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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, Deputy Director of Street Vendor Project
6:00:48
ยท
170 sec
Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez, Deputy Director of the Street Vendor Project, testified about the organization's work supporting street vendors in New York City and requested $500,000 in funding from the City Council for outreach and education services. She highlighted the growth of the vending industry, particularly among newly arrived migrants and asylum seekers, and emphasized the vulnerabilities faced by street vendors in interactions with ICE and law enforcement.
- The Street Vendor Project serves over 3,000 vendor members, providing multilingual services, legal representation, and resources.
- In 2024, SVP served 144 NYC zip codes, advising 793 vendors on rules and regulations, and winning 94 civil cases on summons issued by city agencies.
- There has been a significant increase in criminal summonses issued to street vendors, nearly doubling from 1,244 in 2023 to 2,307 in 2024.
Carina Kaufman-Gutierrez
6:00:48
Good afternoon, Chair Aviles.
6:00:50
My name is Carina Kaufman Gutierrez and I'm the Deputy Director at the Street Vendor Project.
6:00:54
Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify.
6:00:57
The Street Vendor Project is a membership based organization of over 3,000 vendor members including small business doing which conducts small business consultations, legal representation, and access to a wide variety of resources.
6:01:10
We're the only organization that provides multilingual accessible services to street vendors in New York City, a growing workforce of more than 23,000.
6:01:19
The vending industry has grown exponentially in the past year as many newly arrived migrants and asylum seekers are turning to vending for survival.
6:01:27
This has led to a 30% increase in SVP's membership over the last few years.
6:01:33
In 2024, SVP served 144 New York City zip codes through our outreach services advising seven ninety three vendors on vending rules and regulations, saving each vendor on average $800 a year in fines.
6:01:48
We also won a 94 civil cases on summons issued by city agencies.
6:01:55
We connect with street vendors through street outreach, going to commissaries, going to their carts, distributing materials like this, which is a know your rights for street vendors in regards to ICE that we have created in house and translate in house into seven languages.
6:02:10
Thanks to the diversity of our small team, we have five organizers and two small business intakes.
6:02:17
So, those numbers that we hit are a lot of people for a very small team.
6:02:24
With that in mind, I do want to emphasize our respectful request for $500,000 in support from New York City Council to conduct outreach and education services to street vendors.
6:02:35
This is in comparison to this $3,700,000 the city issues to the Office of Street Vendor Enforcement.
6:02:42
Ninety six percent of street vendors are immigrants who hail from across the globe of mixed immigration status.
6:02:48
Vendors are particularly vulnerable to interactions with ICE due to the nature of their work serving New Yorkers in public space.
6:02:56
Additionally, street vendors have been at increased risk due to the administration's policy of the number of NYPD criminal summonses being issued.
6:03:05
In the last year, in 2024, '2 thousand '30 '7 criminal summonses were issued, nearly doubling the twelve forty four criminal summonses issued in 2023.
6:03:17
So, that, I'll conclude just to say thank you so much for your time and again, respectfully requesting support from New York City Council so we can both continue and expand our weekly street outreach, host workshops to vendors across the five boroughs, and distribute small business resources so that vendors have the tools they need to protect themselves and serve New Yorkers.
6:03:37
Thank you.