PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Armen Merjian, Senior Staff Attorney at Housing Works
1:16:28
ยท
5 min
Armen Merjian, a senior staff attorney at Housing Works, provided testimony challenging the City Council's oversight of HASA (HIV/AIDS Services Administration). He criticized HASA's failure to meet legally mandated caseload ratios and emphasized the need for stricter enforcement of existing laws to improve services for HASA clients.
- Merjian highlighted that HASA is failing to meet the legally required caseload ratio of 34:1 overall and 25:1 for family cases, with current ratios around 48:1 or 49:1.
- He stressed that many problems stem from overworked HASA staff and called for the City Council to engage in better oversight and enforcement of existing laws.
- Merjian also addressed issues of housing discrimination against voucher holders, urging the Council to enforce source of income protection laws passed in 2008.
Armen Merjian
1:16:28
Hello, everyone.
1:16:29
Armen Mergin, senior staff attorney at Housing Works.
1:16:32
I and we represent the entire class of HASA, clients, in a major lawsuit, Henrietta d, versus first Giuliani, then Bloomberg that went all the way to the Supreme Court.
1:16:42
I wanna challenge this body, and say that this body has been asleep at the wheel.
1:16:48
I don't say that lightly, but oversight and enforcement have been wholly lacking with regard to HAASA.
1:16:55
The question was asked, what is the ideal caseload ratio?
1:16:58
There's not an ideal caseload ratio.
1:17:00
There is a legally mandated caseload ratio that they're woefully failing to observe, and that is the the the font of so many of these problems.
1:17:09
We began in 1994 suing over these case load ratios.
1:17:13
They are a ramp.
1:17:14
They are we call them a ramp for the disabled to gain access to benefits and services.
1:17:19
We had to take the Henrietta d case all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States in which the judge, after a long trial, declared that Hassell was chronically and systematically failing to provide access to critical subsistence benefits with devastating consequences.
1:17:33
The judge's word, a Republican, Bush appointed judge nonetheless found that it was woefully inadequate.
1:17:40
We then won, a decision which echoed what this chamber had passed in 1997.
1:17:45
This, chamber passed Local Law 49.
1:17:49
Local Law 49 mandates an overall ratio of 34 to one at HAASA and in important, family cases, 25 to one.
1:17:58
After we won the Henrietta d lawsuit, independently, the federal court mandated as its federal order that they maintain a 34 to one and twenty five to one ratio, and that was also extended to every HASA office, not just HASA wide because otherwise you would have, incredible problems where some are observing and some are out of whack.
1:18:18
So there's not an ideal average.
1:18:20
There's literally a doubly legally compounded average that they are failing to, observe, every single day, and they have for years, and they've never been called on the mat.
1:18:31
They talk about how many folks that they have hired.
1:18:33
They didn't tell you how many folks have left through attrition and other things.
1:18:37
The number hired is irrelevant.
1:18:38
The only relevant figure is what is the caseload ratio at HAASA?
1:18:43
Is it 34 to one overall and is it 25 to one?
1:18:46
Well, as they told you, it's about 48 or 49.
1:18:48
And I've been saber rattling to bring a contempt motion.
1:18:51
Just so you know, I twice had to go to court after Henrietta d, after suing Giuliani, to back down mayor Bloomberg, who proposed cuts in the budget to HASSA, which would have blown up the ratios.
1:19:03
Those are illegal.
1:19:04
The federal court ordered them not to do it.
1:19:06
When HASSA disingenuously tells you that there's they seek a hiring freeze exemption, it's a lie.
1:19:11
It's not something that they have to seek as an exemption.
1:19:14
They are legally required by this body and by the federal court, both independently, to meet 34 to one and twenty five to one.
1:19:21
They're not allowed to put a hiring freeze, especially when they're woefully behind.
1:19:26
And so everything flows from it.
1:19:27
They've been asking hostile workers to work overtime, nights, weekends.
1:19:31
Can you imagine an already difficult job and harried workers and and clients being contacted, after hours or at night?
1:19:38
It's not a solution.
1:19:40
And so many of the problems you're gonna hear about and you've heard about flow from the fact that these are horribly overworked folks.
1:19:47
It's a workers' rights issue as well.
1:19:48
If we can get it down to 34 to one and twenty five to one, the workers will not be harried.
1:19:53
They will take calls.
1:19:55
They will get people their benefits.
1:19:56
And it's a matter of life and death.
1:19:59
So really this council needs to engage in oversight and enforcement.
1:20:04
I should also tell you quickly that the question of how long it takes folks to go from the homeless system into permanent housing is an important one for this council as well because HASA has very little housing actually.
1:20:16
The overwhelming majority, tens of thousands of HASA clients go to the private market like folks do with the city feps or section eight vouchers.
1:20:24
The problem is we have a conflagration of rights in that, area because the number one source of housing discrimination in New York is, source of income discrimination, voucher discrimination.
1:20:35
In 02/2008, this body passed wonderfully a source of income protection, but with no enforcement and no oversight.
1:20:42
And so once again, it's a tree falling in the forest.
1:20:44
We at Housing Works have brought probably more of those cases than anyone in the country.
1:20:48
We received zero funding for it.
1:20:51
And so what happens is folks are trapped finally in the HASSA homeless system because they can't get attorneys to help them and landlords are routinely failing, telling them we don't take vouchers or imposing illegal minimum income requirements irrelevant for people who don't have any share, for example, of the rent, or doing something called ghosting, where they simply find out you have a voucher or subsidy and don't call you back.
1:21:14
And the only way to attack that is through testing, paired testing, and enforcement through lawsuits.
1:21:20
So I challenge this body, really, to get involved in oversight and enforcement.
1:21:24
Otherwise, the rights of the most disadvantaged New Yorkers, multiple disadvantages, right, overwhelmingly black and brown and poor and unhoused and living with chronic, substance use issues with comorbidities galore, everything under the sun.
1:21:41
And I've often described just one client, and these are the folks that are not getting, their benefits and services from HASA because of this wholly, wildly out of whack caseload ratio.
1:21:53
I welcome all your questions.