QUESTION
Council Member Stevens Asks Ira Yankwitt About Adult Literacy RFP and Asylum Crisis
1:37:23
·
5 min
Council Member Althea Stevens inquires about the Department of Youth & Community Development's Adult Literacy Request for Proposals (RFP), discussing its reliance on outdated data and its potential impact amidst the asylum crisis. Ira Yankwitt, addressing concerns of limited resources, delves into the challenges posed by the RFP's structure and its implications for service provision in targeted neighborhoods, emphasizing the need for revising the approach to ensure it caters to the real-time needs of New York City's diverse and changing demographics.
Speaker 1
1:37:23
I do have a couple of questions for the panel.
1:37:26
I guess I'll start with the adult literacy.
1:37:27
1, thank you.
1:37:29
Because I love that your testimony has solutions to some of the wrong ones, and you laid them out very nicely.
1:37:34
But I guess for as as you can see, some of my questions in the hearing was just more about, like, the data that they're using for the the NFTs or whatever they're calling it.
1:37:49
Was it's old data and thinking about how, you know, we we have this asylum crisis going on in the city.
1:37:56
What are some suggestions?
1:37:58
Because it was kind of alluded to that there is limited resources with that.
1:38:02
But what are your suggestions around that?
1:38:05
Because I I know that, like, it talks about, like, the NIC's designated funding and increasing than FTs.
1:38:10
But if there is limited funding, one of the issues we had before with the when they released our few more was that the price point was too low.
1:38:17
So Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 9
1:38:19
Sure.
1:38:21
So as you pointed out in your conversation, with deputy commissioner Bobby, that not only is the data going back 3 years, I think, he said 2021 at its at its most recent.
1:38:36
But also, this RFP is 3 years with a 3 year extension, which will almost certainly be exercised by ayCD given its history.
1:38:45
So we're now looking at data from 2017 to 2021 that is going to be used to determine what neighborhoods programs are in in potentially 2029, 2030.
1:38:57
So we already know that data that goes back 3 years is likely out of date, right, given displacement, gentrification, and, of course, the influx of of new asylum seekers.
1:39:09
So I'm very concerned about this as a model, while obviously I really applaud and share the goal of targeting limited funding.
1:39:18
And I think that if we were starting from scratch, and there were no community based organizations, that were currently being funded to provide these services.
1:39:28
And you said, look, Ira, we have limited dollars.
1:39:31
Now we can argue whether or not we should have limited dollars if they're really limited dollars, but that's our starting point.
1:39:36
And we want to focus on the highest poverty lowest educational attainment, most limited English proficient residents of New York City to get them the classes that they need The way we're gonna do that is we're gonna look at the best data we have, which is the NTA data, and we're going to target those neighborhoods.
1:39:56
If we were starting from scratch in that hypothetical scenario, this might make sense.
1:40:01
But the reality is we are not starting from scratch.
1:40:03
Right?
1:40:03
We are starting with a preexisting system that has high quality, high impact adult literacy providers all over the city right now.
1:40:12
Right?
1:40:12
We also know that the nature of adult literacy students is that they don't necessarily want to or not necessarily able to attend school in the neighborhoods that they live in.
1:40:23
Some of them want to attend classes closer to where they work or where they have family that can provide childcare or maybe they're just interested in going to classes with people from different neighborhoods of city as many of us are when we choose to go to a class.
1:40:35
So the the I think whatdy CD is doing is it's undermining its own goals.
1:40:44
It is certainly true that after the initial RFP where they said only providers that had that were located in the NTAs could even apply.
1:40:53
And we saw that 18 of the NTAs didn't even have obvious providers or organizations that could provide these services, that they said, okay, we will, as as the deputy commission management, open up the application to any provider as long as they target 1 of the NTAs.
1:41:11
The problem is if you are not currently located in the NTA, you are not even, as we understand it, considered for funding if there is a provider within the NTA.
1:41:24
So this becomes a real deterrent for any current providers to apply.
1:41:28
Right?
1:41:29
I don't necessarily know if there is a provider, a potential provider in the NTA that I'm closest to also.
1:41:34
What if I'm between NTAs?
1:41:35
Which one am I supposed to apply for?
1:41:37
Or maybe there's one a little further away, and I know there are no providers there.
1:41:40
Can I apply them?
1:41:41
They are creating a complication that they don't need.
1:41:43
What they what they can just simply do is open up the competition to any provider who wants to apply and then they can include geographic considerations in their evaluation method.
1:41:55
It's not at all clear to me how this 2 tier system helps and serves their cause.
1:42:00
And, of course, the irony is that in the name of Equity And Justice, they actually are putting $5,000,000 less into the this funding than they had this year and going from 16,000 students to 91100 students when we have a need of about 2,200,000 adults.
1:42:14
So it's it's a little ironic that this is all in the name of of Equity And Justice.
Speaker 1
1:42:19
Yeah.
1:42:19
I mean, you've been thinking about it as you were talking.
1:42:21
I'm like, I should ask the question.
1:42:23
Are they when they were considered this already looking at areas where we're building up.
1:42:27
Right?
1:42:27
Because we are in a whole housing crisis.
1:42:29
Right?
1:42:29
And there are areas that are being built up.
1:42:32
That obviously aren't part of the NTAs now, but might become because we have the influx of affordable housing going into these areas.
1:42:39
So I so we have to ask question.
1:42:40
Let's email that to them as well or if you can take it back for me because I think that that is gonna wanna understand how to how was that taken into consideration, especially when we had the city of yes going on as well.
1:42:54
But like I told them, this gonna be an ongoing conversation, obviously, for us, for the next couple weeks.