Committee on Women and Gender Equity

Good morning and welcome to the New York City Council hearing on women, gender, and equity. At this time, we're asking everyone to silence all electronic devices and at no point in time approach this dais. If you wish to testify at today's hearing and haven't filled out an appearance card, please see a sergeant at the back for assistance.

Chair, you may begin. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Councilmember Amanda Farias, Chair of the Committee on Women and Gender Equity. Welcome to today's oversight hearing examining the restructure of the Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence under the Office of Community Safety. I'd like to acknowledge the councilmembers that are present. Councilmembers Aldabal, and Santos-Suazo, who have joined us this morning. I want to begin by acknowledging the moment we are in.

Just this week, New Yorkers and women have once again been confronted with the painful realities of sexual violence through the allegations surrounding former Cornell University students and the decision by the Tompkins County District Attorney to reopen the criminal investigation into the 2024 assault and rapes. This case has raised renewed public questions about consent, institutional responsibility in how systems respond when women report violence, and whether our laws and institutions are adequately equipped to protect survivors.

While that case is outside the jurisdiction of New York City, it is a reminder that gender-based violence does not exist in isolation. It exists in our homes, on our campuses, in our workplaces, in our communities, and within the systems that are supposed to protect us. And as a city, we are in a pivotal moment. We have an opportunity and a responsibility to ensure that preventing and responding to gender-based violence remains a central priority for our government, and that survivors can access meaningful support, and that our systems are coordinated, accountable, and equipped to respond to the realities women and gender-expansive people face.

The Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence, or NGBV, has created— was created to tackle domestic and gender-based violence as a systemic problem and recognize it as an important issue impacting people across New York City. Since its establishment, NGBV has been a leader in efforts across the city to assess and respond to domestic and gender-based violence.

These efforts include chairing Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committee, co-leading the mayor's Domestic Violence Task Force in collaboration with the mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, and operating the city's 5 family justice centers, just to name a few. So today, as we examine the proposed restructuring of NGBV under the Office of Community Safety, I want us to focus on a fundamental question: how do we ensure that this restructuring strengthens, not diminishes, the city's ability to prevent gender-based violence, support survivors, and hold our systems accountable?

The committee will also consider the following legislation: Intro 1079, sponsored by myself, in relation to reporting on a hotline for survivors of gender-based violence. The bill would require NGBV to report anonymous high-level information about calls received by NGBV's hotline for survivors of domestic and gender-based violence. We will also hear Resolution 441, also sponsored by me, declaring November 25th as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in honor of the Mirabal sisters.

Additionally, we will hear Intro 295, sponsored by Councilmember Farah Lewis, in relation to establishing a screening program for endometriosis and polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome. I'll now read a statement from Councilmember Lewis. Thank you, Chair Farias, for your leadership on and for moving Introduction 295 forward today. Intro 295 would require the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to establish a menstrual health program providing screening, referrals, and education and support for endometriosis and polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, or PMOS.

It would also expand the city's sexual and reproductive health outreach to include these conditions. The need is significant. Federal data from the CDC shows that among women ages 20 to 49, 6.2% has been diagnosed with endometriosis and 8.7% with PCOS in 2022 and 2023. Among women diagnosed with either condition, rates of current fertility problems were substantially higher than among women without these diagnoses.

Here in New York City, our own Department of Health recognizes that both conditions can cause significant symptoms, including painful or irregular periods, infertility, fatigue, and other health complications. Yet too many women continue to face gaps in awareness, diagnosis, and access to appropriate care. That is why the amendment to recognize PMOS is so important. In 2026, the medical community adopted polioendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome as the new name for the condition previously known as PCOS.

The change reflects a broader understanding that this is a complex endocrine and metabolic condition that affects much more than just the ovaries. For too long, women's health needs have been shut out of conversations, research, education, and public health systems that determine whether people receive care. We have an opportunity to change that by making accurate information and pathways to care part of our city's public health infrastructure.

I urge my colleagues to support introduction to 95A, and I look forward to continuing the work to ensure that every New Yorker has access to the information, screening, referrals, and support they need to take control of their health. Thank you. I thank Councilmember Lewis for sending in that statement in support of her bill.

Finally, the committee will hear Resolution 637, sponsored by Councilmember Kayla Santos-Suazo and me, calling on the New York State Legislature to pass and the governor to sign legislation requiring insurers to cover all lactation consultation and counseling services without restrictions and reimburse providers accordingly. I'd like to invite Councilmember Santos-Suazo to make some remarks about this resolution. Thank you, Chair.

There is overwhelming evidence that breastfeeding provides a multitude of health benefits to babies and their caregivers. Difficulties early on often force people to discount breastfeeding, many times without seeking professional advice or support. Research suggests that many of the disparities are further rooted in systemic racism, which further perpetuates health disparities later in life. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has reaffirmed that international board-certified lactation consultants and other professionals are equipped to help parents navigate their challenges with breastfeeding.

This greatly improves the chance that families will reach their infant feeding goals. Given the clear health benefits to children and child caregivers, there is no reason that lactation consultation should not be covered by health insurance companies in the state of New York. This resolution calls on the governor and state legislature to draft and pass legislation that will ensure all New Yorkers have access to these critical services without having to pay out of pocket.

And as a new mom and as a mom who is nursing, I will just say that nursing can be very difficult. It requires a lot of support. It requires those around you who can help you make sure that it's done effectively. And it's a shame that all too often these— that consultations and resources are not covered by insurance.

And that's one of the reasons that would-be nursing moms you know, are not successful in, in being able to nurse. And so, um, this resolution is important to me, and I hope that we can get it passed, uh, calling on the state to make sure that insurance is not a reason why a mom cannot choose breastfeeding for herself and for her child.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember Santos-Suazo. I'd also like to thank committee staff Julia Goldsmith-Pinkham, Katie Salina, and Ali Stauffer, as well as my own staff Dan Curtin and Jose Macaris, for their work on today's hearing. I would like to remind everyone who wishes to testify in person today that you must fill out a witness slip, which you can find on the desk of the sergeant-at-arms near the entrance of this room.

Please fill out a slip even if you have already registered in advance. That way, you will be testifying in person today. You'll need that. If you wish to testify on any of the legislation, please indicate that on the witness slip, whether you are here to testify in favor of or in opposition to the legislation. I also want to point out that we will not be voting on any of the legislation listed today.

Thank you. To allow as many people to testify as possible, testimony will be limited to 2 minutes per person, whether you are testifying in person or on Zoom. I'm also going to ask my colleagues to limit their questions and comments to 5 minutes. Please note that witnesses who are here in person will testify before those who are signed onto the Zoom webinar.

I will now turn it over to the Women and Gender Equity Committee counsel to administer the oath. I'm sorry, and call folks up from the administration to come testify. Great. Good morning. In accordance with the rules of the council, I'll administer the affirmation to the witnesses. From the mayoral administration. I'll call on you each of— I'll call on each of you individually for a response.

Please raise your right hand. Do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth before this committee and to respond honestly to councilmember questions? Yep, I do. I do. Thank you. As a reminder to our witnesses here in the future, please state your name prior to your testimony. You may begin.

My name is Ayesha Delaney Brumsey. Good morning, Chair Farias and members of the Committee on Women and Gender Equity. My name is Dr. Ayesha Delaney Brumsey, and I'm the Commissioner of the Office of Community Safety. I'm joined by Saloni Sethi, Commissioner of the Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence, or NGBV. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today and provide an update on the ongoing transition of NGBV under OCS.

The Office of Community Safety advances a coordinated, whole-of-government approach to preventing violence and promoting safety across New York City. Established by Executive Order 15 in March 2026, OCS brings together efforts to prevent gun violence and hate crimes, strengthen crisis response, support victims and survivors, and prevent domestic and gender-based violence. Central to this approach is the recognition that community safety includes safety in our homes and relationships, and protection from gender-based violence in all its forms.

Bringing NGBV into OCS allows us to strengthen coordination across government while continuing to build on existing expertise, programs, and partnerships. The NGBV team supports victims and survivors of domestic and gender-based violence and other crimes, as well as their families and communities through collaboration with government agencies, community partners, survivors, and philanthropy. The team works to reduce barriers, address gaps in services, and create pathways to safety through program development, legislative and policy advocacy, research, and capacity building.

NGBV also oversees a portfolio of prevention and intervention services, including the city's 5 borough-based Family Justice Centers, or FJCs. Since March, NGBV has continued to advance this mission, strengthen services, and deliver critical support to victims and survivors across New York City. The Mamdani administration allocated $15.7 million in new funding to NGBV's fiscal year '27 budget, the largest such increase since the office's mission was expanded in 2018 to include all forms of gender-based violence.

This is reflective of the administration and OCS's commitment to this work. This funding will support programs and services, including legal services and mental health prevention and community-based services. In the fiscal year '27 budget, we expanded Home Plus to $4.3 million to help survivors remain safely housed through security improvements and flexible funding, while also providing flexible funding at the Family Justice Centers to help survivors meet immediate and essential needs.

Together, these programs help survivors maintain housing stability by addressing immediate safety and financial needs. We have also strengthened access to legal services. Funding for immigration and family law services at the Family Justice Centers increased by 20%, bringing the city's annual investment to $3.9 million. We also secured funding in fiscal year '27 and out for the Domestic Violence Matrimonial Right to Counsel Pilot Program, helping ensure that survivors continue to have access to critical legal representation in matrimonial proceedings.

At the same time, this administration continues to prioritize investments that respond to needs identified by survivors, providers, advocates, and community partners. Many of these investments also reflect years of advocacy from those working directly with survivors who have helped identify service gaps and inform the city's response. This includes $3.7 million annual investment in mental health services at the Family Justice Centers, allowing added capacity throughout the program, including services for children impacted by domestic violence, a 20% increase for case management, navigation, and children's services at the FJCs, and a 20% increase for youth-focused prevention through the Relationship Abuse and Prevention Program, or RAPP.

We also invested $3 million annually in new community-based, culturally specific services for survivors of gender-based violence. We expect to share a program outline by year's end and invite feedback from stakeholders. The Crime Victims Assistance Program, or CVAP, provides critical advocacy and support to victims and survivors of domestic violence and other crimes through NYPD precincts and special victims divisions.

While precinct-based advocates play an important role in supporting survivors, we also know that many victims of crime may never engage with law enforcement. NGBV's recent— recently released solicitation provides up to $15.2 million annually for the Crime Victims Assistance Program and further strengthens community-based responses for New Yorkers impacted by crime and abuse by creating community-based access points so that the critical support CVAP provides can extend beyond precinct-based settings.

Through these new access points in each borough, survivors who may not feel comfortable reporting to law enforcement will be able to receive advocacy and support, including in-person accompaniment for those who may choose to report with the help of an advocate in community-based settings, strengthening connections between law enforcement and and local providers. As this transition moves forward, some organizational structures and leadership titles may change, but NGBV's mission and the critical programs and services it oversees will not.

NGBV will remain a distinct entity within OCS with dedicated leadership, a clear mandate, and a strong programmatic identity. The expertise of the NGBV team, as well as all the teams that have been incorporated into OCS, will continue to inform decision-making with direct and regular access to myself as the Commissioner, OCS leadership, and the Deputy Mayor of Community Safety.

