Nadia Swanson
4:17:54
Hello, thank you Chair Ayala for holding this important hearing today.
4:17:57
My name is Nadia Swanson, my pronouns are theythem.
4:17:59
I'm the Director of TA and Advocacy at the Ali Forne Center, the world's largest and most comprehensive program serving LGBTQ on house youth.
4:18:07
We serve about 2,200 youth a year.
4:18:09
In 2024, we welcomed three fifty one new youth, a quarter of which came from outside of The US and 20% did not have legal citizenship.
4:18:17
The mayor's plan for asylum seekers released in March 2023 left 16 to 24 year olds completely out and took away the critical access DYCD programs rely on within DHS.
4:18:27
Our programs are heavily underfunded.
4:18:29
We rely heavily on referring youths to DHS, especially March's House, while they wait an average of six months to be placed in our housing programs.
4:18:36
This allows them to have the capacity to work with their care teams for permanent housing.
4:18:40
Our waitlist have doubled in 2024, and this will only become more dire of a situation as we have a large increase of trans youth coming to New York City from other states to seek safety and services With no additional financial support and now the transphobic violence of our federal government, we have the real threat of losing federal contracts.
4:18:57
Trans youth would leave Randall's Island Herc because they didn't feel safe and the two new trans pacific hotel sites don't meet the full need.
4:19:05
So they returned to our 20 fourseven drop in where the city doesn't allow beds.
4:19:08
I've spoken to Marsh's house directly and they expressed being open to accepting youth seeking asylum again, but were bound by the mayor's orders, especially because of unutilized beds that they have.
4:19:17
For the last year I've been getting the runaround even though everyone agrees that something should be done.
4:19:21
I've advocated at city council hearings.
4:19:23
I've spoke directly to the mayor who set up a meeting with Commissioner Parks who afterwards her team said that they could not change anything because the Herc provider said that they are being safe and not transphobic.
4:19:35
The mayor's office of asylum seekers where they sent us next was empathetic and tried to help but was ultimately unsuccessful.
4:19:41
Until this directive is reversed for everyone we need an exception to be made for LGBTQ New Yorkers, especially youth seeking asylum, to have a connection to Marsha's house and the future trans DHS shelter.
4:19:52
Additionally, we've had issues with DHS shelters stating that they can't risk quote liability.
4:19:57
For example, one DHS shelter denied a trans man to amend shelter because of quote liability and another denied a trans man who uses a cane because the shelter is not ADA compliant even though the youth stated that they can use stairs.
4:20:08
Thank you for our testimony and I can answer any questions.
