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REMARKS
Council Member Holden's opening remarks on veteran homelessness and related legislation
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4 min
Council Member Robert F. Holden delivers opening remarks for a hearing on homeless veterans in New York City. He introduces several pieces of legislation related to veterans' affairs and outlines the main topics to be addressed in the hearing, emphasizing the importance of improving services for homeless veterans.
- Holden discusses three bills: Intro 684 (establishing veterans committees in community boards), Intro 685 (procurement opportunities for veteran-owned businesses), and Intro 1171 (study on RTM therapy for veterans).
- He highlights the need to understand the exact size of NYC's homeless veteran population and improve services for them.
- Holden acknowledges his colleagues and thanks the committee staff for their work in preparing the hearing.
Robert F. Holden
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Requiring each community board to establish a veterans committee.
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Intro six eighty five, which I have also sponsored regarding procurement opportunities for veteran owned business enterprises.
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And finally, Intro eleven seventy one, which I also sponsored, requiring a study and recommendations of the feasibility of implementing a pilot program to provide reconsolidation of traumatic memories, better known as RTM, therapy for veterans.
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It's been very successful in its trials and it's very inexpensive, which I'll mention a little while.
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Let me, do we get Councilmember Okay, we're gonna hear from Councilmember Vernikov as soon as we get the feed on.
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Those of you who have attended other hearings of this committee and heard me speak about two of my bills numerous times.
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First, the importance of having each community board establish its own veterans committee so that the needs of veterans can be heard and hopefully met in their neighborhoods, in their home neighborhoods.
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And second, the promising studies that show that RTM therapy, which I just spoke about, can be much more less expensive and more effective way of treating post traumatic stress disorder in veterans than any other method so far currently being used.
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My hope is that New York City can make RTM therapy more available here if a pilot program shows that it works.
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The other bill would enable veteran owned businesses to identify as such when registering to do business with the city of New York.
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This bill would also require a creation of a veteran leadership advisory program to educate veteran owned businesses about city procurement opportunities and to support those businesses during the procurement process.
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I believe that this bill would provide some much needed support for our veteran owned businesses.
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Let me now turn to the hearing topic, which is a universal concern.
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How do we make sure that veterans who have served our country have given back, but are now left homeless as a result?
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We are both saddened and truly dismayed at the thought of veterans living on the streets, in shelters, or in temporary housing that most of the time is inadequate.
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And we fear for their physical and mental health and their economic outcomes as they try to find stability in their lives.
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Witnesses at this committee's hearing in the past have testified about conditions in at least one housing shelter in New York City that is dedicated to veterans and about the difficulty they have in getting services and the need to survive and thrive in that atmosphere.
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Today we want to understand the exact size of New York City's Homeless Veteran population, the ways that our city addresses their needs and how we can improve.
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And that's what this hearing is about.
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How do we improve for the better these services and make them accessible to veterans?
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Nothing is more important to this committee.
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At this time, I would like to acknowledge my colleagues who are here.
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Christy Marmarata, council member, council member Vicki Palladino, and council member Sandy Nurse.
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And I know Joanne Areola is on her way.
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Yeah.
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So I also like to thank the committee staff who prepared for this hearing, the great John LaRosa, our legislative counsel, who this is our last meeting, hearing with you.
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So he's moving on to bigger and better things.
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So we're gonna miss him.
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So we're gonna work you today.
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And I want to thank Regina Paul, our policy analyst, who's not going anywhere.
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She better not.
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Ross Goldstein, our financial analyst.
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And finally, thanks to Daniel Cusina, my chief of staff, who's somewhere in the back, and my legislative director William Dougherty, somewhere in the back there too.
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They've been doing great work behind the scenes, again, I wanna thank them.
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I would like I would now turn it over to our legislative council to administer the oath to witnesses from the administration.