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TESTIMONY
Peggy Herrera from Freedom Agenda on the Need for Community and Mental Health Investments Over Policing
5:32:43
ยท
124 sec
Peggy Herrera, a leader at Freedom Agenda and mother who lost her son to gun violence, criticizes Mayor Adams' ineffective public safety approach during her testimony.
- Herrera shares her personal experience as a mother, youth counselor, and New Yorker to advocate for community and mental health investments over increased policing and incarceration.
- She argues for the prioritization of funding for the Department of Social Services over the Department of Correction, highlighting services like food stamps, housing vouchers, and job training programs.
- Herrera emphasizes that the safest communities have the most resources, not the highest levels of policing and incarceration, calling for a budget that aligns with this belief.
- She points out the inconsistency in budget cuts, questioning why the Department of Social Services faces cuts while the Department of Correction does not.
Peggy Herrera
5:32:43
Hi.
5:32:44
Good afternoon.
5:32:46
Do you hear me?
5:32:49
Can you hear me?
Diana I. Ayala
5:32:50
We can.
Peggy Herrera
5:32:51
Okay.
5:32:52
Good afternoon, deputy speaker Ayala and committee our members.
5:32:56
My name is Peggy Herrera.
5:32:58
I am a leader and a member with Freedom Agenda and the campaign's close writers.
5:33:02
I am also a mother who tragically lost my son to gun violence.
5:33:06
As a mother, as a youth counselor, and as a New Yorker, I know that our communities are struggling.
5:33:11
People are in survival mode, and yet mayor Adams still seems committed to the same failed approach of throwing us crumbs for everything that's important or cutting the things that will truly benefit our community.
5:33:24
Our mayor and the governor along with her talk about safety, but they don't seem to get that it's an investment in our communities and mental health that will bring crime down, not more policing and incarceration.
5:33:36
The Department of Social Services is responsible for delivering the kind of support that our community desperately need.
5:33:43
They need to be able to do their job, to get people their food stamps, to issue housing vouchers, to run job training programs, to connect people to supportive housing and so much more.
5:33:54
So why is BSS facing funding cuts, but not the Department of Correction?
5:33:58
Why is the mayor cutting their staff, but not VLC's account?
5:34:02
We know what the impact will be.
5:34:03
People who are already struggling will be waiting longer and longer for the help they need.
5:34:08
The stress of poverty will impact their mental health.
5:34:11
While they wait and wait for follow-up from the agency that's supposed to help them You'll probably come into contact with the only agency that seems to have enough resources to be everywhere all the time, the NYPD.
5:34:23
After the NYPD target said they get funded to the Department of Corrections to be abused on rioters, the most expensive jail system in the country.
5:34:31
It makes no sense morally or financially.
5:34:34
I know that the safest communities are the ones with the most resources, and I think that the city council knows that too.
5:34:40
That's why the council voted to close strikers and have taken into that goal.
5:34:44
To make that goal a reality, we need a budget that moves the score down.
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Jay Edidin, Director of Advocacy at the Women's Community Justice Association, on the Detrimental Impact of Mass Incarceration of Women and Gender Expansive People and the Necessity for Community-Based Alternatives