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Q&A
Council Member Brewer questions MOIA on immigrant services and communication
3:38:54
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4 min
Council Member Gale A. Brewer engages in a Q&A session with MOIA officials, focusing on various aspects of immigrant services and communication. She inquires about workshops in restaurants, healthcare access for African immigrants, support for families leaving shelters, and funding for immigration services.
- Brewer emphasizes the need for workshops in restaurants to reach immigrant workers effectively
- She raises concerns about healthcare access and communication challenges with African immigrant communities
- Questions are asked about the transition process for families leaving shelters and the fate of case workers
- The discussion touches on CUNY citizenship programs and the impact of federal funding cuts on immigration services
Gale A. Brewer
3:38:54
Thank you.
3:38:55
My first question is I think for your workshops, the ones that are most successful in Manhattan are the ones at the restaurants.
3:39:03
Are you doing those?
3:39:04
Are those some of your restaurants that get of the restaurants getting workshops?
3:39:09
The workers in the restaurants.
3:39:11
Right?
Lorena Lucero
3:39:13
So the priorities have welcome an opportunity because we have some pending workshops that are still available through our immigrant rights collaborative.
3:39:23
Our priority were hercs.
3:39:25
So physical hercs, libraries as well as schools.
3:39:29
So as of now we might have trained workers who work at restaurants but not physically at a restaurant.
Gale A. Brewer
3:39:36
Okay.
3:39:36
But so you would be open to doing workshops in restaurants?
3:39:39
That's where folks are.
3:39:41
So, yes, you would be working to do that?
Lorena Lucero
3:39:44
Yes.
3:39:45
To to to fill the gap, I need more than happy to support workers.
Gale A. Brewer
3:39:49
Okay.
3:39:50
We need that.
3:39:50
Second, I'm very familiar with many of the African young men because they're in my house and they're in my neighborhood and I'm up to here with them.
3:39:59
And my question is healthcare.
3:40:01
So they all have NYC care.
3:40:03
They have no idea what to do with it.
3:40:05
Some of their friends got Medicaid a while ago, not now obviously.
3:40:08
So I guess as my question is, just generally, this is a group I mean, they don't know who they don't know who Taylor Swift is.
3:40:18
They're like in another world.
3:40:19
And so my question is, how do you communicate with them about these issues?
3:40:23
I can.
3:40:24
I'm doing the best I can.
3:40:25
But they don't know where to get health care.
3:40:27
They don't know they know to go to school.
3:40:29
They sort of know to get on the bike and do the deliveries.
3:40:32
It's another world.
3:40:33
Philani.
3:40:34
I'm learning Philani.
3:40:34
I'm pretty good at it right now.
3:40:36
So my question is, how do you communicate with a group like this and how do you tell them how to get health care, etcetera?
3:40:43
Who does that?
Manuel Castro
3:40:45
Well, thank you councilmember for for your work.
3:40:48
This is why our work with community based organizations is important.
3:40:52
That said, to get to scale, we have to work with health and hospitals and in our health care system overall, which is why we held the immigrant media roundtable a couple of months ago, so that we can get this information out through news outlets that they read in their own languages.
3:41:14
Again, it's challenging because a lot of these languages are what we term languages of limited diffusion, so we have to find every which way to get to them.
Gale A. Brewer
3:41:25
Okay.
3:41:25
And then the other question I have is just in terms of those that leave the shelters.
3:41:29
Obviously the Roe and the Roosevelt in terms of those families are closing in June.
3:41:34
So is that the responsibility of H and H case workers or your case workers?
3:41:40
How does that information get transferred as to where they're going, what their questions are, etcetera?
3:41:46
There are a lot of families in both of those hotels.
Manuel Castro
3:41:49
Yeah.
3:41:50
Know case workers at H and H are working very hard in the next several weeks to make sure that people get information that they need.
3:41:58
Those who are transferring to the Department of Homeless Services should also get information through that agency.
Gale A. Brewer
3:42:06
Okay.
3:42:06
So you think that that's enough?
3:42:07
They'll be able to handle that?
3:42:09
And then what happens, you don't know, to the H and H case workers?
3:42:12
Do they go to health do they go to DHS?
3:42:15
Do they have contracts that end?
3:42:17
Or we don't know?
Manuel Castro
3:42:18
Yes.
3:42:19
Their contracts are ending.
3:42:21
They've been informed.
3:42:22
Many of them are transferring to other agencies or other work.
Gale A. Brewer
3:42:27
It would seem to me that they would be helpful because they're so knowledgeable about some of these cases.
3:42:31
Is that something that somebody's paying attention to?
Manuel Castro
3:42:35
Yes.
3:42:36
They would be great additions to any team because they know the work on the ground with these communities.
Gale A. Brewer
3:42:43
Okay.
3:42:44
Just finally, also, we work a lot every day with CUNY in terms of their support.
3:42:48
Is that an organization that you fund, or do they get their funding elsewhere?
3:42:53
CUNY citizenship?
Manuel Castro
3:42:54
Yes.
3:42:54
We fund, CUNY citizenship now.
Gale A. Brewer
3:42:57
Okay.
3:42:57
And they are, funded to do the actual, casework for people getting asylum or immigration or green card, etcetera.
3:43:06
Is that correct?
Manuel Castro
3:43:08
Correct.
3:43:08
They partly, have funding from us, but also, other, funders.
Gale A. Brewer
3:43:15
Okay.
3:43:15
Do you have some sense as generally how much federal dollars totally when we had the cultural groups here, they actually gave a number, from cultural affairs of 23,000,000 as to what was cut from the cultural groups.
3:43:28
Do you have some sense of what has been cut for immigration from the god awful federal people?
Manuel Castro
3:43:35
As was mentioned earlier, it's in the tens of millions.
3:43:38
I mean, it it's an ongoing situation, so it it's it's quite significant.
Gale A. Brewer
3:43:43
Okay.
3:43:43
Is that something down the line you could give us a number?
Manuel Castro
3:43:46
We can make an analysis.
3:43:48
Yes.
Gale A. Brewer
3:43:48
Okay.
3:43:48
That'll be helpful.
3:43:49
Thank you.