Kim Moscaritolo
2:22:53
My name is Kim Oskar Tolo.
2:22:55
I'm the director of communications and advocacy for Hunger Free America.
2:23:00
I'm here to speak on behalf of the estimated 1,280,000 city residents who now struggle against Hunger.
2:23:07
So we at HFA, we are not technology experts nor are we a fintech experts certainly.
2:23:13
But every day, our dedicated staff who deal with benefits access work with struggling families to help them apply for and receive the benefits that they so desperately need, and so we see the difficulties that they face and the pain and frustration that they suffer because of this really laborious process.
2:23:32
So while it is true that it is easier to apply for multiple benefits in New York City than in much of the rest of the state.
2:23:39
It's still a really onerous process to obtain those benefits.
2:23:42
Rather than being able to apply for multiple benefits at one time, low income new workers are often forced to spend countless hours.
2:23:49
Try traveling to and waiting at social services offices or spending long times on calls waiting to be served, taking time away from work, and raising their children, and if their employer pays by the hour, they often lose wages to do so.
2:24:03
So we have actually Long champion, the idea of a my city portal, which then candidate Eric Adams said would create a single portal for all city services and benefits.
2:24:16
But when the portal finally launched in 2023 as was discussed earlier.
2:24:21
It only offered eligibility screenings and applications for the childcare benefits.
2:24:25
And even now, New Yorkers who need to apply for SNAP, cash assistance, and Medicaid renewal are directed to the separate Act SSHA website.
2:24:34
So our position on this is that in principle, we do very much support the idea of allowing people, particularly low income people, the opportunity to apply for multiple benefits at one time because it is extremely difficult for them to have to go through this process.
2:24:48
With multiple agencies, many of which require the same amount of information about them, something like 90% of the information that you need to apply for all these benefits is roughly the same.
2:24:59
And we know that there are the technology challenges.
2:25:02
We know there were issues that were brought up earlier in this hearing related to concerns about privacy.
2:25:08
And and those are all very fair concerns, but we do believe that the potential upsides for the city once the portal is fully implemented, could be great.
2:25:17
It could save countless time and money for struggling New Yorkers, could decrease the burden on city workers, and improve the local economy because people who receive these benefits will almost certainly use them in local city businesses.
2:25:30
So we do believe that the city council and the city should do everything it can to properly and fully implement the the promise of the MyCity portal, which would make life or low income New Yorkers who need these benefits much easier.
2:25:43
But we would also suggest that the council formally endorsed the Congressional And State Hope Act bills, which would make it easier for people to apply for these multiple benefits online.
2:25:53
But we hope that you work to address the delays in implementing the portal fully so that it can help more New Yorkers.
2:25:59
Thank you very much.
