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TESTIMONY

Molly Wasow Park, Commissioner, Department of Social Services on Budget Overviews and Program Enhancements for Fiscal Year 2025

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Molly Wasow Park testifies on the Department of Social Services' comprehensive budget and program strategies for Fiscal Year 2025.

Park outlines the budget projections for the Department of Social Services, Human Resources Administration, and Department of Homeless Services.
She discusses the mission to support low-income New Yorkers through improved access to social services, homelessness prevention, and economic stability.
Strategies to modernize service delivery and streamline access for enhanced efficiency are highlighted.
The testimony underscores staffing augmentations, handling the asylum seeker influx, and efforts to increase homelessness service efficacy.
Park concludes with a commitment to advancing the welfare of New Yorkers in need by securing resources and fostering strategic initiatives.

Molly Wasow Park

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Thank you.

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If we could go to the first slide on the presentation, please.

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Good morning.

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My name is Molly Wasso Park.

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I'm the commissioner of the Department of Social Services.

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I'm joined today by Jocelyn Carter, administrator of the Department of Home Services.

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Scott French administrator for the Human Resources Administration Jill Barry, DSS First Deputy Commissioner, Ellen Levine, Chief Program Performance And Financial Management Officer Rosene Ferdinand, Executive Deputy Commissioner and Patrick Dystefano, Deputy Commissioner.

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Today, we will provide an overview of the budgets for DSS, HRA, and DHS and highlight some of the programs and services we offer to support low income New Yorkers.

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Next slide.

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DSS is the largest government social services agency in the country.

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Comprised of the Human Resources Administration or HRA and the Department of Home Services DHS.

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Under the consolidated management structure and the shared mission of DSS.

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HRA and DHS provide an integrated continuum of client services to millions of New Yorkers every day.

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Across the agencies, our primary goal is to create a path to sustainability for low income New Yorkers through 3 pillars First, streamlining access to social services second, addressing homelessness and housing instability and third, creating economic stability.

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In a joint effort to fight poverty and income inequality and to create housing opportunities, DSSHRA DHS collaborate with other public agencies and nonprofit partners to reduce street homelessness, assist New Yorkers, and successfully transitioning from shelter into permanent housing.

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And return to self sufficiency through our various programs and services that we will discuss in more detail.

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First, I will provide an overview of the projected DSS HRA budget for SLY 25.

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Two slides forward, please.

Alison Wilkey

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And commissioner, I'm sorry to interrupt.

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But when you have any graphs for accessibility purposes, can you just verbally interpret them?

Molly Wasow Park

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Absolutely.

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Thank you.

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So we are starting with a an overview of the HRA budget just to before I get into the the graph, DSSHRA is dedicated to fighting poverty and income inequality.

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Providing essential benefits, including cash assistance, nutrition, and food programs, public health insurance, employment, and transportation services, and access to housing.

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Homelessness prevention and emergency assistance.

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DSSHRA helps more than 3,000,000 New Yorkers annually through the administration of more than 15 major public benefit programs, with a budgeted headcount of 12,000 people.

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As you see in this pie chart here, the FY 25 budget for DSSH is $10,800,000,000, including $8,400,000,000 in Citi Funds.

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The majority over 80% of the HRA Citi Tax levy budget is earmarked for benefits that the city administers on behalf of New York State.

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This includes cash assistance benefits, which is the red pie chart about 12% of the total.

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Although we manage the application process for cash assistance benefit levels and eligibility rules are sent by state law and regulation.

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Medicaid, which is the very large blue slice of the pie here is also a critical component of the HRA budget.

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Medicaid fund services, including home care, managed care, mental health substance use services, hospice care, and so on.

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The program is really administered by New York State.

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The city pays a portion of Medicaid costs out of city tax levy.

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That's the 70% of the DSS HRA Citi budget funded budget shown here.

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HRA sends these funds directly to New York State, and the state uses it along with the state and federal funds it controls to pay medical providers and managed care plans.

