PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Shanequa Anne Holiday, Associate Vice President of DV Shelters at Safe Horizon
1:59:16
·
4 min
Shanequa Anne Holiday, Associate Vice President of DV Shelters at Safe Horizon, testified about the organization's work supporting domestic violence survivors in New York City's shelter system. She highlighted Safe Horizon's extensive services, including operating 8 shelters with 741 beds and running the city's domestic violence hotline.
- Emphasized the importance of the Safe Shelter Act, which would increase access to DV shelters for single adult survivors
- Discussed recent developments in HRA's DV shelter procedures, including an interactive voice response system for attendance tracking and extended daily attendance submission time
- Noted the discontinuation of daily attendance sheet submissions via email and efax, which improves efficiency in shelter utilization and billing processes
Shanequa Anne Holiday
1:59:16
Good afternoon, and thank you for inviting me testified before the committee today.
1:59:21
My name is Shaniqua Ann Holiday, and I'm an associate vice president for a DB shelters at Safe Horizon, which is the nation's largest nonprofit victims assistance organization.
1:59:32
We offer our clients into trauma and for in response to 250,000 New Yorkers each year who have experienced violence or abuse.
1:59:42
We do this through a lens of racial equity injustice to guide our work with the clients, with each other, and in developing the public policy position that we hold.
1:59:51
We're grateful that the committees are looking at how to best support domestic violence survivors in New York City's shelter system.
1:59:58
Safe Horizon operates 8 emergency and transitional domestic violence shelters that provide welcoming and supportive safe spaces with 741 beds.
2:00:09
We also run the domestic violence hotline for the entire New York City, placing survivors in all DV shelters across the five boroughs, and our goal is help survivors and their families get the resources they need to heal and thrive.
2:00:22
We do this by offering a variety of services, including housing, assistance, case management, on-site counseling throughout new counseling services that we offer through our social workers, and then we have 1 to 2 housing specialists within each shelter to work with clients to solidify permanent housing.
2:00:42
Just two areas I will like to highlight that are important to us right now are the safe shelter act, so and the develop recent developments within HRA's TV shelters division.
2:00:54
So safe Verizon helped to draft and then pass the state legislature slation known as the Safe Shelter Act, which will increase access to domestic violence shelters for single adult survivors.
2:01:05
This legislation was sponsored by Assembly member Andrew Habisi and state senator Andrew Gounaitis, and it provides would provide the funding flexibility shelter providers desperately need to house many more single adult survivors of trafficking in domestic and gender based violence.
2:01:23
This flexibility would actually empower the sector and help ensure that all survivors regardless of age, sexual orientation, gender identity, or family status have equal access to lifesaving, temporary housing, and support.
2:01:38
The other area that I wanted to highlight since for the sake of time, and I've submitted the written testimony to expand on the the concepts.
2:01:48
Are the recent developments within HRA's DB shelter procedures?
2:01:53
So in July 2023, they implemented interactive voice response system and expanded on the use of this system to a significant number of DV shelters across New York City that they had been piloting in select shelters.
2:02:07
The system allows clients to call in directly from designated phones at DB location, sometimes in their units, within a certain window to submit their attendance in shelter for the day.
2:02:18
And the system is proposed to simplify the attendance tracking process, reduce administrative burdens, and enhance the all efficiency of services.
2:02:28
Also, HRA has extended the time to submit attendance daily in the DV shelters to 2 PM, and this addresses the varying needs of survivors in shelter because, of course, we know that that time constraints can impede on folks' ability to to have their outside lives.
2:02:45
Right?
2:02:46
The previous cutoff time was 10 AM, and this allows the DB shelters to be more client centered around the intersectionality of survivor presence in shelter in their daily living.
2:02:57
And the last thing that I want to highlight is the most recent recent development is the discontinuation of the requirement to submit daily attendance sheets via e mail and efax to the billing liaisons for each shelter, and this helps us to reduce delays in attendance confirmations for the facilities, which improves utilization rates and increases productivity of billing submission in affiliation.
2:03:22
Thank you so much.
