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Council Member Louis questions MOIA on funding distribution and support for immigrant communities
3:27:42
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Council Member Farah N. Louis questions Commissioner Manuel Castro and Deputy Commissioner Jasniya Sanchez about MOIA's funding distribution, particularly for Haitian and West African immigrants. The discussion covers the Haitian relief initiative, immigration legal service funding, and the launch of MOIA immigration legal support centers.
- Louis expresses concerns about equity in funding distribution, especially for smaller providers and CBOs.
- Castro and Sanchez explain the baseline funding for the Haitian response initiative and the procurement process for new MOIA centers.
- Louis emphasizes the need for a more equitable process and requests further conversation on these issues.
Farah N. Louis
3:27:42
Thank you chairs and good afternoon commissioner Castro and to your whole team.
3:27:48
Had a lot of challenging conversations with some of the groups in my district and parts of Brooklyn and hosted some mediations amongst them because they feel that there's some contractual provisions that were unfair from your agency.
3:28:02
So I will ask you some questions about that in hopes that we could get some clarity and further conversation.
3:28:07
So, how is Moya ensuring equity in the distribution of Haitian relief initiative and immigration legal service funding particularly as smaller providers and CBOs have raised concerns that much of the funding is going to larger organizations like Catholic charities or with organizations with stronger ties with Moya like Life of Hope.
3:28:27
My second question is how is Moya preparing to support Haitian TPS holders and West African migrants that are now in portions of Brooklyn given the high risk of similar revocations and how would the 1,700,000.0 Haitian relief initiative baseline funding from HRA's budget be coordinated to support humanitarian crisis support?
3:28:51
And my last one is in regards to your testimony.
3:28:55
You mentioned that Moya will be launching Moya immigration legal support centers, about 25 of them and the numbers were all over the place regarding the 6,300,000.0.
3:29:06
But, I wanted to know who are the non profits that you all will be contracting with to provide this legal support and what are what are the metrics that you will utilize to identify those contractors?
3:29:19
Those three questions.
Manuel Castro
3:29:22
Thank you council member.
3:29:24
D.
3:29:25
C.
3:29:25
Sanchez will answer some of the contract questions, but I'm happy that the Haitian response initiative in this executive budget for fiscal year twenty six will be baseline, which allows us to then discuss how the process to allocate the funds as a baseline project will look like.
3:29:46
I'll let D.
3:29:47
C.
3:29:48
Sanchez talk about some of the other contractual issues.
3:29:51
But again, Moya centers that I mentioned, some of them are funded through our baseline funds which will be 25 centers.
3:30:02
Others will be funded through one year contracts.
Farah N. Louis
3:30:06
That's what's gonna get you to the 38.
Manuel Castro
3:30:07
That's going to get us to 38.
3:30:09
And
Farah N. Louis
3:30:09
will you provide those locations and have conversations with us before that process starts and before the launch happens?
Manuel Castro
3:30:16
Well, we'll provide the list of locations and the providers very soon and have and make sure to let council members know if any of them are located in their districts because it's there are ongoing contractual conversations.
3:30:36
I think DC Sanchez can talk more about some of the limitations to do with that, but certainly we want to make sure to work closely with council members on this.
Farah N. Louis
3:30:46
Thank you.
Jasniya Sanchez
3:30:47
Thank you so much for the question.
3:30:50
So with regards to the new Moya immigration lingo centers that will start in July, I'll start with that.
3:31:00
So that process was through an RFX that was started nearly a year ago.
3:31:07
So there's you know a process in place.
Farah N. Louis
3:31:10
What was the metrics that you used
Jasniya Sanchez
3:31:11
for that?
3:31:12
So there's a procurement process that is in place.
Farah N. Louis
3:31:15
Like an RFP?
Jasniya Sanchez
3:31:16
Yes, it's an RFP that went out.
3:31:22
This whole process is currently overseen by, in collaboration with the Department of Social Services where It'll be good to
Farah N. Louis
3:31:28
see what that looks like.
3:31:29
What how the metrics is made up for the criteria for the RFP and because my time is up, I would like to know what support are you using for Haitian relief and for the West Africans if all of that if all that is being bunched in together to support these two populations in the midst of what we're going through, in the midst of this crisis?
3:31:50
What does that look like?
Jasniya Sanchez
3:31:51
So really quickly, so all of our centers, more immigration legal service centers are open to all immigrants.
3:32:01
We do have folks that speak multiple languages, and we do have, you know, the centers do have a language line available as well to support.
3:32:10
And then with regards to the Haitian response initiative, this was an initiative that started back in FY twenty three.
3:32:19
It has been year to year funding, right.
3:32:22
This was a rapid response that had to be put together, know, and it has been, we have been advocating for this funding to be baselined, right, to be able to plan, to best plan long term.
3:32:38
You know, thankfully as of next fiscal year FY '26, that has been baseline for the outer years.
3:32:45
Now Moya is in a better position to plan what the future of that response initiative looks
Jasmine Joseph
3:32:53
like
Jasniya Sanchez
3:32:53
right and to address some of the concerns that have been brought up to you.
3:32:58
Because now we have that for So
Farah N. Louis
3:33:00
you actually understand the concerns instead of internally trying to manage that on your own.
3:33:05
It's not an equitable process with who you have in place right now.
3:33:09
And was part of that movement that came together to make sure that this initiative was pushed through, but it's still not equitable till this day.
3:33:17
So it'd be good to have a conversation and meet with more than one member to have a thorough conversation.
3:33:22
Thank you chairs.