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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Miral Abbas, Health Partnerships Coordinator at Coalition for Asian American Children and Families
8:35:49
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117 sec
Miral Abbas from the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (CACF) urged the council to increase funding for Access Health to $4.5 million in the upcoming budget. This increase would support critical health education and outreach to New York's most vulnerable communities, especially in light of increasing disconnection and fear of the public health system among immigrant and undocumented populations.
- Access Health supports 37 community-based organizations and is led by four key agencies, including CACF.
- A CACF study found that over 80% of organizations reported clients opting out of government benefits due to fears about immigration status.
- The additional funding would allow organizations to provide language-accessible, culturally responsive services and adapt to emerging health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Miral Abbas
8:35:49
Hello, everyone.
8:35:50
My name is Maral.
8:35:51
I'm the health partnership coordinator at the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families or CACF, and I'm here today to urge the council to increase funding to 4 and a half million dollars for Axis Health in the coming budget.
8:36:01
With this addition, Axis Health can increase its critical health education and outreach to New York's most hard to reach communities, and this is critical especially now that those who are immigrant, undocumented, limited English proficient, and struggling with poverty are increasingly disconnected from and fearful of the approaching public health system.
8:36:18
Access Health is a citywide initiative that supports 37 community based organizations, and it's led by four key agencies, one of which is CACF.
8:36:25
Access Health supports community organizations whose critical health services are being threatened by the federal administration.
8:36:32
A CACF study done in partnership with DOHMH in 2019 found that over eighty percent of organizations reported that they had clients who opted out of multiple government benefits during the first Trump administration as immigrants are worried that utilizing health benefits could disqualify them from a family member.
8:36:48
Our organizations challenge these chilling effects by providing language accessible, culturally responsive, and accurate information.
8:36:55
Axis Health also allows our organizations to pivot their funding.
8:36:58
For example, our orgs are critical during the COVID nineteen pandemic, and at a time when there were no funding increases, our organizations shifted their limited resources to vital health outreach programs around COVID.
8:37:08
Our orgs are vastly underfunded for the important work that they do.
8:37:12
Our organizations also hire local community members who uniquely recognize and respond to their community's needs and strengths.
8:37:18
And through their deep rooted presence in the communities, our organizations possess insight into their population's needs and strengths, which therefore increases their engagement and service utilization making them effective.
8:37:30
Therefore, I'd like to add that an enhancement of 4 and a half million dollars can ensure that the city can better target challenging health needs through trusted community based support.
8:37:39
I've also mentioned multiple statistics to kind of provide some background to Access Health that we're submitting in a written testimony.
8:37:45
But thank you.