”