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Q&A
Council Member Louis questions OMB on housing vouchers, community board funding, and maternal health initiatives
2:21:03
ยท
3 min
Council Member Farah N. Louis engages in a Q&A session with OMB Director Jacques Jiha, addressing concerns about housing voucher delays, community board funding, and maternal health initiatives. Jiha provides responses on recent legislation, community board funding assessment, and defers some questions to other departments.
- Louis raises issues about delays in housing voucher issuance and asks about funding for domestic violence survivor housing initiatives.
- She proposes a new funding model for community boards based on borough hall budgets.
- Louis inquires about additional resources for reducing black maternal mortality, given current statistics indicate the city is not on track to meet its goal.
Farah N. Louis
2:21:03
Thank you chair and good to see you all.
2:21:05
I have four quick questions.
2:21:09
Securing stable and permanent housing for at risk individuals and families must be a top priority, yet in my district we are seeing a troubling increase in delays related to the issuance of housing vouchers including city feps and section eight.
2:21:22
My committee recently passed legislation to expand housing provisions for domestic violence survivors ensuring they have immediate access to stable and secure housing after leaving unsafe environments.
2:21:33
I wanted to know how is OM is OMB allocating the necessary funding to support this initiative as well as other emergency repair operations that are critical to making units habitable for those in need.
2:21:47
I have a quick question on community boards.
2:21:49
Over the past several years community boards have not been a significant budget, have not received a significant budget increase in over two decades.
2:21:58
As the most local city agency responsible for ensuring the delivery of city services and programs in our neighborhoods.
2:22:05
The stagnation and funding has directly harmed New York City residents.
2:22:11
I wanted to know would it be possible to outline the current parameters by which OMB funds community boards.
2:22:17
Community boards have community boards should have parity with citywide borough hall budgets.
2:22:22
If we take the total budget of all five borough halls and divide by 59, that figure should serve as the baseline for community board funding.
2:22:32
Given the community boards are responsible for hyper local engagement land use recommendations and holding city agencies accountable, will OMB commit to assessing this approach to increase, stabilize and baseline community board budgets?
2:22:45
And the last one is on women and gender equity.
2:22:48
I wanted to know is the administration set it has set a goal to reduce the black maternal mortality by ten percent by 02/1930 under Health NYC.
2:23:00
Given the current statistics which indicate that we are not on track to meet this target, what additional resources and interventions is the administration considering?
Jacques Jiha
2:23:11
The first one is your legislation was just recently passed.
2:23:19
So we will be working with the agencies to determine potential funding needs if they are and I'm pretty sure they do have.
2:23:30
We made some significant investment when it comes to maternal mortality.
2:23:39
We added about $30,000,000 gross in the plan for this.
2:23:47
Regarding the second the third one was community board.
Farah N. Louis
2:23:51
Community boards, but does the administration being that we're not gonna be on track.
2:23:55
So 34,000,000 in investments for doulas, midwives, maternal health services but we just wanted to know is there a plan being that we won't be on track by 02/1930 for Health NYC for that?
Jacques Jiha
2:24:10
I think I would definitely defer to DOHMH when it comes to that because I don't have the operational and I don't know the plan, so I would defer to them for this.
Farah N. Louis
2:24:21
Now the model for community board.
Jacques Jiha
2:24:23
Community board.
2:24:24
We take into account their needs.
2:24:29
We give you their needs every day like we do for every other agencies every other agency to see how much they need in terms of other resources.
2:24:37
But again, as I said, we will work with them, okay, to assess their needs and as I said, if resources are available and the needs are real, we will do one assessment at a time and see what can be done.
Farah N. Louis
2:24:50
We would love a commitment from OMB on that.
2:24:52
We have a model that we think works.
2:24:53
So if we could get a
Jacques Jiha
2:24:54
commitment I could share with you.
2:24:56
Latanya Latanya is here.
Farah N. Louis
2:24:57
I will share it with you.
2:24:58
Thank you.