QUESTION
Why has New York City Health and Hospitals (H+H) become heavily involved in shelter services for asylum seekers?
0:11:47
·
5 min
Mitch Katz explains that New York City Health and Hospitals (H+H) stepped up for emergency shelter provision due to previous experience with hotel rooms during COVID-19 and a city-wide shelter shortage.
- H+H volunteered to provide shelter due to their experience with creating hotel accommodations during the pandemic.
- The number of asylum seekers stabilized, allowing the city to adopt standard procurement processes and reduce H+H's emergency role.
- H+H continues to manage health screenings at intake centers and case management services.
- Plans are in place to transition shelter management to other agencies, with H+H focusing on health-related roles.
- H+H's involvement reflects their capability for emergency response and adaptability in crisis situations.
Mercedes Narcisse
0:11:47
H And Ish Congee budget for asylum seekers is 1,800,000,000 in fiscal 2025, which make us I mean, mix up nearly 60% of the system budget.
0:12:00
In the last fiscal year, the city relied most heavily on the Department of Homeland Services to provide shelter services for asylum seekers.
0:12:09
In the current year, there has been a shift with H and H budget having the majority of asylum seekers funding.
0:12:16
And HNH becoming the larger provider of shelter services for asylum seekers.
0:12:22
Why has HNH and a provider of health services been leaned on so heavily by the administration for provision of shell I mean, provision shelter to the asylum seekers.
Mitch Katz
0:12:35
All right.
0:12:35
Thank you, chair.
0:12:37
I I think it's been an interesting history through the city.
0:12:41
So first, that were excellent colleagues in HRRA and within the Department of of homeless services, and the mayor's office of immigrant affairs were able to meet THE CHALLENGE OF ASYLUM SECURES.
0:12:57
BUT AS THE NUMBER OF BUSES KEPT GROWING AND THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE coming to our city.
0:13:03
They reached a point where all of the shelter rooms were full, and there was no place for people to go.
0:13:12
At that moment, we volunteered because health and hospitals had done a lot of work creating hotel rooms under COVID.
0:13:21
And we knew how to do it and we knew how to do it quickly.
0:13:25
So we opened up a large number of homeless hotels, and then also outdoor shelter areas with tents in order to meet the needs of asylum seekers.
0:13:42
I see the city right now in a different place, a more mature place with the number of asylum seekers while it hasn't decreased, it's stable.
0:13:53
We're no longer seeing March give me increased numbers.
0:13:57
The numbers of new asylum seekers equal, the number of asylum seekers who we've been able to help to get to their next step in the city.
0:14:08
And also, the city is in a your state in with regard to doing RFPs for services at the beginning when we were literally trying to create thousands of rooms for people in a in a period of week.
0:14:27
We had to use emergency provisions to get the necessary food and laundry and rooms and services.
0:14:35
Now that we're stable, we're able to look at okay.
0:14:38
We need to put out RFPs to get the city's best possible price.
0:14:43
We need to look across all of the departments and standardize the prices, and also health and hospitals can take a less of a major role in I mean, again, we got involved because the city needed an emergency response.
0:15:01
Now that it's stable, I think we will be less involved.
0:15:05
Our major roles will continue to be the intake center.
0:15:10
I think that's an important role for us because of the health screening, especially making sure that people are screened for tuberculosis.
0:15:20
And treated if they have tuberculosis, making sure that people are appropriately vaccinated, making sure that if they're out eligible for health insurance.
0:15:31
They get health insurance, so the city is not covering the cost of their medical care, and then assigning them based on whether they're a single adults or an adult with young children to the appropriate housing place.
0:15:46
At the other end of the process, we'll continue to run the case management services, which interact with everybody regardless of whether you're an hour shelter system or in our sister agency, shelter systems.
0:16:01
We work with individuals and families to figure out where the next stop is?
0:16:06
What are the obstacles for them to get out of shelter?
0:16:10
What do they need to to go into the next spot?
0:16:14
I think those 2 are the most critical.
0:16:17
Right now, we're still running 14 different shelter sites, both indoor and outdoor.
0:16:25
Over the next period of time, we are going to continue to to transition those to our sister agencies.
0:16:34
I don't our focus should always be providing service I don't see us as having to carry leases.
0:16:41
That's not necessarily our expertise.
0:16:45
But again, we'll always do what the city needs.
0:16:48
We see ourselves in part because we're a health system We're used to the idea of triage.
0:16:55
We run 24 hours, 7 day a week.
0:16:58
We're used to the idea of people needing something at 3 AM.
0:17:03
And so in that sense, our involvement will always make sense on an emergency basis.
0:17:09
But again, as things get more and more label, we see ourselves as having a smaller role in providing overall services.
0:17:17
I'll give you one more example, we are we've done the food RFP for all of the the different sites.
0:17:25
Because, again, this was necessary to be done quickly.
0:17:29
As the system matures, that might not be a sensible role for health and hospitals to play.
0:17:35
We're now not a food provider is not our number one, you know, expertise.