Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
Q&A
Distribution and allocation of new Runaway and Homeless Youth beds across boroughs
2:14:32
ยท
111 sec
Council Member Stevens inquires about the distribution and allocation of the new Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY) beds across boroughs and specific needs. DYCD officials explain their approach to bed allocation and considerations for meeting various demographics.
- DYCD anticipates a distribution of beds across boroughs based on preliminary discussions with providers
- The allocation will consider provider capacity and utilization demand
- Specific focus areas include:
- Homeless young adult beds for older youth (ages 21-24)
- High demand for male beds
- Meeting needs of specific demographics and boroughs with identified gaps
Council Member Stevens emphasizes her prior advocacy for these beds and offers support to ensure swift implementation.
Althea V. Stevens
2:14:32
Okay.
2:14:34
How are you like divvying up the beds when you think about it and will there be like a even distribution amongst boroughs or are you starting with providers?
2:14:42
Could you talk a little bit about that process as well?
Susan Haskell
2:14:44
I think we'll see based preliminarily on our discussions, I think we'll see a nice distribution across the boroughs and yeah for different populations.
Keith Howard
2:14:57
And I also want to make sure because we also have a conversation with the providers about capacity.
Althea V. Stevens
2:15:05
Yeah.
2:15:06
And I will say this, listen when I was out here advocating for the beds we were also talking to providers at the same time to make sure that this could be a fast turnaround.
2:15:13
So I want that to be on record too.
2:15:14
This was not coming out of anywhere.
2:15:16
Everyone was on board and knew that I was yelling about this.
2:15:18
So my hope is that the providers are prepared.
2:15:20
Well I know that they are prepared because we talked about this beforehand so whatever support you need from me let me know so we can continue to make sure that this happened.
2:15:30
And just the last question on this is just thinking about with the additional beds, are there specific places we already kind of see gaps that we want to try to use to fill these hundred beds whether it's like boroughs or you know locations?
2:15:44
Are we thinking about that too?
2:15:45
Like there was like a great need maybe like oh like in The Bronx they didn't have enough beds, let's start there.
2:15:50
Was that is that being taken into consideration?
Susan Haskell
2:15:53
We are definitely looking at utilization and demand in terms of how to finalize where these beds go.
2:16:00
In the first hand, our plan is to fund homeless young adult beds for the older youth, noting that there's a high need there and we have just 60 beds funded right now.
2:16:11
The other thing thing we're seeing is high demand for male beds, so we're taking that into consideration and so we will absolutely be looking at meeting the needs of the specific demographics.
Althea V. Stevens
2:16:23
Thank you so much.