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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Allison Wilkey, Director of Government Affairs and Strategic Campaigns at Coalition for the Homeless
1:53:22
ยท
3 min
Allison Wilkey, representing the Coalition for the Homeless and the Legal Aid Society, testified about persistent issues with food quality in NYC shelters. She highlighted frequent complaints about dietary accommodations, food preparation, and discrepancies between menu descriptions and actual meals served.
- Wilkey presented evidence of non-compliance with granted reasonable accommodations for dietary needs, including a testimony from a shelter resident unable to receive plant-based meals despite medical necessity.
- She shared photos demonstrating mismatched food labels, inadequate nutritional content, and poor quality of meals served in shelters.
- The testimony emphasized a lack of accountability in ensuring that established food standards and guidelines are actually followed in shelter food service.
Allison Wilkey
1:53:22
Yep.
1:53:22
Good morning, and thank you chairs Juan and chairs Farias for holding this hearing.
1:53:27
My name is Allison Wilkie, and I'm the director of government affairs and strategic campaigns at the Coalition for the Homeless, and I'm providing testimony today both on behalf of coalition and the Legal Aid Society.
1:53:37
We are the court and city appointed monitors of the DHS shelter system, which that number of sites does vary, but right now is actually about 500 sites, not 400 sites.
1:53:48
One of the most frequent complaints that we get both from shelter residents and from our monitoring staff is about the quality of food in shelters.
1:53:56
The complaints range from lack of dietary accommodation to things being overcooked to spoiled food.
1:54:05
I mean the whole range of things that the administration testified that they have rules or guidelines or processes about are the exact things that we get complaints about.
1:54:15
I'd like to focus a little bit first on reasonable accommodations.
1:54:19
You know, we spend, our staff both at Legal Aid and the coalition spend weeks and months trying to get compliance with granted reasonable accommodations.
1:54:29
These are people who have provided medical documentation, they have a granted request, but there's really two problems.
1:54:37
That one, either the shelter fails to make their request to the vendor to get the right dietary requirement or the vendor just doesn't doesn't provide it.
1:54:46
And I'd like to read a quote from a shelter resident who wanted me to share this with the council.
1:54:53
Her name is Cassie.
1:54:54
She said, I haven't been able to get the appropriate food to control my cholesterol.
1:54:58
After two heart attacks, my doctor ordered me to follow a plant based diet.
1:55:02
I have an approved reasonable accommodation, but I still can't get the food I need.
1:55:06
The only milk they serve to go with the cereal in the morning plant based.
1:55:10
The menu says they're going to serve oatmeal which would be good for me, but we never get oatmeal.
1:55:15
My health has gotten worse while living in shelter.
1:55:17
The shelters never serve salad or fresh vegetables.
1:55:21
My doctors are concerned about my uncontrolled cholesterol but I can't do anything about it because they won't give me plant based meals even though they're supposed to.
1:55:29
I've included a few photos in my testimony that were taken in recent weeks that I'd just like to point out to you.
1:55:35
The one on page three shows what is supposed to be vegetarian paella with mixed vegetables.
1:55:41
You can see that it's maybe some carrots and a fried object and some rice.
1:55:46
It is definitely not what it says and this is a problem that people have in trying to understand what they're eating is that the labels on the meals or the menus that are posted do not match what people are receiving.
1:55:59
I'd just like to say also if you look really closely there, the calories for that meal listed on the label are 184.
1:56:07
That is not enough for a meal.
1:56:10
Same thing in other photos.
1:56:12
On page four, there's a photo.
1:56:14
The label says it's a hard boiled egg.
1:56:16
It looks like maybe a pancake if I'm being generous.
1:56:20
And then also the problem people have is actually getting, when they get a special meal, like nutritional equivalency.
1:56:26
So the photo on page five is supposed to be a vegan meal.
1:56:29
It is vegetables and white rice.
1:56:31
That is all that is in there.
1:56:32
There's no protein.
1:56:34
So even though we have guidelines in place, we have these standards, they are not being followed.
1:56:39
And this is just one of like many complaints that we get that include, you know, for shelters where the meals are delivered, they deliver lunch and dinner at the same time, like at lunch, and then the dinner just sits out.
1:56:51
It's not refrigerated, it just sits out for five hours.
1:56:54
So there's a number of issues that I appreciate the council holding this hearing, but there's just a real lack of accountability on making sure that all of these rules and standards that are in place are actually followed.