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Q&A
SBS's role in street vendor outreach and education
0:59:26
ยท
4 min
Council Member Amanda Farias inquires about SBS's role in conducting street vendor outreach and education. Commissioner Dynishal Gross explains the agency's approach to supporting street vendors as micro-businesses.
- SBS considers street vendors to be micro-businesses and includes them in outreach efforts
- In 2022, SBS conducted a large mailing to 22,100 licensed street vendors about their services, translated into 10 languages
- The agency works with street vendor advocacy groups and includes representatives in the Small Business Advisory Commission
- SBS is conducting a landscape analysis of street vending in the city
- The agency balances the need for data collection with sensitivity to creating barriers for vulnerable populations
- Street vendors are not specifically tracked in SBS's system but may be categorized under food service businesses or entrepreneurs
Amanda Farias
0:59:26
I'll send some follow-up questions on the vacancy stuff because I think they get a little particular, but I'm very interested in it.
0:59:32
I just have some last questions, last couple of questions about, SBS and maybe some responsibility or relationship with our street vendors.
0:59:45
Does SBS, lead in conducting any street vendor outreach and education?
Dynishal Gross
0:59:50
So we as I said, we're we're committed to outreach.
0:59:53
We have an agency outreach reach team.
0:59:55
We consider street vendors to be micro businesses, and we work to understand their needs and to include them in our outreach.
1:00:05
I I wouldn't say we have been assigned responsibility for it.
1:00:08
Mhmm.
1:00:08
But as as New Yorkers who are trying to make a living through business activity, we are committed to serving them.
1:00:15
And so, in 2022, I believe, we did a large mailing, to street vendors, I believe, 22100 licensed street vendors, about our services, our business solution centers, so that they know that these centers are recity resources that can serve them as well.
1:00:34
I believe we translated that into 10 languages and including Wolof, because that's a language of high demand.
1:00:42
We have, as part of our small business advisory commission, staff from leaders from the street vendor project, and we also work with other street vendor, you know, not all street vendors, but also market vendors as part of our SBAC and our programming.
1:01:00
So that yeah.
1:01:01
That's some of the support we provide for street vendors.
Amanda Farias
1:01:04
And do you folks have funding dedicated annually or anything dedicated this fiscal year to support staffing or educational outreach to street vending or street vendors outside of the mailing?
1:01:15
I know that's a that'll be a fiscal line item.
Dynishal Gross
1:01:17
So, again, we try to keep the lines of communication open by working closely with street vendor advocacy groups.
Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez
1:01:23
Yes.
Dynishal Gross
1:01:24
We also, one of the recommendations of our small business advisory commission was to try to understand, a a landscape analysis of street vending in the city.
1:01:36
And so we are working with a vendor to conduct that study this year.
1:01:42
And we have invested some onetime funding that we received as part following the blueprint, in that study.
Amanda Farias
1:01:51
Okay.
1:01:52
So no direct line items, but the advisory group is conducting an analysis, and you're doing mailing, which is great.
1:01:59
And do you folks does SBS plan to document how many street vendors are reached via SBS services, whether that's through the hotline, small business support centers, any individualized support, do we tag that already in the system somewhere?
Dynishal Gross
1:02:15
This is a a great and interesting question.
1:02:18
And I think as a government agency, we all always have to balance between our desire to have deep insights into our clients, to be able to measure the effectiveness of our service and report on it, and the reluctance that some clients have to share data with government.
1:02:36
So when we're tracking consumption of our business services, we ask the individuals who participate to tell us about their industry, and we try to have some unique identifier for describing their business.
1:02:48
If it's operational, like an EIN, we don't always get that.
1:02:52
And we also wanna be sensitive about, you know, creating barriers to consuming service for populations that may be more vulnerable.
1:03:01
And so we don't ask street vendors to identify themselves as street vendors to consume a business education course or a legal consultation.
1:03:09
We would track them as a food service, you know, business or an entrepreneur with the desire to launch a food service business.
1:03:16
And I'm not sure that it's the right time to add that kind of data collection or tracking, but I'm happy to be in further discussion about it.
Amanda Farias
1:03:24
I was just asking to know myself, but I would agree with your final statement.
1:03:30
Okay.
1:03:31
I think I'm done for questions.
1:03:32
Thank you, chair.
1:03:33
Thank you, folks.