TESTIMONY
Catherine Trapani, AVP of Public Policy at Volunteers of America, Greater New York, on Ending Homelessness and Advocating for Fair Worker Wages
4:01:38
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146 sec
Catherine Trapani discusses challenges in ending homelessness, payment delays, and advocating for fair wages for workers at Volunteers of America, Greater New York.
- Trapani testifies about the critical role of Volunteers of America's staff in delivering homelessness services and the necessity of fair wages.
- She highlights the issues of payment delays and the need for the reversal of budget cuts to maintain service quality and staff compensation.
- Trapani emphasizes the importance of the JESPAY campaign and the need for a meaningful cost of living adjustment that won't be subject to mid-year cuts.
- She advocates for better access to city services for homeless clients and the relaxation or reversal of stringent work requirements to aide in transitioning to permanent housing.
- Trapani thanks Deputy Speaker Ayala and the council for their support in the organization's efforts to end homelessness in New York City.
Catherine Trapani
4:01:38
Good afternoon.
4:01:38
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
4:01:40
My name is Katherine Chapani.
4:01:42
I am the AVP of public policy at volunteers of America, Greater New York, a hundred and twenty eight year old anti poverty organization working to end homelessness.
4:01:51
Our staff is our best asset.
4:01:53
The dedicated professionals at VOA across the city are delivering critical services to help people experiencing homelessness link to and maintain housing.
4:02:02
Thank you.
4:02:03
For all of the discussion about payment delays, I know that we're not alone.
4:02:06
You've already heard about it.
4:02:07
But we absolutely need a solution.
4:02:10
We would also really welcome your support on reversing the pegs.
4:02:14
The the commissioner testified earlier that the notion that they were gonna cut money, but then allow us to reallocate to pay our staff more.
4:02:22
Just doesn't make sense to me.
4:02:25
The cuts actually wound up rolling back the investments that the council put in to pay workers, a fair wage.
4:02:30
So we desperately need those pegs to be reversed that we can have the resources that we need to pay our workers, to do the lifesaving work that they're doing across the city every single day.
4:02:40
To that end, I wanna echo my colleagues call for the JESPAY campaign.
4:02:43
We need a meaningful cola and one that is not gonna be rolled back, which some other mid year cuts.
4:02:49
The forecast that I've seen show much grossier tax revenues and other things, so we believe that the city should have the resources to reverse some of the harmful cuts and deliver the pay increases that our workers desperately need.
4:03:02
We also need to make sure that our staff has the tools that they need to client's transition is a permanent housing.
4:03:07
So we would very much welcome the implementation of the council's bills to improve access to city maps.
4:03:14
Currently, about 60% of our families in shelters and 85% of the single adults that we serve cannot meet the work requirements, even though they've been scaled back.
4:03:24
And, of course, the council's bills would address that.
4:03:26
And we know that there is a tremendous crush in our in our city and need for shelter capacity.
4:03:32
But because of these stringent work requirements that the administration has refused to roll back, our clients are not able to qualify for the main way that they would exit.
4:03:40
So I just wanted to point out that statistic because I think it's really startling.
4:03:44
I have got other stuff in here about the need to prioritize restoring headcount and continue to meet the need of the agencies, but I'll submit some of this in writing.
4:03:53
But I'm just really grateful to you, deputy speaker Ayala, and to all of your colleagues here at the council for being a true ally to helping us in our work to end homelessness in New York City.