Bringing NGBV into OCS also creates opportunities for stronger coordination across the city's community safety work. Domestic and gender-based violence intersects with many of the challenges OCS is charged with addressing, including gun violence, mental health, crisis response, and support for victims and survivors of crime and violence. NGBV's research on the relationship between domestic violence and shooting incidents in New York City found that communities with high rates of gun violence also experience high rates of domestic violence.

We know that access to firearms can increase the risk of serious injury or death in abusive relationships, and firearms also can be used to threaten, intimidate, and control survivors. Moreover, young people exposed to violence in the home are more likely to both experience and perpetrate violence, including gun violence, as they grow up. Children exposed to domestic violence are almost 3 times more likely to experience domestic violence as adults, and childhood exposure to family violence is also a strong predictor of domestic violence perpetration later in life.

Bringing this work together creates opportunities to strengthen prevention and intervention efforts. Further, survivors with mental health needs may face unique barriers to access— accessing both the domestic violence and mental health systems. particularly when navigating multiple systems that may not fully address their needs. At the same time, domestic and gender-based violence can have significant and lasting impact on survivors' mental health.

Further connecting NGB's expertise with mental health and crisis response can help align services, provide more responsive and trauma-informed care, and address survivors' needs more holistically. These connections reflect our vision for OCS. A public health approach to safety that recognizes both the immediate and long-term impacts of violence, coordination across prevention, intervention, victim and survivor services, and crisis response will help us make effective use of the city's expertise and resources while helping keep domestic and gender-based violence central to our community safety work.

Another important part of this work is maintaining direct communication with survivors, advocates, service providers, NGBV, OCS, NGBV, and City Hall. Deputy Mayor Francois will participate in NGBV advisory councils quarterly, meeting alongside OCS and NGBV leadership, providing a regular opportunity to hear directly from stakeholders, assess progress, and discuss needs and priorities. Staff, providers, advocates, and other stakeholders will continue to be engaged throughout the transition and implementation process.

We appreciate the opportunity to provide positions on the legislation under consideration today. We support Bill 1079-2026, reporting on hotline survivors for gender-based violence, with some adjustments to reflect that New York City Hope Hotline supports survivors of gender-based violence and other crimes. We would be happy to discuss those adjustments with the council following the hearing. We look forward to continued collaboration with the council, our sister agencies, survivors, advocates, service providers, and community-based partners as we move this work forward.

Together, we will continue to strengthen services, address gaps, improve coordination across systems, and ensure that victims and survivors have access to the support they need. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and we welcome any questions you may have.

Thank you so much for testifying. I'd like to acknowledge that we've been joined by Speaker Julie Menin. I kick it over to you for questions first. Thank you so much, Chair Farias. I want to thank you for holding this very, very important hearing and for all of the advocates and groups who are here today. I know this is a very difficult topic, and so we really appreciate you being here.

So, I mean, I think my first question Really has to do with the Office of Community Safety having communicated that one reason for moving the Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence, or of course NGBV, under OCS is that NGBV would have access to more resources, be part of a coordinated citywide community safety strategy. What specific additional resources?

will NGBV have access to under OCS that they didn't have before? Absolutely. One of the resources that I can point to, and thank you for that question, is that in this current fiscal year, we increased the budget for NGBV by $15.7 million, which is the largest increase that NGBV has received since 2018. That's one significant type of resource that NGBV will have access to.

In addition, the creation of OCS more generally is the admin— a part of the administration's focus on ensuring that we are providing a comprehensive approach to public safety so that the people in places with— at the most risk for harm, the types of violence that are most intractable, have access to a coordinated approach. We know, as I testified, that people who experience domestic and gender-based violence often live in neighborhoods with higher rates of gun violence.

We also understand the significant mental health and substance use relationship between domestic— the impacts of domestic violence on behavioral health needs and the relationship between mental health and substance use. So combining OCS— combining NGBV into OCS allows NGBV and the other offices within OCS to work in a more coordinated way to build out a strategy that supports all survivors even more effectively.

But don't you agree that You had a freestanding office with a commissioner that was dedicated to this important topic. You now no longer have a commissioner, and you've now put it under a new entity. Don't you think that sends a wrong signal to survivors and to all the groups on the ground who are doing this important work?

The signal that I hope it sends is that this is an effort, or this is a focus of the administration that is extremely important. OCS is a high priority for this administration. The work within it is— the incorporation of NGVV within that work is part of the administration's effort to not diminish, but to elevate and escalate the work of that office.

And I can jump in and say, you know, I think even with this transition, the role of NGVV very much remains the same, right? And I think for me, for the leadership team, for the staff, most of us are all still here. The entire leadership team is still here, and we're still here because what we know is our Our role is to make sure that as we work with OCS and work with our partners, we're continuing to elevate issues that are meaningful and important to survivors and to our providers.

And we think that that's so far, you know, we've been doing a pretty good job of that, right? And that reflects in the funding and in our ongoing work. And how many staff are currently hired by OCS or currently working right now at OCS? OCS is approximately 100 staff total across all of our offices. That includes— So we have 79 staff lines, and currently 59 of those positions are filled.

I'm sorry, could you repeat that? Sorry, NGBV has 79 staff lines, and currently we have 59 of those positions filled. So it's about a 25% vacancy rate. And what are the efforts to fill those vacancies? So we've actually been doing really— I mean, the vacancy rates are from historical hiring freezes that the city's been under for many, many years.

And so now that those are lifted, we've actually been working with Commissioner Aisha and Deputy Mayor of Community Safety's team to move these vacancies forward as quickly as possible. One thing I want to highlight is, you know, one of the positions we filled recently was at our Staten Island FJC for the Director of Community Programs and Partnerships, and that role had been sort of vacant for 3 years, right?

But that's the reality in which we were living in terms of city hiring and freezes and processes. And so we're doing our best to kind of move through that backlog with support from DMCS and OCS. We have heard from many of the gender-based violence groups as well as survivors concerns that the administration is minimizing the gender-based violence work by this move.

And so what would you say to those concerns? I definitely want to ensure that our partners, advocates, providers, survivors, that we are not minimizing the importance of this work. As you heard from Commissioner Sethi, the incorporation of NGBV into OCS is an effort to escalate and elevate this work. We are working very closely across the entire OCS team and with NGBV to ensure that we continue to engage very closely with our partners.

I have attended the NGBV Advisory Council, the Deputy Mayor has, we will continue to do that. We've held dozens of conversations with providers, advocates, survivors. We have conducted site visits. We are going to continue to work very closely with our partners to ensure that the work of NGBV, the focus that has been built over the past 25 years, remains not only intact, but is strengthened as we build together.

Anything you'd like to add there? No, I mean, I think, yeah, I think all of that, you know, makes sense. And I think, again, what I would invite all of our survivors community, our advocate community, our provider community is to keep reaching out and keep, you know, connecting with us because we're here. You know, I'm like, I want to say, like, I'm still here.

My email hasn't changed. My number hasn't changed. So please reach out and we will do our best to make sure that we're continuing to connect. And because I truly believe, like, this work is going to be stronger if we move forward together.

Okay. That's the end of my questions. I just do want to say, I frankly do believe there should be a commissioner of this entity, and I think it should be freestanding. I think that is really important. So I just want to express my disagreement with that, but I'm going to turn it over to the chair. Thank you, Speaker, for joining us and for the questions.

I have similar sentiments about, you know, looking at our— the way we're merging in some of our other commissioners and I actually have a specific question to that as well. But just primarily, I'd like to start. Gender-based violence remains a significant issue in New York City with 249,000— over 249,000 domestic violence incident reports in 2024 alone. Where does the Office of Community Safety see gender-based violence in terms of priorities to be addressed in this administration?

Gender-based violence is a top priority for this administration and for the Office of Community Safety. We know that we cannot improve safety without addressing the impact of domestic and gender-based violence across New York. I, as a commissioner, am working very closely with Commissioner Sethi to ensure that as we are developing the ongoing strategy for the office, that domestic and gender-based violence remains a significant priority and that it not only as a focus of our work, but we are building it in such a way that it will continue to be strengthened, that the office itself can benefit from the other offices, that the office can also lend its expertise to the other offices that are part of it, so that in the years to come, New Yorkers who are experiencing gender-based violence, who may also be experiencing hate crimes, who may also have a mental health need, that they are going to— one, they have access to a much more comprehensive and holistic approach to this work.

And It's a recognition that the work that NGBV has done over the past 25 years is strong, needs to continue to be strong, and needs to be continued to be elevated. And I can only point to the early signs of the administration's commitment to this work, like the $15.7 million that has been invested, the continued and ongoing connection between— or building connection between myself, the Deputy Mayor, and the supporters and advocates and providers to say how much this is a continued priority.

And then just to— similarly to what the speaker was asking about commissioners, that these title change will go to executive director once the office officially moves to the Office of Community Safety. According to some reports, there are approximately 6, you know, executive director titles across NGBV that are now reporting to the commissioner. Will the existing executive director titles change as a result of the commissioner becoming an executive director?

And then additionally, there are 4 deputy commissioners within NGBV. Are those titles also going to change? Yeah, thank you for that question. The combination of the offices under OCS means that there are lots of different titles because each office had its own title structure. And so the title differences are not— do not just impact NGBV, they impact the entire Office of Community Safety.

We're engaged in a process right now to look across our team to see what makes sense in terms of making sure we have titles that reflect the seniority, the expertise, and that allow people to do the work they continue to do. We have not made any decisions because we are making sure that we are doing this carefully and assessing how titles will continue to broadcast the seniority, expertise, and influence that are both the leadership and the rest of the team has.

Okay. So we'll just stay in communication on how that continues to move forward. While there's restructuring and changing of titles, the amount of work conducted by NGBV will remain the same or increase? Do you expect all appointees and employees at NGBV to keep a salary next year that is equivalent to this year? So again, we are looking— as you can imagine, combining 4 offices means there's also different pay scales.

There's, there's a lot of work to be done to ensuring that we are being equitable. We have not made any significant decisions at this moment because we are trying to work very closely with the office as well as our city partners to ensure that any changes that we make are equitable. However, the goal is to ensure that we have appropriate staffing to do this work.

As the work continues and builds, we will need additional staff, we'll need additional funding, and that is the work of myself, my— the leadership team that I work with, the administration, to ensure that the work is appropriately staffed. As you heard from Commissioner Sethi, we have actually been able to fill some vacancies that have not been filled in the past, and so we are working towards ensuring that we have the robust staffing that we need to do the growing and important work.

Anything? Okay, thank you. How regularly will the Deputy Mayor for Community Safety be meeting with the mayor about NGBV and gender-based violence issues in New York City? And how often do we anticipate the Assistant Deputy meeting with NGBV about gender-based violence? Do we have a structure there, a strategy? So the Deputy Mayor meets regularly with the Mayor around OCS, including focusing on NGBV.

The Deputy Mayor and myself meet regularly, weekly, sometimes significantly more than weekly. Myself and Commissioner meet absolutely more than weekly. We have ongoing communication and coordination with the Deputy Mayor's team that That includes project meetings, that includes strategic planning meetings, and that includes brief updates. So we have a significant amount of coordination that's happening at all levels across the office.

