Q&A
Changes to 60-day shelter stay policy for families with school-aged children
1:33:41
·
157 sec
Council Member Avilés questions Director Schaeffer about recent changes to the 60-day shelter stay policy for families with school-aged children. The discussion reveals that the policy change only applies to families with children in grades K-6, primarily to address busing issues.
- The change does not apply to families with children in pre-K, 3K, or Promise NYC programs
- The policy is currently only for non-DHS sites, as DHS has not yet rolled out their 60-day policy
- The decision factors for this change were not fully disclosed, with cost considerations deferred to OMB
Alexa Avilés
1:33:41
so much for being here.
1:33:44
So in terms of, I'm sorry if I missed this earlier, but I just I just wanted to make sure to to understand this properly.
1:33:52
So why does the 60 day notice change announced yesterday only apply to families with school aged children?
Molly Schaeffer
1:34:00
So that's the population that most, can request and get busing for the most part, and so that really does help with the busing issue.
1:34:11
Everybody can receive a MetroCard, and families can, say no to busing, but that's the population that really is focused on busing.
Alexa Avilés
1:34:20
So for 7 for those families with children in grades 7 to 12, they are just exempt from
Molly Schaeffer
1:34:28
From this policy announcement, I will say that it is always our intention to keep people in the borough of their kids' school, and so we'll continue trying to do that work.
1:34:37
But if we have when we have to prioritize, we prioritize k through 6.
Alexa Avilés
1:34:43
And so does this change apply to families with children in the life program, head start, pre k, 3 k, Promise NYC?
Molly Schaeffer
1:34:53
It does not.
1:34:54
It only the ones that have kids that are in k through 6.
Alexa Avilés
1:35:02
And and why weren't these programs included?
Molly Schaeffer
1:35:06
We took a look at a lot of different factors, but this was the change that we decided to make.
Alexa Avilés
1:35:14
Are there costs involved?
1:35:15
Well, can you tell us some of the factors that were part of that decision making process?
Molly Schaeffer
1:35:20
I'd have to defer to OMB on specific cost numbers, but Well, I don't know if it was one of the factors.
1:35:20
I just It factors, but again, I'd have to defer to OMB on any cost
Alexa Avilés
1:35:29
Do you have any other factors that you were considering when you exempted these families?
Molly Schaeffer
1:35:37
Again, a big part of this was busing, and, currently, the amount of inflow into the city is a little bit lower, as everybody knows.
1:35:47
And so, we have a lot, a bigger percentage of people in care who are longer stayers or people we're consider starting to consider as longer stayers, so we wanted to take some of the attention away from, shelter movement and a little bit more on what what things we can do to reinvest money into helping people with better longer stayers.
Alexa Avilés
1:36:09
And does this change only apply to non DHS sites?
Molly Schaeffer
1:36:14
Correct.
1:36:15
Because DHS has not rolled out their 60 day policy
Alexa Avilés
1:36:18
yet.
