“I regret to inform you that we will not be distributing payroll tomorrow," said Hermoine Michel, Former Employee, Jamaica Service Program for Older Adults.

Social worker Hermoine Michel is reading an e-mail no employee ever wants to receive. She says in August, without any real explanation, she and about 65 other workers at five senior centers across southeast Queens operated by the Jamaica Service Program for Older Adults stopped getting paid.

“It’s something that should not be happening. It’s illegal, it’s criminal,” said Michel.

Michel says she worked at the center for about a month without pay until she had to quit and find a new job.

She says she’s still owed close to $4,000 in back pay.

She says she reached out to the city's Department for the Aging which partially funds the centers and was told the non-profit was “not in compliance.”

“I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if financial documents were missing, but I don’t think that has to do with us not being paid,” said Michel.

Michel says the senior centers are a lifeline, providing two meals a day for many in Southeast Queens.

She says some of the center directors were using their own money — to buy food and supplies for the seniors.

A current employee tells NY1 drivers have been using their own money to fuel the vans that pick up and drop off the seniors every day.

“The seniors don’t have a lot of money. They don’t have much so breakfast and lunch goes a long way,” said Michel.

For 84-year-old Gloria Jones, the Rockaway Boulevard Senior Center has been her home away from home for the past 22 years. She says she’s noticed a huge difference since August.

“They’re not happy, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t be happy,” said Jones.

The centers were closed Tuesday because of Election Day. Neither the Jamaica Service Program for Older Adults nor The Department for the Aging responded to multiple requests for comments.

Michel says she has since found a new job—one that allows her to work with the senior population.

She says she’s hopeful her former colleagues, most of whom still show up for work every day, will finally be paid.