Okay. In February, the NGBV Advisory Council sent a meeting request to the administration and a list of community-informed recommendations but did not receive a response before the announcement of Executive Order 15. How will OCS engage with recommendations from NGBVs? Advisory Council in the future? Absolutely. So we acknowledged some slowness, some missteps in some of the early communication.

However, the administration has been working very hard to correct that. We did respond to that letter. We also met direct— myself, the Deputy Mayor of Community Safety, met with the NGBV Advisory Council. We are continuing to do that, have those meetings. We are continuing to have site visits And in that letter, we responded with how some of the feedback from the advocates and advisory council had influenced some of the work that NGBV did, including some of the recent investments.

And I can turn to Commissioner Sethi for some additional details there. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, when you look at the new funding that we received, some of those asks really came directly from what the advisory council letter and in an effort to be responsive to what our advocates were asking for, including the funding for culturally specific services, including the funding for you know, grassroots and survivor-led orgs, and including funding for existing programs, right?

I think what we came up with in that $15.7 million was reflective of new things, as well as understanding that our existing programs also need more because they're doing a lot with very little and have been. And so we need to— and we're continuing to see people with higher levels of need. And I'd say in addition to sort of ongoing partnership with the Advisory Council, we're also working on on-site visits and listening sessions that we'll continue to do and hosted one just yesterday at the Bronx FJC with, with the Deputy Mayor and her team, which, which was really, really nice.

Great, thank you.

Also, apologies, we've been joined by Councilmember Jennifer Gutierrez as well. Um, just want to talk a little bit about data and reporting. NGBV is in compliance with the Open Data Law and regularly uploads reports to Open Data on time. Will the move to OCS potentially slow that processing time down? How will OCS ensure that it does not?

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. All of our offices have a variety of reports that they are required to submit. As part of our efforts to consolidate the office, we are ensuring that we have the systems and processes in place so that we do not slow that down, that we are continuing to meet our obligations, and we have continued to do that to date.

Yeah, and I'd say for right now, like, our data team is the same. Our, you know, IGA team, small IGA team, is the same. And so we're kind of working through those same channels to provide reports as requested, as usual. Great. And then in terms of the several key reports, as you even mentioned, around gender-based violence, including the annual fact sheet, Family Justice Center client satisfaction surveys, the Fatality Review Committee reports, Among many others.

What's the approval process for publishing these reports under the new structure? Will there be any changes? The approval process will remain largely the same. We have an expert team that understands this work and understands how to create and draft highly accurate and effective reports. And so we will continue with the approval process, you know, largely the same.

I think, yeah, the only change is both of us will be reviewing, but so far that's been totally not a problem. Okay. Thanks, folks.

I'd like to talk a little bit about contracting. The council has frequently heard that mayoral agencies can struggle to manage procurement processes because they lack the staffing infrastructure to manage contracts. NGBV currently manages $13 million of council discretionary funding and has support from HRA staff to do so. How many contracts is NGBV currently managing in the portfolio?

Um, do you want to say the total number of contracts? Sure, we have a total of 90 contracts currently. 9-0? 9-0. It was like 90. 90. It's a lot. It's a big portfolio. And I would just add to that, just for context, that HRA will continue to support NGBV's contracting as OCS builds out our own internal contracting function.

We're building out a contracting function not just to support NGBV, but to support the entire office, which has even more than the 90 contracts. And we're doing that work within partnership with HRA, as well as the other agencies that currently support our contracting work, in combination with other mayoral offices and city agencies that support contracting so that we can ensure we're building out a contracting shop that has the staffing and the capacity and the structures in place to do this work well.

We know that contracting well is both about meeting city obligations, but it's also about ensuring that the providers that we work with, our contractors, are able to do the good work that they are— we are paying them for. That's great. You answered my next question on contracting. What's the goal of the new RFP regarding the Crime Victims Assistance Program?

Absolutely. I'll turn this to Commissioner Sethi for the details, but one thing that I will say is that we're really excited to have the Crime Victims Assistance Program RFP out. We really encourage people to apply. The Crime Victims Assistance Program ensures that we are embedding victims advocates in every single precinct across New York City, and it is also focused on ensuring that we have crime victims advocates in community-based Partners so that we can ensure that for victims who are not comfortable reporting to the police, that they have a place where they can receive victim services.

We know that it is essential that there is universal access to victim services within NYPD precincts. That's a core tenet of this work. We intend to continue that going forward because we want to make sure that we are meeting victims wherever they are. We're really excited to be able to expand that work so that we have additional access points in the community because unfortunately we know that so often victims don't report.

And those victims' advocates will be there whether or not someone does report. If they are interested in reporting, they will accompany that person to the police precinct to help them report if they wish. Yeah, no, I agree. And I think, you know, for me and for NGBV, I think our goals in this work and all of the work we do are really, really quite consistent and similar, right?

So one thing is always about increasing access, reducing barriers, increasing access to resources for survivors. And I think this does that by, you know, keeping the precinct-based services, but also adding community-based, you know, touchpoints for these services for advocacy, for potentially support for survivors that may be afraid to walk into a precinct to do that with accompaniment with a peer navigator.

That's a huge shift, right? And I think, but an important one that is about increasing access for survivors. And then the other thing, you know, I know that our office thinks about all the time is, you know, survivors' experiences are diverse. There's a million different experiences of survivorship, and our provider community reflects that diversity and should continue to reflect that diversity, right?

We should have different providers for different survivors with different needs. And so one of the other things, and not just in CVAP, but with our FJC, with the contracting we've done over the years, is adding borough-based options allows us to diversify providers as well, right? And we kind of have different providers doing the same work, which again is about, you know, making it easier for survivors to access what they need, where they need. and with, with an organization they feel most comfortable with.

Thank you for the response. I feel I would agree that most of us kind of appreciate a borough-based response when it comes to an RFP. We don't always get that opportunity to have RFPs that can cover the multitude of the city and making sure everyone has a provider that's appropriate. I'm going to reserve the rest of my time to get to some councilmember questions, and I'll turn it over to Councilmember Alderbol, followed by Gutierrez, then Santos-Suazo.

Thank you, Chair. I have a couple of follow-up questions. Both Speaker Menin and Councilmember Farias asked about restructuring and staffing. You said that there were 79 lines currently, 59 filled, attributed— You know, the vacancy rate to a backlog of hiring, how much of that is attributed to turnover? So honestly, our office has, you know, it's had some turnover, but not very much.

We've had— but I'm always personally really surprised by is how many folks in our office have been with NGBV for 10+ years, including some folks that have been with NGBV before it was NGBV or even an office. So I think it really does speak to kind of the, you know, people coming to this because it's passion work and to the sort of the meaning that they find in the work.

Do you foresee reductions in staffing as roles are changed and the office gets put under— Yeah, it's— It's too soon to be able to say what our literal structure will look like. However, what I can say is that we know that the charge we've been given is to build a more comprehensive approach to community safety, and that includes ensuring that we are appropriately staffing the work around domestic and gender-based violence.

So our work is to really expand and to ensure that we're building out our staffing. So while I— it's too soon to know exactly how far we will be able to expand, that is the charge that's put forward. Do you foresee a restructuring or dramatic change in staff roles given the move to OCS? I don't foresee a dramatic change in the way that NGBV is staffing their programs at this point.

We have not been able— I anticipate that what we will be doing is ensuring that we have the appropriate staffing across our entire team, and that as we're building out our survivor and victim services, we will continue to do that work with NGBV, with the other offices. But we will be restructuring, but it's too soon to know exactly what that will look like.

The purpose of the restructuring will be to ensure that we have all of the necessary expertise to do the work of domestic and gender-based violence prevention, all of the necessary expertise to do the work of hate crime prevention. of building out behavioral health services, of preventing gun and community-based violence. So that's the North Star for that kind of restructuring, and that all of those offices have the kind of operational support that they need to do their work, whether that's contracting, budgets, administrative support, all of that, which is really necessary as you grow an office from what it is today to what we will hopefully be in the future, which is significantly larger.

And I'll say all the core functions of NGBV I think are critical to what OCS is going to do, right? Which the core functions are prevention, direct services, advocacy, research evaluation, and training. Those are things that are always going to be part of whatever we're doing as NGBV and as part of OCS.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. And I'll turn it over to Councilmember Gutierrez. Thank you, Chair. Thank you all so much. I had also just a couple of questions. One logistically under under the Mayor's Office to End Gender-Based Violence under the Office of Community Safety. Does that affect the way that anyone would maybe call 311 for more information related to this office?

Is there another person or another— like, is there a delay because it's now not its own standalone office, it's under this, like, bigger and larger umbrella? So just logistically. Yeah, no, no, that's a great question. extra person, extra 10 seconds of like research? And if you don't know, let's figure it out. No, no, no. I was just thinking about how to respond to that.

I think it's a great question. I don't anticipate that there will be an extra layer of access. For example, we are— we will continue to have the NGBV website as we build out our OCS website. People will still be able to find that. The OCS website will link to the NGBV website. Our goal will be to ensure as we're building this out that people have very easy, very quick access to community safety work.

That is a North Star for all of the work that we're doing. And so I would want to ensure that as we're building this, we are continuing to work very closely with the leadership across NGBV, across our other offices to say, how are New Yorkers finding out about our work and how do we ensure that even more New Yorkers find out about our work, that we are easier and easier to find no matter what?

Yeah. Thank you. Well, I would love to circle back at some point, um, to see if that, that is the case. I think that sometimes, um, for new— and again, this is someone that's like calling 311. I think if it's online, it's a little different. Um, but just in speaking with some of the folks at the call center, sometimes they're not necessarily privy to some of the, the changes that are happening, either that we legislate or even that City Hall does.

Um, and so it would just be helpful, or maybe just to connect with them and ensuring that like They're up to date. Again, don't want to delay an emergency. No, I think that's great. And one thing that we would love to be able to circle back on that, and if you are hearing about ways in which people are not finding out about us or can't, you know, there is a delay, please let us know because we'd love to try to address that.

Whenever we do hear about a concern, we want to make sure we work to address it. So if you are hearing things, please let us know. We'd love to come back. Absolutely. I haven't heard, but I just I just want to make sure we're ahead of it because I think it's difficult to kind of like restructure this.

And then my last question that I am just curious, pre-pandemic, a NYCHA development in my district, Bushwick Houses, had some of the higher rates of domestic violence incidents. And so I'm familiar with some of the folks on the ground under the various divisions of Office of Community Safety. Is there anything specific that your office is being asked to do in partnership with some of these divisions in public housing specifically?

Is this merger going to allow us to have more resources just to do more, and specifically in public housing? Yeah, that's a great question. The Deputy Mayor actually recently ran a set of meetings to address some key safety issues in locations across the city, public housing locations, other locations. One of the things that we noticed early on is that we needed to have someone within those meetings who had domestic and gender-based violence expertise.

So we included one of the staff members from NGBV in those meetings, in addition to staff members from the Office of Neighborhood Safety who do a lot of our work in NYCHA developments. And so that's just one example of how we're trying to get these teams to work even more closely together so that we can say, for our team that's supporting NYCHA developments around reducing violence, we know that so often some of that violence has a root in domestic and gender-based violence.

And so how do we ensure that we are both bringing resources as well as expertise? And the one of the things that I noticed when I first came on as commissioner is some of that work was already happening. These offices, while separate, were doing some work together. They have some joint providers. And so we're really just building on that foundation and trying to make it stronger and stronger.

