Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Tierra Labrada, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Supportive Housing Network of New York
3:31:26
·
130 sec
Tierra Labrada from the Supportive Housing Network of New York testified about the challenges faced by supportive housing providers due to delayed contract registrations and payments. She highlighted the significant amounts owed to their members and the impact on their budgets.
- Supportive Housing Network represents developers, owners, and operators of about 62,000 supportive housing units in NYC.
- Five of their members are collectively owed $318 million, with $165 million from previous fiscal years.
- One member reported $4 million in delayed payments on an $18 million budget (22% outstanding).
- Labrada supported the proposed legislation and recommended improvements to the Passport system and contract processes across agencies.
Tierra Labrada
3:31:26
It was only exactly two minutes.
3:31:29
That was fantastic.
3:31:33
All right, let me see if I could do this.
3:31:35
Thank you, Chair Stevens.
3:31:36
Thank you, Chair Juan.
3:31:37
Thank you for this hearing today, and I really do appreciate your leadership.
3:31:41
My name is Tiara LaBrada, I'm the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Supportive Housing Network of New York.
3:31:45
We are a nonprofit membership organization representing the developers, owners, and operators of supportive housing, collectively operating about 62,000 units across the city.
3:31:53
I'm not gonna preach to the choir here, but I am gonna read from my testimony.
3:31:56
As you know, supportive housing providers routinely begin delivering services and housing tenants prefer contracts are registered or payments are received.
3:32:03
While we do recognize the administration's progress in clearing some of the backlogs and the announcement about advances, the underlying structural issues do remain.
3:32:12
At this time, just five of our members are collectively owed about $318,000,000, 1 hundred and 60 5 million dollars of that from previous fiscal years.
3:32:20
Jody is one of those.
3:32:21
That's not even including Reverend Troy is over here.
3:32:24
One our members reported $4,000,000 in delayed payments on budget, an organizational budget of $18,000,000.
3:32:33
In other words, 22% of their entire budget is outstanding.
3:32:37
With that, we do support the legislation under consideration today, and again, thank you for your thoughtful approach.
3:32:43
We also strongly support increasing the budget for the returnable grant fund and including the ICR in that.
3:32:48
Supportive housing providers are unique in that their contracts can expand across various agencies, and the discrepancies between each agency's contracting and invoicing process is cumbersome and confusing.
3:33:00
I was very pleased to hear about the rollout of some updates to Passport, including a dashboard that tells you where your invoices are in the process.
3:33:08
I think that's going to be great.
3:33:09
A couple of other recommendations that we have is like simplifying the data entry process by creating auto populated fields in Passport, streamlining again the contract and approval process across agencies, and I know that's something that this legislation is going to support.
3:33:22
And there's like this is very nuanced, but like blocking errors that our members are always talking about, and so creating some sort of database that allows for providers to understand why they are not able to submit their invoices and passport.
3:33:34
Thank you so much.
3:33:35
Look at that.
3:33:35
I got seven seconds left.