Transcript: Mayor Adams Launches 'Money in Your Pocket' Initiative Across More Than 20 Neighborhoods to Help Deliver Benefits Directly to New Yorkers, Make New York City More[...]

August 26, 2024

Camille Joseph Varlack, Chief of Staff to the Mayor: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us here today for this exciting announcement. My name is Camille Joseph Varlack, and I serve as chief of staff to the mayor. Our administration is laser-focused on making our city safer and creating a more affordable and livable city for working-class New Yorkers. We want every person who calls this city home to have access to the benefits that can make life more affordable and equitable, and that is why our team, including the amazing individuals behind us, are dedicated to meeting people where they are to ensure that no one is left behind. Together, we're not just creating opportunities, we're building a more inclusive city where every single resident can thrive. To tell you more about it, I'm pleased to turn it over to Mayor Eric Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thanks so much. This was probably one of the hidden jewels of this administration. For far too long, we realized that everyday working-class people and low-income New Yorkers had a wealth of resources that were available, but we were not getting it to them.

We send back billions of dollars to the federal government, to the state government, and it's just unbelievable sometimes when you engage in conversation with working-class people, and they may be food insecurity and don't know that they qualify for SNAP.

They may be seniors living in housing and don't know they qualify for SCRIE or disabilities and don't know they qualify for DRIE. All of these acronyms and terminologies that we know because we are in this bubble and don't know that everyday New Yorkers are not aware of it. We got it, but they had to get it. We have this awesome team that whenever I see them around, I'm just happy to see them. Our public engagement unit is made up of dedicated New Yorkers, and they're out there on the ground. They're doing the real work of how do we connect people with the services they deserve. I want to say hats off to all of you who are part of PEU, and hats off to the entire administration, Ana and her team, Camille, and all those who are part of their apparatus.

They don't get a lot of the shine, but they bring a lot of sunlight into the lives of everyday New Yorkers who are living in the crevices of these communities. They just need a little more help. I remember my mom used to go to a governmental office, and she'd walk out more broken than she was when she walked in. She said, I would rather do without than being denigrated and disrespected just because I need a little help to get us through. We wanted to change that move. We wanted to be a customer-friendly administration and allow people to know that government is here for them.

You got a working class mayor that is going to work hard for you everyday. As a brother said, as I was walking in the park, he says, don't listen to that noise, man. We know you outside. You know, you outside. You are here. Thousands of New Yorkers are hurting, and we want to be here to make sure that they get the services that they deserve. Thirty billion dollars. Thirty billion dollars we have placed and made a way to get back into the pockets of everyday New Yorkers. That was our science. We're not in charge of inflation. We're not in charge of so many things that make the city and cities expensive to live in, but we said, what can we do to slowly put money back into the pockets of New Yorkers?

NYCHA, free high-speed broadband for every NYCHA resident so their children can have access to remote learning and their parents can have telemedicine. Free high-speed broadband to NYCHA residents. Fair [Fares.] What we're doing with the MetroCards, the discount MetroCards, how we're giving MetroCards to students where they can get free rides so they can bring down that cost. But when you look across the entire apparatus, you'll see how that thirty billion dollars has been disseminated in a number of different places.

We were in Queens two weeks ago. We were able to get an Earned Income Tax Credit increase in over 20 years. That put $345 million through the Earned Income Tax Credit back into the pockets of New Yorkers, and then it's recycled back into the community, because if they have more money, they can go to the local bodegas, the local stores. They can also put that money back into the community. I remember that song, we work hard for your money, and we're going to make sure you get your money. These are your dollars. These are tax dollars that you pay that comes back to you through the services, and we're connecting more New Yorkers in public housing to the high-speed broadband, as I stated, saving them $153 million, and delivering relief to broken-class New Yorkers, which I think is one of the top issues that we've done in this administration.