Is there anything on it? There's no— but you can— there's, there's no additional dollars or resources under this, this new Office of Community Safety for your office? For NGBV, we absolutely did have additional funding. We had $15.7 million in additional funding just this year, which is the largest increase that we have seen for NGBV since 2018. Absolutely.

Okay, wonderful. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. And I'll turn it over to Councilmember Santos. Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you so much for being here. I want to start by just acknowledging that I— we recently lost a constituent in our district to murder in an extreme act of domestic violence, Maria Inez Granda. And so in her honor, I just want to thank all the advocates that are doing this work, and thank you to the Office of Gender-Based Violence for what you do.

With that, I have just a I have a few questions. Just to follow up on Councilmember Gutierrez's question, I think sort of what I was hearing is with that $15 million plus in additional resources, I know in your testimony you said it looks like it will support programs and services, legal services, et cetera. I guess I'm curious how much of that will actually flow to CBOs and the providers in the family justice centers versus sort of like administrative and centralized costs?

I was like, of that $15.7 million, all of it is for programs that are contracted programs. So— Love to hear that. And I believe you said this in your testimony, and I believe it was asked out in questions, but I just want to flush it out entirely. For CBOs and for providers who are concerned that maybe this merger would lead to a decrease in their funding, if a contractor or a provider is currently funded by NGBV, Will they see any decrease in their funding as a result of this merger directly?

We are not currently decreasing any funding. We are only in the space of increasing funding. Again, love to hear it. Just wanted to flush it out for folks. And then for providers and for CBOs, again, who might be concerned that the merger would lead to sort of confusion about who to reach out to or that would lead to a lack of access to the NGBV staff and the support that they've provided in the past, the past.

Can you confirm that they will have just as easy of a right of access to the office as they've had in the past? Absolutely. All of our staff from the frontline to leadership continues to work directly with their partners. We— I would encourage everyone to continue to reach out to the people that they have been working with.

They are also welcome to reach out to myself should they like. We're just an additional point of access We work extremely closely with each other. We sit 22 feet from each other. We're operating and continuing to build to a real office. And so absolutely, we want to assure everyone that they will have the access. And to the earlier point, if there are any issues with access that are being raised, please let us know.

We'd love to address. And then, sorry, one more thing. With regard to the Crime Victims Assistance Program RFP, what work is going to be done to see that the folks who are placed in those precincts are sort of working with the NYPD and the precincts in a way that is productive and collaborative and actually integrative versus as sort of an outside siloed worker.

Yeah, that is definitely, you know, part of what NGBV has been doing since we sort of started, you know, administering CVAP as a contract. And so we will continue to do that in terms of like bridging the, you know, at PD, making sure we have the right relationships with folks that are senior enough to move a thing.

You know, we have really close relationships with the folks that do the domestic and gender-based violence work. And we're working on getting, you know, the CVAP advocates the support they need at the precinct level as well. So we're here and we really hope to continue playing an active role in making sure that that relationship is working the way we think it should.

And that won't change as a result of the merger into the Office of Community Services? It won't. You know, just to give you like a really, really small example of a win recently is we got PD to put up posters that had information about CVAP advocates in the precinct. And so the program had been operating for 10 years without posters saying, here's somebody you can talk to.

And that's just, you know, so I think like that is a success that we were able to help coordinate with the contracted provider, with NYPD, and with NJPB staff to really make that happen. And so I think that's, you know, it's small things like that that sometimes make the difference. Definitely. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Chair. Thank you, Councilmember.

I'm just going to jump in on a few more questions before we get to public testimony. testimony. In terms of contracting, what is the future of the Family Justice Centers currently operated by Safe Horizons? So the FJCs, which are operated by NGBV, actually Safe Horizons is a contracted provider at Manhattan for a few services. We have 10 different contracted providers.

So far, you know, we're still no change in that service. I think our only hope is to continue expanding because, again, what we continue to see is we are seeing you know, tens of thousands of visits a year on your, you know, 63,000 visits annually. And what we are seeing is that the people that we're serving have higher levels of need.

And so I think when I think about my role and NGPV's role, it's like, how do we make sure that our providers doing this work are better resourced to do this work, which is getting more and more challenging due to the, you know, the circumstances that we find ourselves in federally, especially. And how will the OCS ensure that small community-based organizations that are often the only providers able to offer services in specific languages or particular cultural communities not experience a lapse in any of their funding during the transition?

This is a core concern of the transition that we're ensuring to address, working to address. We want to make sure that when we do ultimately move contracts over, that we have the structures in place already and that that structure has been in place for weeks, months building up so that we can transition without any gaps in payment.

We want to ensure that all of our providers, but we know it's especially crucial for our smaller providers who can't float while there's a payment gap, that we are doing that work. And that's crucial for NGBV's work. That's crucial for the work of the Office of Neighborhood Safety, which works with very small providers, Office of Prevention of Hate Crimes.

All of our office really does attempt to work with both small, culturally specific organizations that are deeply embedded in their community, as well as some of the— our larger service providers who can cover more ground. We are very, very focused on ensuring that that does not become an issue. And is that also connected to the work that you're doing to having an internal contracted database where we're hoping payments and that structure continue on for a smoother transition?

Absolutely. That's part of the work of building out our own contracting function internal to OCS, and we'll do that— we're aiming to do that in such a way that we can have as effective a contracting shop as possible. And I'll say that this is another thing that we're sort of doing, you know, with other city agencies that are involved in this process, right, as we think about what this will take and launching, you know, a coordinated working group to really figure out what the steps are.

And I think, you know, for providers that are our providers, we will do our best to be in communication with you. Please reach out and ask questions, right, because I think that's also the other piece is as this happens, how are we communicating the steps over and over again? And I will just add to that that Commissioner Sethi is the person on the team who is managing the working group to build— to support this build-out with other agencies.

So that focus on domestic gender-based violence is front and center there. Great.

Um, just wanted to touch base back on, um, what Councilmember Gutierrez was, was tapping on with the budget. Can I get a better idea? I know in the testimony you provided, you stated the budget is $15.7 million, and that is larger than budgets we've received in the past. Do we know what the total budget is? Is that the total budget?

No, no, NGBV's total budget for FY27 is now $89 million. $89 million. Which is, you know, um, yeah, which is, which is, you know, increased significantly, um, since 2022. $89 million. $89 million. And for FY27, you're saying it's over $89 million? $89.1 million, right? And, um, we can, we can provide a breakdown. Yeah, I would really appreciate that just because I, like, I'm looking through the testimony, I see the $15.7 million.

I'm not a mathematician. That's in new funding. So That's right. Okay. Because I'm, you know, I'm seeing some parts of the budget in the testimony here that are like expanding Home Plus to $4.3 million, annual investment of $3.9 million at the family justice centers. I'm trying to differentiate what is the— what are the differences between where some of these like legal services or other services are not directly housed under either OCS or NGBV's budget specifically, and are they across— different other investments, or what is the breakdown?

I would love to receive that after the fact so we can get a better idea. Yeah, we can absolutely do the breakdown. We can definitely give the breakdown. That $15.7 million went entirely to NGBV and to services supported by or overseen by NGBV, and that's part of the overall $89 million. Yeah, and our $89 million, I think, you know, just off the top of my head, it's somewhere around like $7 or $8 million is staff.

It's, you know, and then the rest is all contracted programming and discretionary council contracts. And so the $15.7 was an increase from FY26? Yes, in programmatic funding, in contracted programs. Right, not operational. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Would love the breakdown.

And then just a couple of few additional questions. How will OCS facilitate relationships between domestic and gender-based violence organizations and other key partners, including violence interrupter programs and gun violence prevention organizations? That's a great question. And that's something that we are doing now and that we intend to continue to build out a variety of ways of doing that work.

I think it will happen in a number of ways. Part of it is as the team grows into a more cohesive team across the office and they are sharing best practices, sharing ways of working, that they will naturally also be bringing their partners with them. Other ways that we are doing that is we, of course, have existing advisory councils.

I anticipate that as we continue to expand, we'll have existing ways to bring together our providers in other advisory bodies, meetings, and we'll work to include a range of different providers. We are also, as we build out new initiatives around public safety, one of the focuses of that work is to think about what are initiatives that address multiple different forms of violence, and so how do we do that in a comprehensive way?

One of the lovely things about the Family Justice Center is it's their comprehensive— it's a comprehensive approach to addressing domestic and gender-based violence. It has lots of different providers embedded within it. I could imagine models like that happening in different spaces across our work, including providers in the domestic and gender-based violence space, the gun violence space, the hate crimes prevention space.

This is not me saying a new program. This is just me saying how I imagine that as we build out, we will continue to ensure that we're pulling on the right people to provide a more holistic approach to this really challenging issue. Yeah. No, and I'll say, I think, you know, one of the things we talk about all the time, right, is like, is like one of the beautiful things about even bringing the teams together and the orgs together and doing kind of like cross-training work is really understanding what people do that's different in a way that you don't always, right?

And I think even as Commissioner Delaney Brumsey and I talk, like, one of the things we want to avoid is trying to get everybody to be experts in everything. We don't actually need that. We need people to be good at the things that they do. And then figure out how to refer and cross-refer and build together, which, again, as Commissioner mentioned, is really the model of the FJCs, right?

It's like we have legal staff that do legal services and mental health staff do mental health services, and they don't try and do the same thing, right? And that's kind of what we want to try and build on is that true collaboration where people hold their own piece and understand and respect sort of how they connect to the other work.

Yeah, I appreciate that. I think a lot of the questions that have risen for me during this process is like, how are we talking about this work that involves poverty and those structures that we have throughout our city? Even the intersection of domestic violence and homelessness across New York. How are— how will OCS address some of those issues in collaboration with or, you know, through NGBV?

And just wanting to make sure that we understand what the leading causes are. We understand we're trying to create— a comprehensive approach, but how are we going to ensure that that is actually happening, you know, under this larger umbrella? That's a great question. That is the work, figuring out how do we ensure that we're building an infrastructure that prevents harm, that responds to people in the aftermath of really terrible harm, that supports them in the long term.

That not only means focusing on the individual, it means focusing on the places they live, the social structures that they're embedded in, finding ways to ensure that we are addressing those kind of underlying drivers or the social determinants of health, the way I think about it, underlying drivers of violence. And that's a core principle of how I approach this work.

I think what's been nice is that feels like a very core principle for how the commissioner approaches this work. And so I can't tell you the exact how, other than we do have some programs that acknowledge this, you know, that focus on providing flexible funding to people, to focus on getting them emergency housing. But that is the absolute work of this office.

I appreciate that. I don't have any other additional questions.

Okay, with that, this panel is now excused. Thank you. I am going to move and open up for public testimony, and the room is packed. So I want to remind members of the public that this is a government proceeding and that decorum shall be observed at all times. Members of the public shall remain silent unless called upon to testify.

All testimony must be relevant to today's hearing on examining the restructure of the mayor's office to end domestic and gender-based violence under the Office of Community Safety. If remarks stray from the subject matter, speakers will be reminded of the topic and asked to refocus their comments by me. Thank you, Mayor. The witness table is reserved for people who wish to testify.