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HRA also administers SNAP for 1,700,000 clients.

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These benefits which are federally funded to the tune of about $3,900,000,000 a year don't flow through our budget, but they represent another critical benefit that HRA is mandated to provide.

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I will note that the administration section of the budget, which is the purple wedge on the pie here is the administration that covers both DSSHRA and DHS.

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So it's for the folate.

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3 agencies.

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Next slide.

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I'd like to turn now to talking about staffing, which is a key concern for all of us.

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As you can see here, DSS HRA headcount had dipped significantly.

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So the the bottom point in the in the graph shows sharp slope in the headcount and then rising fairly steeply.

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Due to our focus on frontline hiring, we've been able to grow aggressively in a number of areas, one of our successful strategies to address the cash and snap backlogs.

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Our current budgeted headcount is 12127.

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Total HRA actuals is 10981 or a 9% vacancy rate.

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There's still work to do, but that's down very substantially from where we were even a year ago.

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Of the almost 11,000 HRA employees, 3104 are working on cash and snap We've hired nearly a thousand people to process cash and SNAP benefits in January 2023 and seen a net increase of 530 five people in these areas over the same time period.

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Next slide.

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Now I'd like to look at the pegs we've taken over the last two plans.

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Over 80 percent of Citi funds in the DSS HRA budget support public assistance and Medicaid.

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That rises to almost 90% of tax levy when we include rental assistance in the calculation.

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On top of that, most of our programs have matching fund requirements.

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So finding savings is a challenge.

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In November January, HRA was able to find savings that largely avoided impacting our critical services.

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We achieved the majority of our savings by looking first to administrative efficiencies and opportunities to maximize revenues to save city funds.

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However, since so little of our budget is discretionary, we sometimes had to make difficult choices.

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In these cases, we looked at options that will allow to continue meeting our mandates in the most efficient ways.

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The agency's early actions identifying savings helped to balance the city budget and put us on better footing going forward.

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As the mayor has said, if the city had not taken these early actions, it would not be able to forego the executive peg.

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In the interest of time, I won't go through every item on this slide in detail, although I'm happy to answer questions, but a few items to highlight.

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We will achieve meaningful savings and leases by using existing city space for back office IT functions.

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We were able to maximize the amount of federal revenue we are bringing in to support fringe benefits for HRA employees.

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And our multiyear investment in technology to support rental subsidy processing will allow us to speed up lease ups and spend less on holding units available before a client can move in.

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Now I'm gonna pivot to an overview of the DHS budget.

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Two slides forward.

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Great.

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Thank you.

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DHS is committed to providing safe temporary shelter connecting New Yorkers experiencing homelessness to permanent housing, and addressing unsheltered homelessness.

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With its not for profit partners, DHS is the largest municipal organization dedicated to addressing homelessness in the United States.

Diana I. Ayala

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Commissioner, can you move the mic a little closer?

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Because it's not picking up yet.

Molly Wasow Park

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Sorry.

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Thank you.

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The agency has an FY 25 budget of 3,900,000,000, of which 1,900,000,000 is city tax levy.

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And a budgeted headcount of 1905.

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Over 95% of the DHS budget supports shelter for families and individuals and services for the unsheltered, including outreach and low barrier beds.

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The DHS budget is broken out as follows in FY 25.

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996,000,000 for family shelter, comprised of a combination of city, state, and federal funds, That is the the purple wedge on the pie chart here.

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714,000,000 for adult shelter, virtually all city that'll be funded, the green piece of the pie.

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714,000,000 I'm sorry.

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I said that already.

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278,000,000 for our street outreach services, including low barrier beds, which is all are also primarily city tax levy funded.

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And and the small blue bar is general administration.

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Support, that's about 4% of the budget.

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There's 1,800,000,000 in our budget for asylum seekers sanctuary sites and services.

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We've actually excluded that from the pie chart here to show a more representative picture of the DHS budget overall.

