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Q&A
Overview of the Housing Ambassadors program and its capacity
1:17:48
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163 sec
Council Member Sanchez inquires about the Housing Ambassadors program, including the number of partners and their capacity to serve applicants. Commissioner Tigani provides an overview of the program's reach and operations.
- Approximately 50 organizations and 60 locations across the five boroughs
- Information available through 311 and HPD website for finding local Housing Ambassadors
- Collaboration with other city agencies and departments to provide housing assistance
- Training and support provided by HPD to Housing Ambassadors and other partner organizations
Pierina Ana Sanchez
1:17:48
It's a good water moment.
1:17:51
We go.
1:17:52
Fair enough.
1:17:53
I'll flag for you that I'm gonna ask about wait list versus lotteries in general.
1:17:58
Okay.
1:17:59
But that's not my next question.
1:18:18
I think I asked many of these.
1:18:24
Housing ambassadors, can you can you just walk us through how many housing ambassadors, housing ambassador partners are there, and what is their capacity to serve?
1:18:35
Do you have numbers of applicants served on an annual basis?
Ahmed Tigani
1:18:39
I'm not sure if we have numbers of applicants served, so we'll come back to you on that.
1:18:43
But there's about 50 organizations and 60 locations across the five boroughs.
1:18:48
If individuals are looking to connect with a housing ambassador today, you can call 311 to get information.
1:18:55
You can go on our website.
1:18:56
And on our website, you're able to look by zip code, and they'll find in your borough where your closest housing ambassador is.
1:19:04
Those are, you know, they're largely volunteer organizations, but they're organizations trained by us.
1:19:10
They're given a wealth of access to us to help triage the work that's happening in those neighborhoods.
1:19:18
Additionally, there are not official housing ambassadors, but we are, we have a network of senior centers.
1:19:24
DFTA's housing assistance work is, you know, their folks are are trained by us.
1:19:31
We we give them information.
1:19:33
We're working regularly with them.
1:19:35
We're working with, I mentioned earlier, the mayor's office to end gender based violence.
1:19:40
We're working with Department of Veterans Services.
1:19:42
We actually meet with them every several weeks to talk about housing opportunities.
1:19:47
We we work a lot in with other city agencies since housing is such critical issue and whether they're talking about parks issues or whether they're talking about, you know, open streets, there's always gonna be someone who may have a housing issue.
1:20:01
So we try to make our information available to them either digitally or in hard copies if requested.
1:20:07
So there are lighter touch versions of that with the information.
1:20:11
There are more formal engagement and training that may happen through the informal network with agencies that have housing specialists embedded there.
1:20:20
Again, DVS and DFTA, I think are two good examples.
1:20:24
And then there's our 50 organizations, six 60 spots across the five boroughs.