No video recording or photography is allowed from the witness table. Further, members of the public may not present audio or video recordings as testimony, but may submit transcripts of such recordings to the sergeant-at-arms for inclusion in the hearing recording. If you wish to speak at today's hearing, please fill out the appearance slip with the sergeant-at-arms and wait to be recognized.

When recognized, you will have 2 minutes to speak on today's oversight topic and/or or pieces of legislation. If you have a written statement or additional written testimony you wish to submit for the record, please provide us a copy of that testimony to the sergeant-at-arms. You may also email written testimony to testimony@council.nyc.gov within 72 hours of this hearing.

Audio and video recordings will not be accepted. I'll now call the first panel. Good morning. Alina Victor, Alina Victor, Liz Roberts, Judy Kluger, Maritza Rico, Rosanna Conforme Camposano, and Iman Gord. Do you have copies of the testimony? Yes, we have. Okay. You may begin when ready. I usually just prefer to go down the row.

Chairperson Farias and the members of the Committee on Women and Gender Equity, my name is Dr. Rosana Conforme Campuzano, and I'm the Deputy Executive Director of Programs at the Violence Intervention Program, also known as VIP. VIP is a member of the NGBV Advisory Council and is the only organization in New York City led by and for Latina survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

With a mission to end abuse. Every year we field over 5,000 calls to our helpline, and our culturally specific programs serve over 3,500 survivors and children. We mainly serve single immigrant mothers of color, many living on less than $15,000 a year. Many survivors in our communities face economic and cultural barriers and distrust law enforcement, making it harder for them to report gender-based violence.

That's why VIP launched a restorative justice program to offer a different path for survivors, a path rooted in community accountability, healing, and repair beyond the carceral system. For this reason, we were thrilled to hear Mayor Mondani's announcement of the Office of Community Safety because his vision reflects what survivors and community organizations long called for, which is a shift away from overreliance on law enforcement as a primary response to interpersonal and community violence.

We deeply believe that placing NGVV with OCS can lead to innovative community strategies and elevate survivor leadership. But survivors and organizations they trust must help shape the work from the start. Community safety cannot be built for survivors without survivors at the table. So we urge City Council and administration to include survivor voices and organizations like VAP in OCS strategy planning and to give NGBV the resources, support, and leadership role needed so that OCS can achieve its ambitious goal.

As Domestic Violence Awareness Month begins tomorrow, we invite Mayor Manzani, Deputy Mayor Francois, and the leadership at OCS to spotlight this issue. We ask the mayor to use his significant media presence to showcase the administration's stance against gender-based violence and to uplift NGBV as a mission-critical part of OCS. VIP is excited, ready, and willing to partner with the administration and City Council to create the answers that survivors need and deserve.

Thank you very much.

Good morning. My name is— If you can move the microphone to you. Yep, perfect. Good morning. My name is Judy Harris Kluger, and I am the CEO of Sanctuary for Families, New York's largest provider of comprehensive services dedicated exclusively to survivors of domestic violence, human trafficking, and related forms of gender-based violence. Thank you, Chair Farias, and the Committee on Women and Equity for convening this hearing and the opportunity to testify here.

Gender-based violence is not a secondary issue that can be absorbed in a broader public safety portfolio. It is a complex and distinct crisis that touches nearly every part of city government, including housing, homelessness, poverty, childcare, public health, criminal justice, immigration, and economic security. More than 1 in 5 families in the shelter system identified domestic violence as the reason that they entered shelter.

Addressing a crisis of this scope requires a dedicated office with the authority expertise, visibility, and accountability to coordinate the city's response across agencies and to ensure that survivors remain a clear priority. For that reason, we are deeply concerned by the decision to place NGBV within the Office of Community Safety with a diminishing status. Survivor advocates were only belatedly included in the mayor's transition committee and not at all in the subsequent planning discussion around this change.

And the abrupt announcement under EO 15 in March came as a surprise to the field. Subsuming NGBV within a larger office risks diluting its mission and obscuring responsibility of who in the administration is addressing the need of survivors. A standalone office gives gender-based violence a visible place in city government and creates a clear point of leadership for services, survivors, service providers, agencies, and the public.

It can set a citywide strategy, coordinate directly with agencies whose policies affect survivors, identify gaps in services, and elevate urgent funding needs. Addressing gender-based violence through a trauma-informed, culturally responsive policy shaped by survivors and experienced advocates— these issues intersect directly with public safety, but they cannot be addressed solely through a general public safety framework. Moving forward, we stand ready to work with Deputy Mayor Francois and Community Safety Commissioner Delaney Brumsey.

We appreciate the commitment that the Deputy Mayor will join quarterly advisory council meetings to hear from advocates and track progress. Tomorrow, October 1st, marks the beginning of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and I share with my colleague on the right that this is an opportunity for the mayor to affirm that ending gender-based violence is a core city priority. priority.

We welcome the administration's recent investments and commitments, but programs and funding require a durable governmental structure to coordinate implementation, measure progress, and ensure accountability. We therefore urge the administration to restore and maintain a standalone office with sufficient resources, authority, and direct access to senior leadership. Preserve NGB's specialized expertise and establish sustained partnership with survivors and advocates. The city structure should reflect the scale and urgency of this crisis.

Thank you for your time and for beginning this important discussion. We look forward to working with the Council and the administration to ensure that New York City maintains dedicated, accountable leadership in gender-based violence. Thank you. Thank you.

If we can just take a pause for one minute, Sergeant, can Can you come hither so I have a question? Thank you. Hi. So just for folks that are going to be testifying, the clock is working, but the sound for the buzzer is not. So the sergeant is going to announce when time is expired. Okay? Okay, great.

And the buzzer is not that effective anyway, to be honest. Okay, you may continue. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Farias, Speaker Menin, members of the committee. My name is Liz Roberts. I'm the CEO of Safe Horizon. We're the nation's largest nonprofit victim assistance organization. We're very grateful that the Council is examining this issue so carefully. We will say, having met with both Deputy Mayor Francois and Commissioner Delaney Brumsey, we have found them to be thoughtful leaders with a deep commitment to creating safer communities for all New Yorkers.

We recognize the value of placing NGBV within the Office of Community Safety, but we have many concerns about the way this decision was made and the impact it is having We feel strongly that the leadership of NGBV should not have been downgraded from commissioner to director, and that the new organizational chart adds additional and unnecessary layers between the leadership of this critical office and Deputy Mayor Francois.

I also have serious concerns, having listened to the testimony of the administration a few minutes ago, with what will happen to the staffing, the current staffing of experts at NGBV when their titles change. change, and when their salaries potentially change, as was indicated was possible, I think it will be hard to recruit people with that level of expertise and experience at the lower titles that are envisioned for the office in the future.

And so while the work of NGBB has continued uninterrupted, that may not be the case going forward because of the plan to downgrade titles. I think, you know, our biggest concern has been that this new structure sends a message that addressing domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, other forms of gender-based violence simply isn't a priority for this administration, and the mayor's silence has only added to that message.

So I would be remiss if I fail— oh, 4 seconds. Very quickly, the Crime Victim Assistance Program RFP issued at the beginning of September actually is asking the organization that staffs the precincts to do more work with less funding. It will have a very serious impact on the level of staffing coverage and responsiveness that the CVAP program can provide to people who have reached out to the police for assistance.

We were reaching 50,000 people before the Adams administration's PEG. That went down to 40,000 because of the PEG. It will go down even more because of this RFP. It adds new requirements while reducing the funding for the precinct-based advocate in a very significant way. And we think that— we've asked the administration to reconsider, and we think that the council should look more closely at that issue as well.

Thank you.

Thank you. Hi, good morning. My name is Alina Victor. So, sorry, good morning, Chair and members of the committee. My name is Alina Victor. I am the Chief Program Officer at WomanKind. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on restructuring the Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence under the Office of Community Safety. For more than 44 years, Womankind has supported survivors of gender-based violence, particularly immigrant survivors who are often excluded from mainstream services.

We serve nearly 3,000 survivors annually in 18 languages. As the committee evaluates this restructuring, we urge you to begin with a simple standard standard. Success should be measured by its impact on the most affected by violence. We recognize the opportunities this transition presents. Survivors do not experience violence in isolation. Survivors' experiences are inherently intersectional. Many navigating poverty, housing instability, mental health challenges, discrimination, immigration-related barriers, and language access challenges while also holding multiple identities that shape how they experience violence, access support, and move forward towards safety and healing.

A more coordinated approach to safety, healing, and stability that truly sees and hears a survivor's experience is important. Culturally specific organizations must remain central to this work. Led by and accountable to the communities they serve, they are the— they center the people historically excluded from mainstream spaces. Spaces, and build on cultural traditions, lived experiences, and community strengths to help survivors heal and thrive.

Organizations like Womankind bring trusted relationships built over decades. We serve as bridges between communities and systems, elevating the voices of survivors whose experiences are often absent from policy conversations. We exist to serve survivors, confront violence at its root, and build a future free from violence in a way that honors, strengthens, and uplifts cultures and communities we call home.

As New York City develops a broader vision for community safety, culturally specific organizations should not be consulted at the end of the process. We should be engaged as meaningful partners from the beginning to help shape policies and solutions to reflect the realities of the most impacted communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Farías, and members of the Committee on Women and Gender Equity, for the opportunity. My name is Maritza Rico, and I am the Policy and Advocacy Manager at New Destiny Housing. New Destiny provides permanent housing for survivors of domestic violence to break the cycle of abuse and homelessness. We develop and operate supportive housing for survivors and their families, and we provide housing navigation and aftercare, helping survivors find an apartment and the services that keep them stable in it.

We are also a proud member of NGVB's Advisory Council. Council. I want to begin with what NGVB has meant for our work. Our staff are co-located in Family Justice Centers in all 5 boroughs, which are overseen by NGVB. There, we connect survivors to housing resources every day. The daily working relationship has made countless connections to housing possible for New Yorkers who had nowhere else to turn.

NGVB leadership has also been an invaluable partner in fighting for housing subsidies, flexible funds, and other resources survivors tell them they need most. We understand the goal of a more coordinated approach to community safety, and we want this restructuring to succeed. Earlier this year, New Destiny joined our fellow advisory council members in writing to the mayor with our concerns, and we appreciate the administration's response, including Deputy Mayor Francois's commitment to attend our quarterly meetings and the recognition that NGVB and its network of partners are a model for the Office of Community Safety overall.

We ask that this commitment extend to the design of the transition itself, itself, 2 things matter most to us. One, that gender-based violence work retains dedicated senior leadership with real standing at City Hall, someone whose top priority is the tens of thousands of New Yorkers who become homeless each year because of abuse, and the thousands more who need services to survive and heal.

And 2, that the Family Justice Centers and NGVB's role as a front door for survivors are preserved. And New York City has the best-in-class model with impressive quality coordination, and breadth of trauma-informed services available to survivors and their families. The administration's letter— may I please wrap? I'm sorry, I have one more paragraph. The administration's letter rightly acknowledged that more work remains at the intersection of gender-based violence and housing, and I want to close on an example of why we need this attention.

And I thank you and your staff, Dan in particular, for meeting with us about this. NYCHA administers close to 4,800 emergency housing vouchers, including more than 1,000 survivor-led households, and the funding runs out in November. City Hall and NYCHA have done an extraordinary job with limited resources to find options for households losing this federally funded voucher, but about 2,000 households have not yet been matched to any alternatives, and time is running out.

