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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Terry Troia, Advocate from Project Hospitality on Staten Island's Need for Mobile Harm Reduction Services
6:40:17
ยท
137 sec
Terry Troia from Project Hospitality in Staten Island testifies about the lack of mobile harm reduction services (SHOW vans) in Staten Island due to funding issues, despite other boroughs receiving such services through opioid settlement funds. She emphasizes the critical need for these services in Staten Island, particularly for homeless individuals with addiction issues who lack access to public health insurance.
- Highlights the discrepancy in the distribution of opioid settlement funds, with Staten Island being excluded from recent allocations
- Criticizes the alternative offer of a transport van to take Staten Island residents to hospitals in other boroughs
- Stresses the urgency of the situation, noting that two lives were lost in the six months of advocating for the return of these services
Terry Troia
6:40:17
Hi.
6:40:18
Good afternoon, and thank you, Councilmember Lee.
6:40:20
My name is Terri Troy.
6:40:21
I work for Project Hospitality in Staten Island.
6:40:23
And for forty years, we've been serving street homeless people in the borough of Staten Island.
6:40:27
I'm referring back to January health committee meeting where health and hospitals gave testimony stating that, and I quote, dollars 2,200,000.0 from Attorney James' office via opioid settlement fund dollars had supported the mobile harm reduction teams known as the SHOVANS, Street Health Outreach Wellness, for health and hospitals.
6:40:48
It said that there were five operational vans in the city of New York, and they quoted Bellevue, Lincoln, Woodhall, and Elmhurst.
6:40:54
That's four, not five.
6:40:56
The testimony says five, but there's only listed because the one from Staten Island that doesn't have a public health hospital was canceled on June 30 due to lack of funding.
6:41:05
We were the fifth site.
6:41:08
After six months of meetings with deputy mayor William Isom and with health and hospitals doctor Ted Long and the Staten Island borough president's office trying to advocate to get this show van back instituted on Staten Island, we have gotten nowhere except an offer that they will give us a transport van so that we can take homeless people from Staten Island with addiction to Coney Island Hospital or Bellevue Hospital.
6:41:32
It is not an acceptable offer.
6:41:34
At that same January 28 health committee meeting, there was another $3,000,000 that was allocated through opioid settlement money that would have sponsored additional services in Manhattan, The Bronx, and Queens, but not $1 to Staten Island through Health and Hospital's acquisition of the opioid money.
6:41:54
I understand Staten Island is a challenge.
6:41:56
We're the only borough in the city of New York without a health and hospitals hospital, and that makes the Chauvin a challenge to run.
6:42:04
However, however, it is unconscionable that Staten Island is penalized for not having a public hospital by not being able to get this additional service.
6:42:15
We need it even more.
6:42:16
The majority of homeless people on the streets of Staten Island with addiction issues are people without access to public health insurance.
6:42:25
We lost two people in the six months that we have been advocating to get this service back.
6:42:30
They could be alive today.
6:42:32
Their lives mattered.
6:42:33
Thank you.