REMARKS
Challenges in compliance with Local Law 30 and its impact
0:09:29
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110 sec
Council Member Avilés highlights the challenges in implementing Local Law 30, including noncompliance issues, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and results from the language access secret shopper program.
- Multiple oversight hearings have revealed noncompliance from various agencies
- COVID-19 pandemic exposed challenges in quickly sharing accessible information in multiple languages
- Recent hearing on newly arrived black migrants highlighted gaps in providing services in languages such as Haitian Creole, French, Arabic, Fulani, and Wolof
- More than half of the service centers investigated in the secret shopper program were not compliant with Local Law 30
Alexa Avilés
0:09:29
Unfortunately, since the law has been in effect, multiple oversight hearings on a related multiple oversight hearings on or related to this law have revealed noncompliance for multiple agencies.
0:09:43
In particular, the COVID 19 pandemic revealed the challenges with quickly sharing accessible and accurate information and languages other than English, and a hearing earlier this year on the experiences of newly arrived black migrants highlighted the massive gaps in providing city services and language such as Haitian Creole, French, Arabic, Fulani, and Wollof.
0:10:08
The most recent reporting from the mayor's office on immigrant affairs on local authority highlights some notable city agencies successes, but reporting remains unclear, and we want further at planation regarding how the mayor's office on immigrant affairs responds to noncompliance.
0:10:25
According to the data from this year's language access secret shopper program, a city run program which assesses how well New York City service centers provide services to customers in language other than English.
0:10:41
More than half of the service centers investigated were not compliant with local law 30.
0:10:48
The consequences of not offering services in someone's preferred language can be severe.
0:10:53
And in our linguistically rich city, it would be disappointing if our language access infrastructure were not adequately supporting speakers of languages other than English.
0:11:05
We look forward to learning more today from the mayor's office of immigrant affairs and, again, the mayor's office of operations on how we can improve local law 30 compliance for our city's agencies to ensure that the access to city services is in fact equitable.