The life-changing medical debt relief program, one of the number one causes of bankruptcy is medical bills and medical debt. When we are doing the medical debt relief program, that is relieving people of their debt, that they're not going to be traumatized from having an illness, then traumatized from having to pay the dollars for it, and we're looking to do this medical relief program. We're really pleased about that. We're talking about 500,000 New Yorkers with a $1.8 billion price tag that's attached to it. We want all New Yorkers to know about the benefits that are available today, so we are launching our new Money in Your Pocket initiative, led by the PEU Public Engagement Unit. This initiative will visit underserved neighborhoods across the five boroughs. It needs to meet the people.

The people should not have to meet the government. You may not have a MetroCard to come downtown, so we need to come downtown to see you and communicate with you in the community. You know what? You can't be part of the team if you're afraid to walk into NYCHA and not go into apartment 4B. Then you shouldn't do this job. You need to be comfortable in every setting in this community, and that is why I keep telling you about this PEU… Public Engagement Unit. We need to have a party for them at Gracie Mansion, just to celebrate them on what they're doing on the ground. This is helping 1,000 New Yorkers with the benefits they're eligible for.

Some of these benefits include the Child Tax Credit, huge win. Folks were paying $55 a week if you made $55,000 or less, $55 a week. We cut it to less than $5 a week for a family that's making $55,000 or less. That's unmanageable when you think about it. That's $40, $50 more a week you have to provide for your family.

The rent freeze programs that help our seniors stay in their homes, and much more. These programs help save New Yorkers thousands of dollars. We're really proud about this, and this is the money they need to support their families, so New Yorkers can visit nyc.gov/moneyinyourpocket to see a snapshot of some of the benefits that they may qualify. We're working every day to continue to improve the environment for working class New Yorkers. The next level of our goal that we are fighting to accomplish, and our Chief Technology Officer is doing, it is my belief you should not have to wonder what you're eligible for.

If we have your number, your Social Security number, your address, and all your date of birth, we should be contacting you saying, this is what you're eligible for based on our analysis. That's the next level we're trying to get to. We want the technology to meet the match, but in the meantime, we don't have that technology there yet. It will get there, but while we're getting there, we have PEU, and they're making the job happen every day. Thank you so much. Thank you, chief.

Joseph Varlack: Thank you, Mayor Adams, and I will just say that I've had multiple opportunities to sit down with the PEU team, and the energy that they bring here, they bring to absolutely every conversation because they are passionate about putting money back in the pockets of New Yorkers. And with that, I'd like to introduce Adrienne Lever, executive director of the Mayor's Public Engagement Unit.

Adrienne Lever, Executive Director, Mayor's Public Engagement Unit: Good morning, everyone. Good morning, and good morning CUNY students and PEU staff who are here. Can I hear a good morning from all of you?

All right. Thank you so much, Camille, and thank you so much, mayor, for your dedication to making government services more accessible to New Yorkers, and for your support for our work on the ground. I also want to thank our acting chief engagement officer, Crystal Price, and our sister engagement agencies for all of their support of our work as well. But most importantly, I want to thank all of you who are here today, my staff at the Public Engagement Unit, and the hundreds of interagency city staff volunteers who we have out here with us today, and at over 20 locations across all five boroughs.

Our team at the Public Engagement Unit leverages community organizing principles and grassroots outreach strategies to help connect New Yorkers to critical resources every day. Everything from health insurance to child care vouchers, as the mayor described. We do this by knocking on doors, by making phone calls, by sending peer-to-peer text messages, by showing up at your events. Everything we possibly can to make sure we are meeting New Yorkers where they are. A few months ago, one of our staff, Garfield, who is sitting over there today at the table, he was making proactive outreach calls to New Yorkers to talk to them about the Fair Fares program, which the mayor mentioned gives discounted access to transit for income-eligible New Yorkers.

He connected on the phone with a woman named Sarah. As he was speaking to Sarah, he shared the information about the program, and she was about to hang up the phone, but he jumped in to ask one more question. He asked, are you employed? By asking this question, he gave her an opportunity to share her story. She told Garfield that she was the primary caretaker for an adult son with disabilities. She had recently lost her job and had fallen behind on her rent. She now owed $1,300 in rental arrears and was afraid of eviction.

