Caitlyn Passaretti
5:05:06
Thank you chair Stevens and the Children and Youth Committee for hosting this hearing.
5:05:10
My name is Caitlin Passereti.
5:05:11
I use sheher pronouns and I'm the senior policy and advocacy associate with Citizens Committee for Children of New York.
5:05:17
My testimony will address the needs for after school, runaway, and homeless youth, alternatives to incarceration, and needed state advocacy.
5:05:24
After school programs provide vital supports and care for our city's young people.
5:05:28
To ensure programs are robustly funded and providers are paid what they are owed, we must adjust the rates for Compass and Sonic.
5:05:34
In partnership with the Campaign for Children, we urge the city to increase base rates for Compass Elementary to $4,900 and for Sonic Middle School programs to 41 $4,150 in this year with the end goal of fully funding elementary and middle school programs in a new procurement in FY '20 '7.
5:05:52
Regarding runaway and homeless youth, we are grateful for the 100 beds funded in last year's budget.
5:05:56
However, we also need the city to increase the rates for providers, have not been updated since 2017, to $70,000 per bed.
5:06:04
This investment will provide safe temporary housing for youth who otherwise would be without a stable option.
5:06:10
We also urge you to restore and baseline the 1,620,000.00 for peer navigators and 1,500,000.0 for the housing specialists.
5:06:17
Having a trusted support person to offer advice, resources, and answers for young people experiencing homelessness is an invaluable resource.
5:06:24
Additionally, we urge you to support investments meant to prevent justice system involvement for young people.
5:06:30
Extensive research demonstrates the positive impacts of ATI and reentry programs, including lowering recidivism and crime.
5:06:36
However, the administration has cut $6,000,000 to these programs since 2023.
5:06:41
We are therefore asking for a restoration in baseline of 3,300,000.0 for the impact program, 2,600,000.0 for next steps, 3,800,000.0 for the Office of Criminal Justice for Alternatives to Incarceration Programs, and 8,000,000 for reentry programs.
5:06:55
Finally, we urge you to work with the state to secure additional funding for the city's childcare block grant.
5:07:00
According to ACS, New York City is on the verge of exhausting available CCBG funds.
5:07:05
This would result in 4,000 to 7,000 children losing childcare assistance each month.
5:07:11
It is urgent that city leaders work with the state to ensure city receives to prevent a dramatic drop in access to affordable childcare.
5:07:18
And then very quickly, the commissioner of ACS mentioned the increase in young people in secured detention centers, and we just urge that ACS needs to continue their advocacy for a waiver of hardship to the state because there is $1,500,000,000 for raise the age funding New York City is ineligible for unless we submit a waiver of hardship, which has not ever been done.
5:07:36
And so we're urging the council and ACS to work to get that hardship submitted.
5:07:39
Thank you for the extra time.