We have been urging the city to use CityFEPs as a solution of last resort, and that moment has arrived because survivors reach safety without passing through DHHS. shelter, some from HRA domestic violence shelters, others directly from fleeing their homes, and they are not eligible for CityFEPs. Inexplicably, eligibility requires a DHS shelter history that an HRA shelter stay does not satisfy.

DSS can fix this administratively by designating NYCHA EHV households as qualifying referrals under the existing category for preventing shelter entry. We would welcome the chance to work through the details with DSS and with this committee. Thank you. committee. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you folks so much. I just have 2 questions for anyone that would like to answer. What are some of the areas the city is not considering when it comes to preventing gender-based violence? It's my first question for anyone. I think there should be a comprehensive prevention plan that's much more expansive and ambitious than what we have in place now.

We should be doing primary prevention of gender-based violence violence at all ages and in all communities, and we simply haven't invested as a city in that. Okay. Any other thoughts? Okay. I would like to add, and I'm going to maybe be, like, repetitive in this, but I think a lot of the times when we're thinking about gender-based violence, we leave culturally specific and silo it into language And that is not the only aspect of services that are needed for immigrant communities.

We are living in a time where immigration services are extremely difficult for a lot of our survivors, and accessing that support, though I know there's limitations because the federal government is involved, it creates other violence opportunities and concerns and contributors within our family dynamics. And those are things that we also have to look at a little bit more closely.

And if I may, one last thing. As I said already, the administration acknowledged that the intersection between housing and domestic violence needs to be addressed a little bit more, and we're always pushing for that, as we all here understand that the top reason for homelessness in New York City is domestic violence. And NGBB has done an incredible job at sort of being our bridge to some of the housing agencies in the city, and we can— we hope that that continues to happen.

Thank you.

And I just want to add as well, one thing I wasn't able to add in the first time because I was trying to stay within 2 minutes. So in truth, we were deeply concerned that gender justice has not been part of the administration's messaging, especially when it comes to the mayor's affordability agenda. We all know that domestic violence is the greatest driver of homelessness in New York City, that gender inequity is a key part of cyclical poverty, and the survivors often feel trapped in abusive relationships because they lack financial resources.

And so I just want to remind everyone that gender justice is economic justice, and New Yorkers deserve policies that recognize this. I would just add one more thing on— survivors need to hear from the administration that this is an important issue, and we haven't heard that since January. Thank you. I appreciate that, and I will elevate all of the messages given to me today.

If there are programs that you've seen really great success at in your organization, can you share what those are and what it would take to expand it and/or advance that said program? Yeah, I'll discuss our work with young boys and teens. That when Liz talks about prevention, the need to send the message when kids are young and that resolving issues should not be with the use of force or control.

And we have a program for young boys and adolescents, as well as a camp that we send kids to that is not funded by any government funding. 5 days in upstate New York, it's called Camp Hope. It's a national model, and it brings young people together to address their trauma, but also build resilience and strength. And, okay.

Thank you. I'll be quick. New Destiny ran an aftercare program alongside our housing navigation services for emergency housing vouchers, and this was privately funded. But we found through this that survivors need a lot more support than is given right now by the city when they are given a housing voucher. Because it's so much to juggle, you know, the housing search, moving costs, childcare, everything that comes along with housing.

So we are big supporters of housing navigation, especially, you know, we specialize in domestic violence survivors, but for everyone, but especially for DV survivors, whether that be like through the MATCH pilot program. So we are big advocates of making that permanent. Yes. And in VIP, one of the things I had mentioned in my testimony was about our restorative justice program.

We developed that program because many of our survivors, I had mentioned before, are afraid to go to the police, and they don't really have a lot of trust in the authorities, basically. So one of the things that we started to do was to survey clients and our survivors specifically on what would be an optional sort of an alternative path.

And so we talked a lot about restorative justice and what that would look like in terms of community circles. And many of our survivors were in. They really wanted to be able to come to some kind of resolution when it came to a person who was causing harm, and even just resolutions within their own family, right? Because that's not just happening with the person who's causing harm as well.

So we've been very successful in the past 3 years being able to do circles and be able to like really hone down and help the survivor heal in a different way without necessarily bringing— becoming— having them become part of a system. So we're continuing to do that work. Of course, funding is a big issue as always. And we would love to be able to have the opportunity to expand that and do much more work around that, around restorative justice.

But of course, funding is a big thing. Thank you. I'm going to go back to CVAT for a moment since I ran out of time. Having advocates in the precincts is a critical way that the city engages survivors of all forms of violence, abuse, and exploitation. It allows us to connect with folks who would not necessarily reach out to the hotline or reach out to a community-based provider, and we hear that all the time.

Our clients have a 95% satisfaction rate with the services that they receive from CVAP in its current form. And so I want to reiterate that it's a mistake to pull resources out of the precincts. At Safe Horizon, we deeply support investments in community-based and culturally specific organizations. I think what needs to happen is to expand the pie, not to damage a successful and effective program in order to make those investments.

Because when it was fully funded, CVAP was able to reach 53,000 survivors a year. It's already been reduced, and this RFP will reduce it further. So I'll stop there. I appreciate the responses today. Thank you so much. Seeing no other questions, the panel Oh, are you— yeah, you know, you are happy to share. Sorry. Sorry. I wanted to talk about our embodiment programming.

So what we call our Pathways to Healing programming. A lot of the work that gender-based violence involves a lot of trauma work, right? And trauma work in working with individuals who either speak English or don't speak English, talking about my experiences can be very, very difficult. And a lot of the times embodiment practices practices allows me to better understand what has happened in my life.

Our practice, Pathways to Healing program, brings in practitioners from all over the country talking about different modalities that our communities have already historically ancestrally used to help in healing practices. And we would love more funding to broaden the range of modalities we offer to really focus the energy on what does healing look like after I've experienced any form of gender-based I appreciate the responses so much, and please share each of these programs and the requests as we move forward towards budget season with my office.

But this panel is now excused. I will call the next panel up, and I will recall from the last panel, just in case it was not heard, Iman Gard or Gord, up to testify, as I have an appearance card in front of me. I'd also like to call up Stephanie Woodbine, Lauren— I'm working with handwriting here, folks— Lauren Schuster, maybe?

S-C-H— Lauren S. That's what it looks like. Angie Martinez. Tanisha Sanders and Angelina Rosado. And apologies for any mispronunciations. Schuster. No, no, it's not. Thank you. 1, 2, 3. So I'm putting them on away unless you are up here already. Again, Stephanie Woodbine, Lauren Schuster, Angie Martinez, Tanisha Sanders and Angelina Rosado. Okay, great. You can begin when ready.

Good morning, Chair Farias and members of the City Council Gender Equity Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to address the council regarding the restructure of the mayor's to end gender-based violence under the Office of Community Safety. My name is Stephanie Woodbine. I co-chair the Advisory Council at NGBV, and I'm a member of NYU Langone Housing and Health Lab Speakers Bureau and Peer Network Cohort 2, serving as a resource for researchers, healthcare providers, and policymakers to better understand topics such as how people lose their housing, experiences with homelessness, and ways to improve systems of care for people facing housing challenges.

The Mayor's Office to End Gender-Based Violence is a base where survivors receive inclusive services and support, not incident-based, while rebuilding their lives after fleeing abuse. With a swipe of a pen, 25 years of meaningful health and human services work was reduced, and a press conference called to announce its demotion as a standalone mayoral office. There was no input for some— from survivors.

It is perceived as a blow to our safety and how we access culturally competent resources in trauma-informed settings. A move to restructure NGBV comes at a time when survivors across the United States continue to receive alarming directives from the federal government. An especially uneasy federal cut is to the EHV program, program created to alleviate the surge in homelessness post-COVID.

Many, many survivors received these vouchers. They will be losing their homes, and very soon. Surely there will be some carve-out for them in the form of a CDFEP's full expansion. But there's also a gap in traditional poverty measures and the actual cost of living in New York City. Robust investments must be made to proven paths of safety for survivors.

Such as direct cash and timely payments of contracts that is imperative to the viability of said paths. Harmful social norms perpetrate gender-based and intimate partner violence. Survivorship is nuanced, and society plays a huge role through education and awareness. Pervaded narratives about survivors will change if the city leads the charge. We have yet to hear from our administration addressing the issue of domestic violence, despite it being a driver of much of the city's most urgent social issues.

And we do fear the demotion of NGBV will cut survivors and partner organizations' direct access to leadership. Invite survivors to the policymaking table. Have us as collaborators on next steps. steps. The intention should be transparent partnership and not the diversion of specialized resources for survivors. Finally, gun violence and hate crimes are highest within the survivor community. Reducing gun violence and increasing safety begins with safety in the home.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. And just a reminder— you're okay. Yes, a reminder for 2 minutes, but also if you want to submit that testimony, any of the additional testimony that's extended, we receive it, we read it to testimony@council.nyc.gov. You have 72 hours after the hearing. You may begin.

Thank you. Good morning, fellow advocates, Chair Farias, and members of the committee. My name is Iman Gad, and I'm the manager of policy and advocacy at Girls for Gender Equity, an organization that works intergenerationally through a Black feminist lens to center the leadership of Black girls and gender-expansive young people of color. As part of our efforts to bring the voices of youth to the forefront of the city, GGE played a vital role in launching the Commission on Gender Equity and has members serving on the Street Harassment Prevention Advisory Board and the NGBV Advisory Council.

I am testifying today on behalf of our organization, our Sisters in Strength youth survivors, and in alignment with the NGBV Advisory Council, where our CEO serves as a member. While there is no denial that addressing GBV is a vital part of community safety, we still hold the fear that the recent restructuring of the mayor's office to end GBV under OCS will deprioritize GBV and ultimately survivors' needs.

We hold this belief because although we have had positive meetings and correspondence from this administration as a collective, we simply are not hearing enough public discourse surrounding the administration's positions and plans to eradicate GBV across the city since assuming office. In order to combat the deprioritization of survivors' needs, we pose 5 recommendations, of which I will read 3 due to time constraints.

First, the Office to End GBV should commit to survivor-centered and survivor-led policymaking and programming and follow this commitment by recruiting and consulting survivors, including youth survivors, to work on these issues. This framework is essential as the city has not made any significant progress towards reducing The city must make— secondly, the city must make timely contract payments to maintain program viability and the survivor safety network.

We also need increased funding to properly respond to more youth survivors and sustain that growth. Third, the mayor should speak out publicly against GBV and create public discourse surrounding the issue, especially as it pertains to community safety. Thank you. Thank you. These recommendations stem from a recent short survey of our fellow ending GBV colleagues following 2 specific communications with the administration.

Was that the 2? Yes. We shared these recommendations to inform a New York City community safety plan, and they responded with their commitments. Our original recommendations to the administration, however, came from a more comprehensive December 2025 survey, which included addressing survivors' unmet needs for permanent housing, cash assistance, and access to affordable immigration related legal support, child care, and services for the person causing harm, as well as culturally specific services.

We hope this council and mayoral administration will consider these suggestions as we envision the future of the office to NGPV and see GGE as a resource throughout this transition, especially when it comes to centering the perspectives of youth survivors. Thank you.