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Next slide.

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The DHS budget is largely a function of the shelter census.

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As of March 6th, the overall DHS census was 86,360 people, an increase of more than 41,000 since the beginning of 2022 before the urgent asylum seekers to New York City.

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Of the 86,000, approximately 62,000 or over 70% are families made up of children and their adult parents and caregivers.

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Children make up nearly 40% of all people in shelter.

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The families with children are the larger blue wedge on the pie chart here.

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The those are the children, and then the yellow represents the adult in the family of children.

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So the the lighter blue and the yellow combined represent families with children altogether.

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Today, approximately 36% of the overall census is made up of asylum seekers over 30,000 people.

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In January 2022, the census is around 45,000, lower than it was in 2020, immediately pre pandemic.

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As asylum seekers came to New York City and began to enter shelter in large numbers, they drove up the census which increased sharply over the past nearly 2 years.

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Asylum seekers account for 75% of the growth in the DHS census relative to January of 2022.

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Next slide.

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So this slide here is a visual representation of the trend that I just discussed.

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The red line is the non asylum census.

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You can see it's about 7% below the pre pandemic level and well below the pre pandemic peak of 61,400 reached in January of 2019.

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The blue line represents the asylum seeker, the total census, excuse me, with the space between the red line and the blue line being the asylum seekers.

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You can see that the very rapid growth over the last 2 years has been very much driven by the asylum seekers.

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We noted at the beginning of this presentation that the DHS budget is $3,900,000,000 next year, a significant increase over the DHS budget before the asylum seekers began entering shelter in large numbers.

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The significant increases in the DHS budget this year and next year over prior years are primarily due to asylum seekers costs.

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36% of the DHS budget this year is allocated for asylum seeker costs increasing to 45% in FY 25.

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This funding in DHS is allocated primarily for sanctuary sites for the cost of migrants in regular DHS shelters, for supplies, and for staff and overtime costs related exclusively to asylum seekers.

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The current agreement with the state for reimbursement of asylum costs is 71% city tax levy and 29% state.

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As of March 2024, DHS has submitted claims to New York State on behalf of DHS, HRA, HNH, and other city agencies totaling over $1,500,000,000.

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Last state fiscal year, the state allocated $1,000,000,000 towards New York City costs.

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And we are waiting for enactment of the state's fiscal year 24.25 budget to see if the state will allocate additional funds.

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The government governor's proposal included 2,000,000,000.

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More generally, we continue to advocate with the state and federal governments to provide adequate funding and pathways to work and sustainability for these newest immigrants to our city and country.

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3.

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Despite the influx of asylum seekers and its impact on our agencies, we have not lost focus on shelter housing placements.

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We've seen increases in permanent housing placements from the DHS system as a result of the agency's efforts to move families and individuals out of shelter.

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In FY 23, there were close to 15,000 placements from shelter, an increase of 17% over the prior year.

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In the 1st 4 months of this year, there were 54100 placements, an increase of 11% over that same time window last year.

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Next slide.

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Our engagement with individuals experiencing un sheltered homelessness is another critical component of DHS is work.

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Since the start of this administration, DSS DHS has doubled outreach staffing.

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We have nearly 400 outreach staff on the ground as of today.

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And aggressively expanded low barrier bed capacity, bringing nearly 300 new beds online since August 2023 alone with more than 39100 such beds online as of today.

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As a result of critical investments in 247 outreach efforts and the intensification of the end of line efforts part of the subway safety plan.

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Referrals to shelter and low barrier placements increased 70% in FY 'twenty three.

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Since the launch of the subway safety plan in February 2022, more than 61100 New Yorkers have been connected front 2 shelter from the subways.

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And I'm incredibly pleased to report that thanks to critical investments in a comprehensive continuum of care, DSS DHS more than doubled the number of permanent housing placements for people experiencing un sheltered homelessness year over year.

