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Q&A
Discussion on closure of shelters housing new arrivals
2:28:21
·
6 min
Council Member Avilés inquires about the number of shelters housing new arrivals that have closed or will close in fiscal year 2025. OASO Director Schaefer provides information on shelter closures and discusses the ongoing need for services.
- 53 shelters will be closed between June and June (fiscal year)
- 37 shelters have been closed this fiscal year to date
- Despite closures, there are still 43,000 people in care
- The shelter system is almost two times what it was before the humanitarian crisis
Alexa Avilés
2:28:21
And what are the contingency plans if a WASO is actually not funded in fiscal twenty five?
Molly Schaefer
2:28:28
We will continue to work with OMB on what our actual needs are.
2:28:32
We have real city employees on staff, so we will continue to work with them on making sure that we have our personnel money.
Alexa Avilés
2:28:40
Is there any planned reallocations of OASL's responsibilities to other agencies?
2:28:46
If so, what agencies would be taking on any particular kind of work?
Molly Schaefer
2:28:50
So the nature of this response has been shifting throughout.
2:28:56
We continue to monitor the response.
2:28:58
We still have 43,000 people in care, so our work still continues.
2:29:04
If there is a need to reallocate or a need to change the functions of our office, we will make an announcement.
Alexa Avilés
2:29:12
We'll see it in the press.
2:29:14
If can you clarify one more time just for the record, Owasso's responsibilities and how they differ from Moya?
Molly Schaefer
2:29:23
So our office was created to respond to this humanitarian crisis.
2:29:30
As folks know, at some weeks we had 4,000 people coming in asking for shelter.
2:29:34
So our role is really to focus on the coordination and ensuring that we had beds for everyone, that we were advocating appropriately for the needs of this population.
2:29:44
We set up our asylum application help center to make sure that we had legal supports for the individuals in our care.
2:29:50
We helped on workforce development and other case management and exit strategies to make sure that again everybody in our care got the resources that we needed.
2:30:00
So it was really, our role is really focused on the humanitarian response that the city has been operating under for the last two years.
2:30:09
This was an unprecedented humanitarian response.
2:30:12
Yes, there has been many periods of time where we've had massive amount of immigrants.
2:30:17
What is different about this is that just the amount of real need and a real amount of people coming into shelter and the expansion of shelter almost threefold what it was two years ago.
2:30:32
And so that needed a different type of infrastructure to be able to manage that.
2:30:38
We definitely pulled in lots of different agencies and so we needed a central hub to be able to manage all of the different entities and all of the different resources that we needed for this population.
Alexa Avilés
2:30:49
So given the trend, right, and the continued decrease in numbers but clearly a significant number still in care, how do we make the assumption that this agency will continue at its current levels of 3,200,000?
Molly Schaefer
2:31:10
So we continue to monitor the response as I said before.
2:31:14
If we have changes we will absolutely announce them.
2:31:18
We are continuing to make sure that everybody in our office is doing everything they can to support those 43,000 people who are still in our care.
2:31:27
We still have three different agencies providing sheltering.
2:31:30
There's still a work as DHS takes on more and more of the sheltering to make sure that best practices are shared across the different agencies who have been doing really critical pieces of this.
2:31:43
And there's still a need for a central hub to be able to manage the policy and sort of all of the different pieces of it.
2:31:50
We still own our data system across the system.
2:31:52
That is still a WASO's job.
2:31:57
And so right now we are we are very busy, but we continue to make sure that we're monitoring what's happening and making a plan for the future.
Alexa Avilés
2:32:07
You you could you could appreciate the the challenge of seeing a new agency be developed, right, for the emergency response and and address an extraordinary increase of scaling up and then scaling down quite dramatically but still holding the same number of staff and a quite significantly large budget when other parts of the system are not currently funded.
2:32:37
You you can understand the contradiction and challenge for for New Yorkers to understand what is happening here.
Molly Schaefer
2:32:44
And I just wanna be clear that Moya has 64 positions.
2:32:48
We have 27, and this has only grown in the last two years.
2:32:51
Our goal is always to been an emergency temporary response, but we have capabilities now that we've learned over the past two years that will be helpful for whoever takes this on long term.
2:33:03
As folks know, there is 43,000 people.
2:33:05
Our shelter system is almost two times what it was before this humanitarian crisis happened.
2:33:11
So there's still a incredible amount of people with really complex needs that even 27 people is not enough to manage.
Alexa Avilés
2:33:18
Yeah.
2:33:19
Without question.
2:33:20
And how we're integrating them into the other agencies is a big question.
2:33:25
So it begs certainly the evolving roles and understanding are we are we duplicating efforts here?
2:33:32
Are we not funding the right things at the right time?
2:33:35
Are we just holding on to a system that we needed but is no longer necessary?
2:33:40
So it begs all those operational questions for sure.
2:33:45
In terms of the is is Owasso running the reticketing center?
2:33:50
No.
2:33:50
Okay.
2:33:57
How many how many shelters, housing, new arrivals have closed so far in fiscal twenty five?
2:34:05
I believe you said that in your testimony or I could be imagining it.
Molly Schaefer
2:34:10
I did.
2:34:11
Just give me one second to find the exact number because for the record I want to make sure I have the right one.
2:34:20
We're gonna I know that we're going to have closed 53 between June and June, but I can get back to you.
2:34:26
So that's 53 we will have closed 53 by June.
Alexa Avilés
2:34:35
Okay.
2:34:35
And that includes fiscal twenty five.
2:34:37
That's like up to time?
Uliana Danilova
2:34:40
Getting my
Alexa Avilés
2:34:41
fiscal year mixed up.