Good morning. I'm I'm sorry, y'all. Good morning, members of our committee. My name is Angelina Rosado. I am not only speaking to you as the co-founder and executive director of Sisters in Purple, but I am speaking to you as a survivor, a survivor who knows what it feels like to need safety while being forced to navigate disconnected systems.

Today I stand beside other survivors facing the same barriers. I know where the systems break because I lived did, and because survivors show us every day what these breaks are. Domestic violence cannot go reorganized without public view, stripped of specialized leadership, and treated as one issue amongst many without clear authority, staffing, funding, and accountability. When the government changed the structure response for survivors' safety, survivors deserve more than just silence.

We deserve to know who's in charge, What resources remain protected, and how is this change going to make us feel safer? As Sisters in Purple, we walk beside survivors duties. We walk beside survivors after they disclose everything. So that means it's including police precincts, family and criminal court, ACS, HRA, emergency shelters, mental health care, employment, education, and long-time healing.

We see survivors getting handed a list instead of a warm connection. We see agencies fail to communicate eligibility rules that don't match the danger, and trusted community organizations excluded when the referrals are made. Fragmentation is not a minor inconvenience. It is for survivors in danger. I understand— we understand that the promise of a whole of a government approach.

Domestic violence is connected to housing instability, poverty, child safety, welfare, mental health, gun violence, and community violence. Coordinating this— coordinating this can save lives. I'm sorry, I'm so nervous, y'all. Okay. Just asking for it to not buzz while you were testifying. You can finish. I'm so sorry, y'all. Don't be nervous. This is a safe space. But coordination without specialized power can create indivisibility.

If NGBV remains under the Office of Community Safety, it must be recognized, fully staffed, and equipped with funding, and make sure that leaders are experts, continue to work with direct decision-makers, and empower the agencies as a whole. New York City— I'm just gonna speak from the heart, I'm not even gonna lie. New York City must really create a system where we're not just responding to domestic violence, right?

Like, we're actually making a pathway for prevention. Sisters in Purple does propose a 12-month domestic violence management system pilot that is built around survivor-led community hubs. This way, it is more than just not having police interaction, because we do understand that survivors always do not want to walk into precincts, and they also don't always want to go to where the services are because they're connected to where family courts are, other court systems that can put fear amongst them while they're trying to receive services.

We ask that— we're not asking the city to pick between domestic violence and community safety. Domestic violence is community safety, and a restructure should not be judged by the new organizational charts or new titles, but it should be judged by whether survivors are safe, help is easy to reach, and agencies are accountable and fewer families experience devastating losses.

I don't want us to wait for another homicide to happen, another public tragedy to happen, or another oversight hearing for government to act. You have the authority, authority right now to demand transparency, protect specialized survivor leadership, and invest in prevention now. Thank you.

I have this for you. Thank you. Perfect. You can begin.

Okay. No, I'm a little nervous. Okay. Breathe. Okay. Peace and blessings, and thank you so much to the committee and Women of Gender Equity. Um, hi everyone, my name is Angie Martinez and I am the Director of Peer Engagement at Sisters in And I also— and I'm also a Voices member and also sitting on the FRC Fatality Committee.

And I say this with pride. I am a proud survivor of domestic violence. Back in 2012, I was kidnapped with my daughter. By the grace of God, I am here today to tell my story. Although I had a great team by my side, I still faced challenges while navigating through the system, which shows how much support support survivors like me need.

I am here today because I know personally what it means to need a system that does more than just respond after someone has been harmed. Survivors need a system that sees us, hears us, protects us, and helps us rebuild our lives again. That restructuring of the mayor's office to end domestic and gender-based violence under the Office of Community Safety makes oversight incredibly important.

Under Executive Order 15, the Office of Community Safety is responsible for coordinating several offices, including NDGBV. While NDGBV continues to have responsibilities related to domestic violence services, policies, agencies coordination, and improving the city's responses, with that reconstruction comes an important responsibility. We must make sure that survivors do not get lost in the structure. Oversight just asks the questions that survivors and community organizations are asking every day.

Are survivors actually receiving services when they really need them? Are our shelters, housing resources, legal services, financial assistance, and safety planning accessible with responsive response? Are survivors from every borough and every community being heard? Are community-based organizations being meaningfully included in decisions and sitting at the table? And most importantly, Are we measuring success by what survivors experience, not simply by what government agencies report?

As a survivor, I understand that asking for help can be one of the hardest moments in a person's life. I was once there. I was once that person. When a survivor reaches out, that may be the moment that they have finally found the courage to say, I need help. We cannot afford for that call to be met with confusion, delays, disconnections in the system. systems, or even death.

I believe survivors must have a seat at the table, not just as people being served, but as partners in shaping the systems designed to serve us. As Sisters in Purple, we are committed to making sure survivors' voices remain part of this conversation, and this is why we're here today. We need transparency, we need accountability, we need meaningful community engagement, we need resources to follow the needs of survivors, because reconstruction in office is about more than just changing where an agency starts— sits on organizational charts.

It's about whether a survivor feels safer when they reach out for help. And then I am here today to let you know that we are those survivors. Listen to survivors, include survivors, invest in survivors, and hold the systems accountable for survivors. Thank you all and have a blessed day.

Thank you. Good morning. I am Lauren Schuster, the Chief External Affairs Officer at Urban Resource Institute. I just want to thank my fellow panelists for sharing, using your voices to uplift survivors that we all serve. Thank you, Chair Farias, members of the committee, and staff for holding this important hearing. URI is the largest provider of domestic violence shelter services in the country.

Every night we provide safe housing, sadly, to 4,000 individuals, 65% of whom are children. 25 years after its creation, NGBV remains an essential voice for survivors. That role matters today as much as it did back then. While other violent crime has dropped, domestic violence rates remain relatively unchanged, particularly in Black and Latinx communities in parts of the Bronx and Brooklyn, the decision to move NGBV into the Office of Community Safety and to change its leadership was announced without consultation.

That has really defined our partnership over the past 2-plus decades, and for a field that's built on trauma-informed practice with transparency and partnership at its very core, that absence of consultation was felt acutely by the providers in the survivor community that we all serve. Decisions of this magnitude should be made in the future with survivors and providers at the center.

I will say that since then, Deputy Mayor Francois and Commissioner Delaney Brumsey have engaged with us in an incredibly collaborative manner. They visited URI's Midtown office and just yesterday did a walkthrough of the Bronx FJC. URI is the contract holder there. We're encouraged to hear that they're planning a provider advisory council and that they are engaging in an inclusive strategic planning process.

We believe that NGBV, regardless of where it falls in the org chart, must continue to play a pivotal role in coordinating the services, the supports that survivors access when they are in crisis and in need of help. That is the role that they have played and must continue to play. At the same time, we're grateful for the investments that were made in the budget.

This most recent budget funding was increased to the FJCs, to youth violence prevention, to immigrant legal services. These are all critical investments for survivors, the families that rely on them, and the communities that they live in. I mean, we're really just looking for increased partnership on these and so many more issues. I want to highlight Just in closing, I know I went way over, and I apologize.

Prevention. We speak so much about domestic violence after a horrible situation happens that's in the headlines. There's a story of a family annihilation. We can and should be investing in prevention, because there are ways to stop violence before it starts, to identify and interrupt those cycles of violence, both with youth intervention, and also with people who have caused harm.

And so that is my silver lining. Thank you. box, and I appreciate this. Thank you so much. Of course.

Um, just a question for the providers on the table, same as I asked in the previous panel: what are some areas the city's not considering when it comes to preventing gender-based violence? I know some folks have raised some things, but are there things that are hyper-specific to the work that you're doing? I would love to hear some of that work.

I would love to echo the sentiment that was just shared, where prevention really does start with educating our young people. And so more, more programming across the board needs to be done because as youth, they're already disempowered. Sometimes the gender-based violence they are experiencing is at home and they're not empowered enough to even speak about it. There is no third spaces for them.

And so, for example, as Girls for Gender Equity, we do serve as a third space for young people, and that is something that is rare in their lives. But from there, they have to learn to speak about these experiences and learn about them and understand maybe what even is going on to be able to identify it as gender-based violence. violence.

And so through our model of— we use restorative justice, healing justice, a social work model, and also more recently have been more invested in contributing to the research that goes into allowing young people to dive into the issues that they are seeing in their lives, be able to explore it themselves, and understand what solutions they can come up with through that.

That is a huge part of prevention. Also, mental health support is a huge aspect of being able to provide young people with the resources they need to be able to work through the gender-based violence that they are experiencing in their lives, seeing families experience, their friends experience, um, and immigration supports as well, because that is adding a lot more barriers.

And ultimately, this issue needs sustainable funding because this isn't a one-time issue, and it needs— for real structural change We need sustainable funding. I just have a comment regarding, as from a survivor perspective, something that the city needs to invest in. It's helping children of survivors, especially when they enter the carceral system. That's important. My son has just been sentenced to 25 years.

And I should have gotten just a little bit more. My family should have gotten a little bit more of what we needed. But that is definitely one place where we need coordination. And now that there's this whole issue of domestic violence and community safety, it's gun violence related. Why he's where he's at right now. I was forced to stay in New York because I was in custodial court for 13 years.

And that impacted my son's development. Me being in survival mode, my children were right there. Economic instability, homelessness, you name it, ACS used as a tool of control. And the court, with their court-ordered surveillance and coercive control, that was legal. So these are certain conversations that survivors need to have out in the open. Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that.

My follow-up question to the survivors that are providing testimony today was, what are some maybe helpful experiences you've had navigating the system, but also where are the points of contention or points of where we have missteps and we're missing. So I appreciate you uplifting that. If anybody else wants to add as well, they can. Yeah, I think I want to add to your first question when we're talking about what is missing and what is not really working in reality is, right, leaning in onto prevention, right?

Making sure that we're just not always focused on survivors and putting burdens on survivors, right? But shifting that energy to the people that are actually causing the harm, right? Actually getting them the proper support and intervention that they need from a holistic standpoint. Um, so as Sisters in Purple, we actually have an initiative called Brothers in Purple.

And our brothers, you know, that comes from a space with people who have self-identified as people that have caused harm and are choosing, again, self-voluntary are choosing to seek further support and assistance, to no longer have the mentality of what they believed was normal, right? Hurt people hurt people, and that's the reality. And people that cause harm are people that have had harm caused to them, right?

So when we talk about preventive measures, right, investing— we work with a lot of our CMS organizations, our gun violence prevention, and working within that system is also helping training them, right? Helping training them them as survivor-led organizations, we believe that we have the best training, right? We are the survivors. They learn domestic violence differently when it comes from a survivor-led organization.

And that's what we have been proving. We have worked with our CMS and also our reentry programs. We have also worked with them in training their staff on how to identify domestic violence, not just for the community that they're serving, but also the people that they are employing. You know, just as recently, we just had a survivor of domestic violence who worked at a domestic violence shelter in Staten Island who was murdered pregnant in Queens.

This happened in June. And yet it is still quiet and we have not heard anything. And to know that the person that caused the harm who is in question is a person who served as a gun violence preventer. Right? And the fact that staff is not trained properly, or do they have the supportive resources for them to deal with whatever they are leaving at the door when they enter that organization, right?