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DHS placed almost a 1000 New Yorkers' adding in low barrier programs to permanent housing in FY 23.

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I want to pause on that figure.

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That is close to a 1000 people who used to sleep on the streets and subways who now have a lease and a place to call a permanent home.

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Next slide.

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I know we're all rightfully concerned about staffing.

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However, DHS has not had the same kind of headcount swings that other agencies have faced.

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DHS Staffing has remained relatively steady over the past 18 months.

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As you see, this line here is relatively flat.

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And has increased slightly since the end of last fiscal year.

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DHS headcount is just over 1900 and the agency has a vacancy rate of 7.5%.

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Next slide.

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The DHS approach to pegs is comparable to that at HRA.

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We look to avoid programmatic impacts wherever possible but again, we're faced with some difficult choices.

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In some cases, we were able to achieve savings by improving service delivery.

0:21:10

New York State created a rental supplement program RSP that can serve long term stayers in shelter who are undocumented.

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By helping these families and individuals exit shelter, we will see savings in our shelter budget.

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Unfortunately, language in the state budget clause back most of the money for state budget savings, but we will be able to do a one time cohort of about 650 households.

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DSS is required to use an outside vendor to administer the program as we are not allowed to use the state system that we normally use for payments.

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Once this vendor is in place later this spring, we'll be able to start issuing vouchers.

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There are also major changes in the DHS budget associated with asylum seekers.

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I want to be clear that the savings in the DHS budget reflect lower than previously projected asylum census for the agency.

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Whether were savings and some of the other agencies responding to the asylum crisis that did change service delivery models.

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There were no service cuts for asylum seekers in DSS.

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Or DHS.

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Next slide.

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As I mentioned at this mentioned at the start of my testimony, our primary goal is to create a path to sustainability for low income New Yorkers through 3 pillars of work.

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Streamlining access to social services, addressing homelessness and housing instability, and creating economic stability.

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Going to talk about each of these in turn, starting with some of the work where we have successfully modernized and implemented process improvements to streamline access to social services and benefits.

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So the graph here is showing snap applications and caseload increases over time.

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The green line is snap applications, and the blue line above is is the caseload.

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You've all heard a lot about DSS and Snap And Cash Processing.

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First, I'd like to recognize that over the last couple of years, DSS saw the highest snap applications and caseload since the period immediately following Super Storm Sandy.

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As you can clearly see, that's the spike early in 2020, there was a surge of applications at the beginning of the pandemic.

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Due to our investment in SHRA and the ability of clients to apply, recertify an interview online and on the phone, we were able to manage the surge and ensure clients got these important benefits.

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The federal and state governments also provided a series of easements that suspended certain requirements and allowed us to postpone recertifications.

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This simplified the process for clients and staff during the health emergency, but led to spikes in caseload processing once normal requirements were back in place.

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These and other factors contributed to a backlog in applications and recertifications.

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But I'm very pleased to say that thanks to the hiring of the traditional additional staff investments in technology and process improvements, we have nearly eliminated the backlog.

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I will have more to say on that in a minute, but for I want to give some more detail on cash assistance.

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Next slide.

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This chart here, the blue line shows the total cash assistance case load, the orange line shows applications.

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And you'll see both of those are rising.

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As the city council is aware, In recent years, New York City has seen remarkably high increases in cash assistance applications and recipients due to a variety of factors.

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At the height of the COVID 19 pandemic in March of 2020, DSSHRA received nearly 13,000 more applications in the previous year a 53% increase.

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That increase made for cash assistance has continued.

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In FY 24, the average number of cash assistance applications exceeded 40 7000 per month, demonstrating New Yorkers' continuing need for economic support.

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In addition, we have significantly reduced the barriers to access benefits.

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We believe that increasing access to benefits via our online platform and mobile app access HRA results in more applications.

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That's the right thing to do, but also increases workload for the agency.

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Demand for one time assistance is growing as well.

