Testimony for City Council General Welfare Hearing, 9/27/23

Thank you for the opportunity to submit written testimony to the New York City Council's Committee on General Welfare about the continued failures of the city's social services infrastructure to adequately meet the needs of our neighbors. Our organization, founded in 2020 on the principle of "neighbors helping neighbors," invites all New Yorkers to be in solidarity with those experiencing homelessness in our city. Homeless New Yorkers are a prominent group of users of public benefits, and are especially vulnerable to the delays that currently face the system, as a population that is highly mobile and often with limited access to technology. 

As our members and volunteers in all five boroughs have seen, the timely receipt of public benefits is more than just an administrative question; it can truly mean the difference between stability and instability and even life and death for our neighbors. Our members, who are mostly housed New Yorkers, believe that our neighborhoods and city as a whole are stronger when more people have access to permanent housing and having their basic needs (like food, which is often provided through SNAP benefits) met. Indeed, we continue to believe that investments in social services are a key way to improve the public safety of the city, and cuts to the Department of Social Services (DSS) are a step backwards in a moment of immense need.

As our Neighborhood Organizing Intern Will Woods, who has experienced homelessness, noted powerfully in his testimony at Wednesday's hearing, lengthy delays in access to public benefits are not just bureaucratic failures. "It's hard enough as an adult to have to reach out and ask for help. It's much more difficult to need that help and then to have to grovel to get it, and that's what a lot of us are down to right now: groveling. And we're still not getting the help we need."

We join other advocates in calling on DSS to staff up the Human Resources Administration (HRA) and immediately accelerate its hiring practices to fill vacant positions that result in long wait times for clients receiving public benefits. Indeed, long wait times are endemic across the agency, including for CityFHEPS voucher-holders. The Department must begin this work of staffing up now as we rapidly approach January's deadline for the implementation of expanded CityFHEPS vouchers when the Council's bill package goes into effect. We remain concerned that the Administration has not taken adequate steps to prepare to expand voucher availability, which could lead to the denial of services and benefits to which our homeless neighbors are legally entitled.

We also appreciate Introduction 651 and Introduction 902, two pieces of legislation that we believe will immediately and effectively reduce via law the bureaucratic obstacles on families with children entering the shelter system in New York City (one of the groups that is most prone to the delays in the processing of benefits through HRA). 

Thank you, again, for the opportunity to testify in support of solutions that will benefit New Yorkers in need during a moment when there are more homeless individuals and families in New York City than ever before. 

Submitted by Bennett Reinhardt, Advocacy Coordinator and Neighborhood Organizer