REMARKS
Council Member Diana I. Ayala raises concerns about DHS
1:10:18
·
84 sec
Council Member Ayala raises concerns about limited resources for tenant support and legal services in parts of the Bronx.
- She suggests using data from the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) to identify neighborhoods most impacted and allocate funding for new programs
- She cites her tenant support clinic started in 2016 as helping reduce the volume of constituents losing their apartments
- Ayala implies more preventative services are needed to keep people from entering the shelter system unnecessarily
Diana I. Ayala
1:10:18
But if we don't and I know that I I know specific in my part of of the Bronx that we have very limited resources in terms of tenant supports and and and legal services.
1:10:30
If DHS has the data, right, that proves that certain neighborhoods are more impacted than others, then I would think that that's information that even treatment could use to help identify new funding streams and new programs for these communities to help.
1:10:48
With those issues.
1:10:49
Right?
1:10:49
So that we're not seeing such large number of folks coming into the shelter system unnecessarily.
1:10:54
We're addressing it you know, I I have a tenant support clinic in my Toronto office, and I started probably, I don't know, 2016 ish, yeah, about 2016.
1:11:08
And I we used to have the constituent services division, and most of my cases were driven by folks that were being pushed out, you know, were losing their nycha apartment.
1:11:18
They were, you know, being threatened by their landlord.
1:11:21
And that sudden support clinic has really been a a game changer in my district.
1:11:26
That doesn't no longer, right, that the the concerns that I'm hearing, not that they don't that they don't continue to exist, but not at the at the volume that I was witnessing before that clinic, you know, was put in in in the district.
