TESTIMONY
Judith Rosenfeld on Breaking Ground's Financial Struggles with Contracting and Payment Delays
3:53:56
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132 sec
Judith Rosenfeld discusses the financial struggles faced by Breaking Ground due to contracting and payment delays.
- Breaking Ground operates over 4,510 units of permanent and transitional housing for low-income and chronically homeless New Yorkers.
- Rosenfeld reports Breaking Ground is owed approximately $30,000,000 on government contracts, impacting their cash flow significantly.
- The delays in payment have caused a substantial increase in interest expenses on lines of credit, with a forecast of these credits being exhausted by the end of April.
- Without timely payments, Breaking Ground risks being unable to make payroll, underscoring the urgent need for resolution.
Judith Rosenfeld
3:53:56
Good afternoon.
3:53:58
My name is Judith Rosenfeld, and I serve as vice president of special projects for breaking ground.
3:54:03
The largest developer and operator supportive housing for low income and chronically homeless New Yorkers.
3:54:09
We operate more than 45100 units of permanent and transitional housing with 2000 more in various stages of development.
3:54:15
We also operate the street outreach program in Brooklyn, Queens, and Midtown Manhattan, which connects the most entrenched long term homeless individuals and house with housing and other services.
3:54:25
There's a lot there's a lot to discuss, but I'm mainly here today to on behalf of breaking ground to discuss how contracting and payment delays are impacting our cash flow in day to day operations.
3:54:38
As of today, we are owed approximately 30,000,000 on our government contracts.
3:54:43
This amount increases 5,000,000 each month.
3:54:46
Of that amount, our receivables from the Department of Home Services is 28,000,000 and includes 7,500,000 in invoices pending 65 form approval.
3:54:57
During 2023, we paid 830,000 in interest expense on our lines of credit, and have paid 200,000 in the 1st 2 months of 2024.
3:55:08
At the end of 2023, the weighted average of a receivables outstanding was 325 days.
3:55:15
And like others, we've also the biggest issue is with Passport we are owed 1,000,000 of dollars because of glitches and and not being able to process our invoices and documents.
3:55:29
So based on our current cash forecast, our available lines of credit will be fully exhausted by the end of April.
3:55:37
At that point, we will not be able to make payroll.
3:55:41
And so I should just I would just wanna make the point that even if we do receive all the money, which we hope we do, just as we're saying before, just even the amount of funding, it lets you say if we even got it all, it's just not keeping up with the true cost of operating our programs, and we're just scrambling day to to find additional funds.
3:56:01
And be able to pay our our staff.
3:56:05
So thank you so much for the opportunity to testify.