Garfield was able to sit down with her on the phone, screen her for benefits using the AccessNYC screening tool, which we'll be using out in communities across the city today, and inform her that she was eligible for more than 11 benefits that she was unaware of. He also helped her to screen her adult son. And then even after that, he connected her to our in-house tenant support specialist, who helped to give her information about her rights as a tenant and help her share ways that she could prevent eviction.

Our team at the Public Engagement Unit shares stories like this with one another every single day at the end of the day. We do this because it keeps us grounded in our work, it keeps our agency's mission and our purpose top of mind, and also highlights the ways in which government agencies need to step out of their silos and make sure that we remember the interconnected and varied ways that New Yorkers are facing challenges every day. We are, there are dozens, as Mayor Adams said, there are dozens of city, state, and federal programs that are putting money back in the pockets of New Yorkers who need it the most. But the problem is these programs are also administered by dozens of different city, state, and federal agencies.

Too many New Yorkers don't know about these resources or they simply can't access them because they don't have the time between working two jobs and trying to feed their families to navigate 50 different government websites. That is why we have scaled our outreach today for this day of action. Our staff at the Public Engagement Unit, heroes like Garfield, are coming together alongside hundreds of volunteer city staff who raised their hands from nearly every city agency.

We also have City Hall staff here and commissioners who are out with us today, knocking on doors, handing out flyers, connecting New Yorkers to over 70 different city, state, and federal programs using the AccessNYC screening tool. This coming together of government represents this administration's commitment to bringing government to the people we serve. We know that a strong government is not built by waiting for those who are in need to ask for help. We need to go to you, we need to be on your phones, at your doors, in your communities to make sure that the process of working with government is seamless.

And we know that this work never ends and there are so many more people like Sarah out there for us to reach. But I am incredibly proud of this effort to make benefits more accessible and to put more money back into the pockets of New Yorkers who need it the most. To see a snapshot of benefits that are saving New Yorkers time and money and to learn how to screen for eligibility, please go to nyc.gov/moneyinyourpocket. Thank you so much.

Joseph Varlack: Putting money back into the pockets of New Yorkers is critical for everyone who lives here, older adults, young families, and of course our youth. Our next speaker is a history and political science student at Hunter College and part of the public engagement unit summer internship program who has utilized the Fair Fares program that you've already heard about today to help cut costs while using public transportation so that those important dollars can help buy textbooks, meals between classes, or even go towards rent. Please welcome Cross Elizardo.

Cross Elizardo: Good morning, everyone. My name is Cross Elizardo and I'm a student at Hunter College where I study history and political science. This summer, I had the opportunity to intern with the Mayor's Public Engagement Unit and it was an eye opening experience.

During my time with the PEU, I learned about the fair fares program, which provides a 50 percent discount on transit for eligible New Yorkers. I realized that I qualified for this benefit, so I signed up and within about a month I received my MetroCard in the mail. Now every time I swipe, instead of paying $2.90, I'm cutting that down to half price. The savings add up quickly and it makes a real difference and it's one way New York City is putting money back in my pocket.

I'm saving almost $800 a year on MetroCards and my commute to work has gone that much cheaper. But the benefits don't stop there. Fair fares is just one of the many programs designed to help make our city more affordable and as a student living in New York City, every dollar counts. Rather it's for textbooks, rent, or just getting around the city. With this program, I've been able to stretch my budget further and worry less about the rising cost of living. And the best part is, this program will continue to put money back in my pocket when I return to school in the fall.

Programs like Fair Fares are helping make our city more affordable, especially for students like me who are balancing school, work, and daily expenses. I'm incredibly grateful to have discovered this program through my internship and I want to thank the Mayor's Public Engagement Unit for the work they do every single day to connect New Yorkers with the resources that they need. I encourage other students and New Yorkers to explore what benefits they might be eligible for because it really can make a difference. Thank you.

Joseph Varlack: Cross, thank you so much for sharing your story and with that, we'll open it up for questions.

Question: Doesn't the PEU already do outreach and go door-to-door? I mean, how much is this increasing, what is the current status of the PEU?

