Medicare is health insurance for people 65 or older. You’re first eligible to sign up for Medicare 3 months before you turn 65. You may be eligible to get Medicare earlier if you have a disability, End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD), or ALS (also called Lou Gehrig’s disease). 

New York’s Medicaid program provides comprehensive health coverage to more than 7.3 million lower-income New Yorkers (as of December, 2021.) Medicaid pays for a wide-range of services, depending on your age, financial circumstances, family situation, or living arrangements. These services are provided through a large network of health care providers that you can access directly using your Medicaid card or through your managed care plan if you are enrolled in managed care. Some services may have small co-payments, which can be waived if you cannot afford them.

The Aisling Center can assist with questions on benefits, eligibility and filling out the application in a 1:1 setting.

Online resources can be found here: https://www.medicare.gov/basics/get-started-with-medicare & https://www.health.ny.gov/health_care/medicaid/

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as “food stamps”) provides food assistance for nearly 1.8 million low-income New Yorkers including families, people who are aging and people with disabilities. The program helps families and individuals supplement the cost of their diet with nutritious foods.

All Cash Assistance and SNAP applicants that have been approved for benefits will receive an EBT card in the mail. 

Come to the center for help applying for food stamps online!

The housing choice voucher program is the federal government’s major program for assisting very low-income families, the elderly, and the disabled to afford decent, safe, and sanitary housing in the private market. Since housing assistance is provided on behalf of the family or individual, participants are able to find their own housing, including single-family homes, townhouses and apartments.

The participant is free to choose any housing that meets the requirements of the program and is not limited to units located in subsidized housing projects.

Housing choice vouchers are administered locally by public housing agencies (PHAs). The PHAs receive federal funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to administer the voucher program.

A family that is issued a housing voucher is responsible for finding a suitable housing unit of the family’s choice where the owner agrees to rent under the program. This unit may include the family’s present residence. Rental units must meet minimum standards of health and safety, as determined by the PHA.

A housing subsidy is paid to the landlord directly by the PHA on behalf of the participating family. The family then pays the difference between the actual rent charged by the landlord and the amount subsidized by the program. Under certain circumstances, if authorized by the PHA, a family may use its voucher to purchase a modest home.

Online information can be found here: https://www.hud.gov/topics/housing_choice_voucher_program_section_8#hcv01

We offer in person help applying for benefits.

The passport application is now fully online, with paper applications no longer being accepted. The application for both renewals and first time applicants can be accessed here. Passport Online is a fast and simple way to apply for your passport. If you are an adult renewing your passport with the same information, you normally won’t need to submit any supporting documents. If you are a first time applicant, renewing for a child, or changing the information on your passport, Passport Online will e-mail you a list of documents which you need to submit directly to the Passport Service in Ireland. Please check your email inbox and your spam carefully for any communications from the Passport Service.  When your passport is printed, it will be posted to you directly, along with any supporting documents.

You are automatically an Irish citizen if one of your parents was an Irish citizen who was born in Ireland.

You can become an Irish citizen if one of your grandparents was born in Ireland, or you can become an Irish citizen (through great grandparent) if one of your parents was an Irish citizen at the time of your birth but was not born in Ireland. If you’re eligible, you can register your birth on the Foreign Births Register. www.dfa.ie. Follow the link to Passports/Citizenship – Foreign Birth Registration

There are no longer paper applications to apply for Irish citizenship, as it is now an online process.

Safe Home Ireland is an Irish emigrant support service that provides a range of services to more than 2,000 people each year. Safe Home Ireland was established in the year 2000 to assist older qualifying Irish born emigrants to explore the option of returning to live in their native areas. 

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