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One time emergency rental assistance is growing as well.

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In FY 23, HRA issued emergency rent payments to over 40,000 households.

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The graph here, the the both the blue and orange lines show both one time and recurring recipients.

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In January 2024, there were 505,000 ongoing and 500 one time recipients.

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The increased caseload has budget implications for the city.

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FY24 preliminary budget for cash assistance is $2,500,000,000 to support an average of 500,000 recipients through June of 2024.

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186 118100 and no.

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Excuse me.

0:25:57

816,000,000 of which 467,000,000 were tax levy was added in the preliminary budget for FY 24 based on these projected costs.

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Next slide.

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As I mentioned earlier, I am immensely pleased to report that DSS has nearly cleared the backlog of 46,000 cash assistance and 4000 SNAP applications, ensuring low income New Yorkers can quickly and easily access the federal benefits that they qualify for.

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This chart tracks the backlog back to the beginning of February 2023.

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You can see it spiked in the summer.

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And is down to 9 almost extremely substantially down to to very close to 0.

0:26:42

Investments in staffing, technology and process improvements have reduced the backlog of cases by 97% for cash assistance and 90% for SNAP.

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In total, the city processed more than 600,000 cash assistance and SNAP applications since the July backlog peak.

0:26:59

Faced with a record number of applications as federal pandemic related support expired, the city deployed a robust plan to process applications quickly and make it easier for Low Income New Yorkers to access critical benefits.

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DSS hired nearly a 1000 new staff people since January 2023 to process cache assistance and snap applications, double down on training for staff and strengthen remote application processes to make it easier to apply for benefits.

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The agency also worked closely with chief efficiency officer Denise Clay and the mayor's office of efficiency to identify application process enhancements to eliminate bottlenecks that contributed to the backlog.

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We also developed and implemented plans to expedite the processes going forward.

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As of January 2024, more than 1,730,000 New Yorkers are receiving SNAP benefits and more than 510,000 New Yorkers are receiving cash benefits.

0:27:54

I'd like to thank our dedicated staff for their hard work throughout the pandemic and over these challenging couple of years for their ongoing commitment to serving New Yorkers every day.

0:28:05

It has been a difficult time, and they have done extraordinary job under extraordinary circumstances.

0:28:10

The lessons learned from this experience have made us better prepared to handle this high volume of applications in the future.

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Next slide.

0:28:20

Cash and Snap are our highest profile benefits, but there is so much more that the agency does.

0:28:25

Even these additional highlights are just scratching the surface, but since I was last year to speak about the budget, we have also been able to expand childcare for those leading the cash assistance roles, grow the Fair Fair's program that provides discounted transit benefits.

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And get heating and cooling assistant grants out to those who need them.

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Next slide.

0:28:50

Next, I would like to talk about some of the ways in which we've been able to further our goals of keeping New Yorkers in their homes, moving families and individuals out of shelter and helping people remain stably housed.

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Wherever possible, we wanna keep people in their homes.

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I want to highlight 2 of our most important tools for doing so.

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The bar graph on the left is our emergency rental assistance.

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Also known as one shot deals.

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This is a cash assistance benefit.

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What this graph shows here is that the number of households receiving emergency, rental assistance in FY 'twenty three increased after a drop in FY 'twenty one and 22 during the pandemic.

0:29:30

This year, we are on track to dramatically exceed last year's spending.

0:29:35

The chart on the right shows our legal assistance programs, which are also critical to keeping people housed.

0:29:42

In fiscal year 2023, the office of civil justice or OCA funded legal organizations, provided legal assistance to an estimated 98,000 New Yorkers in approximately 4th 43,700 households across New York City.

0:29:58

These households were facing housing challenges, including eviction, repair, landlord harassment, and other threats to their tendencies.

0:30:07

The number of households served in fiscal year 2023 is the highest on record since the start of the universal access to council program.

0:30:14

These services proved to be essential.

