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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Sebastien Vante, Associate Vice President of Street Work Programs at Safe Horizon
6:11:10
ยท
156 sec
Sebastien Vante from Safe Horizon testified about the importance of funding for services supporting homeless and street-involved youth. He emphasized the need for restored and expanded funding for initiatives combating sexual assault and supporting persons involved in the sex trade, as well as new funding for services for undocumented and newly arrived youth.
- Urged additional investments in the Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY) continuum, including increased bed rates and right-sizing residential contracts.
- Stressed the importance of ensuring youth experiencing homelessness can access city FEPS vouchers without barriers, especially in light of potential loss of NYCHA HCV Section 8 vouchers.
- Called for the city to ensure that nonprofits are paid on time to maintain their ability to provide essential services.
Sebastien Vante
6:11:10
Good afternoon chair Stevens.
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My name is Sebastian Vonte and I'm the associate vice president of street work programs at Safe Horizon, the nation's largest nonprofit victim assistance organization.
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We help 250,000 New Yorkers each year who have experienced violence or abuse.
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Street Work Project works with homeless and street involved young people to help find safety and stability.
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We provide essential resources at our drop in centers, at our overnight shelter, and through our street outreach teams.
6:11:40
I've submitted my full testimony but want to emphasize a few points.
6:11:45
First, we urge the city council to restore and expand city council initiative and discretionary funding that organizations like Safe Horizon rely on.
6:11:54
Specifically, we are seeking enhancements to the initiative to combat sexual assault, which supports our child advocacy centers, and support for persons involved in the sex trade initiative, which supports street work.
6:12:06
We are also requesting new speakers initiative funding to enhance our ability to respond to the increase in undocumented and new arrival youth seeking our support and address their complex immigration and social services needs.
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When young people are connected to legal assistance, long term representation, and wraparound services, we help to provide them for from we help to prevent them from experiencing further exploitation, trafficking, and violence.
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Second, we join with other HR other RHY providers to urge the council and the administration to make additional investments to to our RHY continuum.
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Our recommendations include increase the bed rate for crisis shelter and till services to seventy k per bed, right size RHY residential contracts, restore and baseline housing navigators and financial empowerment, fund youth specific immigration legal services, fund 16 housing specialists and 16 peer navigators.
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Third, we must and we we have to ensure that youth experiencing homelessness can access city feps vouchers without barriers.
6:13:16
This is especially critical given the news we received yesterday from DYCD that we will be losing the ability to refer clients for NYCHA HCV section eight vouchers and that our clients who previously received
Althea V. Stevens
6:13:29
Thirty
Sebastien Vante
6:13:29
seconds.
6:13:29
H v section eight vouchers might lose their vouchers because of federal budget cuts.
6:13:35
This is a crisis moment and our city and state must step up to ensure that young people have safe and stable housing.
6:13:41
Lastly, the city must ensure that nonprofits are paid on time.
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Thank you.
6:13:45
Thank