Lever: So, our team has been doing outreach around a range of different benefits for a long time. We typically do very targeted outreach, so one of the things that we do very well is finding benefit-like fairfares and then trying to match it to people who we believe are eligible.

So, for instance, we've been working in partnership with HRA to identify New Yorkers who are already eligible for SNAP or who are enrolled in SNAP and then help reach out to them to talk to them about Fair Fares if they're not already enrolled. What we're doing right now is also adding to that. We created a special projects team under this administration and the leadership of Mayor Adams that is really designed to be flexible and focus on the holistic screening of benefits.

So, what we are doing is going out into every single community, knocking on doors and bringing this screening tool. And that's really the biggest expansion is that we're trying to say not only focus on Fair Fares or focus on rent freeze or some of these other targeted campaigns we do, but also recognize that so many people are eligible for so many different things and we need to be able to give them that information as much as possible at the same time. So, we're going to be screening people using this tool and then following up with them by phone. Everybody who we reach today, our staff will be following up in the weeks after to check in with them, ask them if they had any struggles with the application process and make sure they're able to get enrolled.

Question: So, a new tool, is there also a numerical increase in like the people on the ground or the average?

Lever: So, today we've scaled and what we are doing is bringing together volunteers from every city agency and they're coming and actually doing the work with our team. We've trained over 300 people to do this work. What I am so proud of is that so many city staff who may have never done this before who are not typically outreach staff, sometimes they may be behind a desk every day processing benefits or working in parks, but they're coming to do this work with us to learn about the community outreach that our team does every day and support and scale our efforts.

Question: Mr. Mayor, I was going to ask about what your Chief Technology Officer was cooking up, but that gentleman back there. You know, he sounds very angry and in particular about migrants and city spending on their services and you should take care of New Yorkers. What do you think this has done to the city that people like that gentleman are angry about the spending you're doing on migrant services?

Mayor Adams: First of all, that's a very interesting analysis because you were here when I walked in the park and you saw all those who appreciate what we're doing. You see who's behind us.

Crowd: Absolutely.

Mayor Adams: So, you got one cat, one cat walking down the block using foul language, using profanity. And he became the poster child of all that we're doing. That's why it is so important that you stay focused, not get distracted and grind. Because if you took away from what we're doing today, one person using profanity as a symbol of New York, that's sad. He doesn't represent Harlem. He doesn't represent our community. And he's not even worth my response. People are going to be upset and angry. That's life, you know. We are going to move forward, straight ahead, and we're going to get these benefits in the pockets of people. That's right. That's right.

Question: Mr. Mayor, we know that your administration has economic problems with the care of the thousands of immigrants. Is that situation overcome?

Mayor Adams: I'm sorry, is that a question of? Of? I don't understand.

Question: We know that your administration has economic problems with the care of the thousands of immigrants in the last couple of years. Is that situation overcome?

Mayor Adams: Yes. Listen, not one migrant asylum seeker is taken away from Fair Futures, taken away from SCRIE, taken away from DRIE, taken away from reducing the cost of MetroCard. We cannot mix up what we are doing. That's what's great about this administration. We took a crisis, we manage it, and we continue to get the resources back to everyday New Yorkers. That's what you call successful governance.

And that is why we're here today to say, New Yorkers, don't get caught up in all this noise. You still have a host of benefits that are available to you that you're going to get. We're going to do the humanitarian crisis, but we're also going to take care of long-time New Yorkers, especially when we've got these great CUNY representatives in their PEU unit. I can't say enough about PEU. We've got people who are really willing to work hard for people because they work hard for their monies, and we're accomplishing that task.

Lever: Mayor, if I may, I would also like to add that I hope someone from our team will go out and speak to the gentleman and the lady who are out there and screen them for benefits. Because in many of these situations, so many New Yorkers who are feeling rightfully frustrated aren't accessing the resources that are available to them. And we find this every single day because they don't know about them or they are having problems with the application process. And that's exactly why we're doing this, to make sure that everybody understands that that information is available to them and that we're here to help.

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