0:30:17

The number of action filings increased by more than 57,000 or approximately 83% in the last year.

0:30:23

However, it should be noted that eviction filings in FY 23 were still significantly lower than pre pandemic levels.

0:30:30

Since 2014, OCJ has provided legal services ranging from brief advice to full representation in 291,000 eviction and other housing related matters.

0:30:42

Based on estimated household size, that equates to more than 700,000 New Yorkers served.

0:30:48

OCJ will continue to work hand in hand with all civil justice stakeholders to make civil legal assistance available and effective for New York City tenants in need.

0:30:58

Next slide.

0:31:02

And for those who do enter Shell we want to connect them back to permanent housing as quickly as possible.

0:31:08

In FY23, DSS saw 17% increase in permanent housing placements from shelter.

0:31:14

And as the PMMR shows, we are on track to exceed those placement numbers this year.

0:31:19

More New Yorkers are now living safely and stably in supportive housing units.

0:31:23

In fact, 46% more New Yorkers were connected to permanent supportive housing in 2023 than in the preceding fiscal year.

0:31:30

And as they mentioned earlier, a 1000 un sheltered individuals were placed in permanent housing.

0:31:35

DSS has also taken steps to strengthen rental assistance programs.

0:31:40

We've made CityFETs easier to use by reducing work requirements, eliminating the 90 day rule, allowing for the use of CityFETs statewide and streamlining the program of technological improvements.

0:31:51

To ensure that more New Yorkers gain access to affordable homes, DSS launched the affordable housing services in to use social service dollars to create affordable housing.

0:32:01

Through HS, DSS will be facilitating the creation of stable housing opportunities for nearly 1500 households in shelter.

0:32:09

Furthermore, the AHS initiative provides sustainable funding solutions to help not for profit providers secure long term building wide leases or even acquire permanent housing sites.

0:32:19

While providing light touch services for tenants who are formally experiencing homelessness.

0:32:25

DSS has also rolled that extensive training to improve and increase housing package submissions.

0:32:31

Next slide.

0:32:32

Now for the 3rd pillar, creating economic stability.

0:32:36

We recognize that more and more New Yorkers rely on our city's resources to make ends meet.

0:32:40

In addition to the public benefits, rental assistance, and other essential resources we provide, to help people get back on their feet.

0:32:48

I will provide an overview of our career services and other supports that enable New Yorkers to secure steady income and live sustainable lives.

0:32:57

DSS offers education, training, and employment services to help clients develop job skills and build a career that will lead to success financial stability.

0:33:06

These programs are funded in FY24 at a total budget of $300,000,000.

0:33:12

As part of our revitalization efforts, we launched the pathway to industrial and construction careers or PINK program to connect clients to jobs in these 2 industries.

0:33:23

We're also restructuring our career services programs and contracts to ensure that we are focusing on connecting clients to growth industries with jobs with long term potential.

0:33:33

Thanks to changes in state law, we are able to implement new income disregards to support clients' economic growth.

0:33:39

This means that clients who are participating in training programs or who get a job do not immediately face a benefits cliff.

0:33:46

As a result, they are more likely to achieve economic stability and growth.

0:33:50

And one that I'm particularly excited about, we are strengthening the pathway for our clients to access human service jobs.

0:33:57

In FY23, human service providers hired nearly 6000 public assistance clients.

0:34:02

This is a gain both for clients and for providers who are frequently struggling in the labor market.

0:34:08

It's a priority to to create and expand opportunities that will help low income New Yorkers sustainability and our work reflects that.

0:34:16

I will close by underlining our ongoing commitment to break down government silos and improve access to services.

0:34:22

DSS, HRA, DSS, work DHS work to confront challenges that bridge across agencies and jurisdictional boundaries.

0:34:31

Overcoming these challenges goes to the heart of creating the kind of care and compassionate communities we seek to live in.

0:34:38

We appreciate the opportunity to testify today, and we welcome any you may have.

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