People still go home and people still have their own traumas that they're also dealing with on top of asking them to support and protect our community, right? They also are their own community, and they also need that support there too. Oh, that was on the whole time. I just wanted to uplift what you said, hurt people hurt people.

You or I and many of the other providers here in this room operate abusive partner intervention programs where we provide accountability-based trauma-informed programming to people who have caused harm. For so long, we have relied on survivors to be responsible for ending their own violence without engaging the harming parties in that. And it is true that people who have caused harm experienced harm.

Almost 80% in research that we've done of people who have caused harm have experienced some sort of trauma prior to that. URI's APHIP program was recently evaluated by the Urban Institute, and it found that it was a promising practice, and it had significant impact on recidivism rates over a 12-month period out of— after successful program completion. And so it is a real investing in programs programs that work with people who cause harm has the potential to increase safety for survivors and reduce recidivism so that the city's costs also go down in the long run.

And so I cannot agree more with all of the points that you made. Thank you. And in that same vein, I'd like to also relate how this pertains again to young people and the education that they receive in schools, because the disciplinary measures that they have to deal with within schools do reflect the carceral system, and it all starts there.

And sometimes teachers experience a young person who they write off as troubled, usually traumatized. Maybe it's experiencing gender-based violence among a plethora of other issues. Again, mental health is a huge part of it. And what happens is they are usually pushed out of school, suspended, taken out of class, ultimately just taken out of the, like, the safety of school, which should be a place where they can learn to understand themselves, the experiences that they are going through, and know how to navigate them.

So restorative justice within schools is a huge part also of ending gender-based violence. If I just may add about youth, so Sisters in Purple, we have Future Purple Nation, which is our youth programming where we work with the schools. We come into schools, and a lot of it is teachers themselves, city, their guidance counselors, you know, parent coordinators reaching out to us to make sure, as well as our youth organizations reaching out to us to not just talk about teen dating violence, which is in the month of February.

But also, these are— a lot of these kids, like Stephanie said, have experienced domestic violence in their households, right? So going to the shelters and working with the young people who experience domestic violence, but help them understand, I was 15 years old when I entered a domestic violence relationship. I had no idea that I was even in one, right?

So understanding those signs, because the people that came before me in my generation, they weren't allowed to talk about their domestic Those stories weren't allowed to be told. As we see how old VAWA is, even just the Protection Act Against Violence on Women, right? My grandmother is in her 70s. She had no protection, right? So these conversations were not normalized.

And when we come into community, we make sure that our young people are really engaged. You'd be really surprised how much they care to actually know the information and really absorb it and really implement that in their lives. I'm a mother of 2 children. My daughter's 14. She plays no games when it comes to understanding domestic violence, which also helped her really shape friendships, right, in her life, and how she created boundaries with people.

And these are the things that are very privative to help prevent domestic violence from esca— teen dating violence from escalating into domestic violence. And understanding that our kids are angry, right? They don't have real resources. And when we talk about the reduction of gun violence, right, if we are not addressing domestic violence in these children's households, households, they're going to come outside and they're going to be very angry about things, right?

And they don't know how to channel that. So leaving domestic violence out of the conversation is really detrimental to our children and our future.

I appreciate all the comments shared. Thank you so much. And I have— it came to mind in this, in your responses here, I have a couple bills around consent and consent awareness. I'd love to, as we approach the new year in February, kind of go into schools and continue the conversation with you folks on how we can talk about that in a real way.

I'm seeing no questions. The panel is excused. Thank you so much. Before I call the next panel, I'm just going to make the executive decision here, and I apologize to the 2 previous panels. I'm going to move the time to 3 minutes for public testimony. I feel like I'm allowing a lot of flexibility anyhow. And just so when the buzzer goes off, you know your time is actually done.

I'm trying to be respectful of folks' experiences and what folks are having the strength to come and testify in front of the council, and I want to be respectful of that, but also knowing that I have a hearing right after us at 1:00 with the folks that are present. So if the sergeants can change the clock to 3 minutes, and that will be the cutoff time, I would appreciate that.

Thank you, Councilmember Gutierrez. I would now like to call up Shamara Kelly, Madeline Garcia-Bigelow, Sherry Yvette Barnett, and Mildred Ramos. And I will give one last try at Tanisha Sanders if she's in the room and did not hear me earlier. Thank you. Oh, perfect. Shamara, you can begin. Can you just press your microphone? Oh, sorry. You're okay.

Restart the timer. Sorry, maybe we can— Okay, just to fill some seats, um, Taina Bien-Aimé and Luz Katari or Luz Figueroa. If you can also come up, just because we have empty seats. You can begin when ready.

Good afternoon. My name is Shamara Kelly. I am the co-founder of Sisters in Purple. I'm here today as a community organizer with Voices of Women Organizing Project. The Voices of Women is a, is a survivor-led organization that works on systemic change for survivors. I want to speak to something that continues to be missing from the conversation about community safety: the lives of Black women survivors.

Whether domestic violence is addressed through NGBV, the Office of Community Safety, or both, Black women survivors tend to fall through the cracks. With regard to the restructuring of NGBV, survivors and survivor-led organizations were not included in any conversations. Leading up to or during the act of restructuring of NGBV. So we question what the difference is. What active actions is the Office of Community Safety going to take to protect Black women from violence?

We are watching Black women continue to lose their lives to violence, and too often there is no public urgency, visibility, or collective response. Office of Community Safety seems more focused on community violence violence. We cannot build domestic violence systems and community safety strategies that respond to some forms of violence while remaining silent when violence happens within our homes, families, and relationships, and communities.

Part of my concern is the lack of communication from the Office of Community Safety and NGBV. We do not know what this restructuring means for survivors or how they are addressing longstanding issues with the city's response to domestic violence. There just has not been enough communication about what this new structure actually means for domestic violence survivors. We are organizing for full survivor involvement in implementing policies and procedures that impact survivors.

We should not have to organize for this. It should be a given that this will happen. Survivors come to the table with solutions. We should be compensated for their time and certainly deserve more than a statement or condolences after a tragedy. And our communities deserve leadership that is willing to speak even when speaking is uncomfortable. And someone— as someone who works directly with survivors and communities, I know that silence does not make us safer.

Survivors need to feel protected and heard.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair, members of the Committee on Women and Gender Equity. My name is Mildred Ramos. I'm an executive leader in nonprofit operations and human services, coming forward today as a survivor and independent advocate to address systemic gaps in survivor protection and youth human trafficking oversight, proof that lived experience must lead policy. In 1987, as a 16-year-old girl, I was abducted in Washington Heights, forced into 2 separate apartments inside the building. building, physically attacked, beaten, and lost consciousness several times while being subjected to severe sexual violence by an adult Dominican man, an adult Jamaican man, a Colombian boy, and a group of diverse boys forced to participate under their direction.

I was examined at North Central Bronx Hospital and reported the crime to the 46th Precinct. Despite formal records, New York City and New York State OCFS failed to act. Case stalling permitted me to be trafficked to Arecibo, Puerto Rico, without legal advocacy, tracking, or state care, housed solely by a minor friend. Unaddressed catastrophic trauma permanently damaged my central nervous system, causing late-onset fibromyalgia with somatic pain.

Rather than protection, I faced decades of institutional lawfare Systemic blackballing has left me completely without an income for 6 years. During a recent Newark emergency, first responders misidentified my trauma as noncompliance. I was forced into a hospital, an experience that deeply retraumatized me. The second time I was forced to go, I do not recall everything that happened.

I remember walking in, being put on an IV, and later waking up to speak with a doctor on a screen. I was discharged alone to spend Thanksgiving dinner isolated in my home, ultimately resulting in the total loss of my family home and stability. In Puerto Rico, one-third of the population lives with fibromyalgia, as reported by El Diario de Puerto Rico, amid severe medical shortages.

And I deeply worry that the people living there will face even worse conditions than what I have endured. These are the untold stories of Puerto where our children are sold into modern-day slavery and our people left without healthcare while traffickers accelerate gentrification and politicians are silenced by corruption. I demand 5 immediate actions. Extradition and prosecution: locate, extradite, and prosecute my abusers, closing jurisdictional loopholes.

Independent oversight commission: establish a multi-agency body with permanent Paid seats for survivors with lived experience. Mandatory cross-border tracking. Link New York City ACS, New York State OCFS, Newark GCPMP, and Puerto Rico Departamento de la Familia. First responder CNS training. Require citywide training on central nervous system trauma so somatic pain is met with stabilization, not forced hospitalization or hostility.

Housing and economic support. Eliminate administrative barriers to guarantee housing stability and economic recovery pathways. Without survivors leading oversight, institutions use blackballing and lawfare to protect themselves while perpetrators walk free. Establish this commission, open doors for housing and recovery, and extradite my abusers. Thank you for allowing me to testify today. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Farias and members of the committee. Thank you so much for holding this hearing. My name is Madeline Garcia-Bigelow. I'm the founder and managing director of the Domestic Violence Project housed at the Urban Justice Center. I have worked on behalf of survivors for 33 years as a DV prosecutor in the Bronx, a civil attorney, and now as a founder.

In the 8 months of this administration, at least 6 high-profile domestic violence homicides have taken place in New York City: Lavay Williams, Angelique Apostol, Erica Caldwell, Yesenia Hall, Maria Ines Granda, and Dana Foley. And yet, we have not heard the mayor condemn domestic violence clearly and unequivocally. unequivocally, even after each of these homicides. New York City has spent more than a quarter century building a dedicated survivor-centered system.

In 2001, through city charter, the Mayor's Office to Combat Domestic Violence was created, and then in 2018, the mission was expanded and it was renamed NGBV. But these aren't simply titles. They embody and symbolize years of advocacy, of conversation, and education led by survivors and providers. It was built with survivors and providers. And even though it collaborates really closely with law enforcement and the courts, it isn't— it is decidedly distinct from that.

Executive Order 15 folded that work into the Office of Community Safety. Consolidation in and of itself is not a disqualifier, but DV is not interchangeable with gun violence interruption or general mental health response. Survivors have distinct safety planning needs. They have distinct confidentiality protections and a justified wariness of anything that looks like general public safety. During July's quarterly crime stats press conference, Commissioner Tisch noted a 6% reduction in major crimes, but pointed out that felony assaults remained flat, with DV accounting for 42% of those assaults. results.

Since the executive order, providers and survivors have not been included in any real conversation about what comes next. So when restructuring happens in silence, survivors cannot tell whether a service still exists, advocates can't make accurate referrals, and decades of expertise risk being deprioritized. And the need is growing. Since January, in the 8 months of this administration, my team of 23 has opened 2,069 new cases.

Our warm line has answered 1,267 calls, more than all the calls received in 2025. Over 65% of our clients are immigrants, and most of them are undocumented. In the most recent issue of City and State, asked about the DSA's strong showing in the June primaries, the mayor said his most important goal is delivering for New workers, that he is less interested in narrowing who he works with than in expanding who can sit across the table from.

So we take him at his word. Mayor Mondani, invite us to the table. We ask this council to use its oversight authority to secure a commitment to a survivor-centered, survivor-led policymaking process with an actual real seat at the table for the survivors and the providers. Again, thank you for holding this hearing.

Good afternoon, Council. My name is Luz Katari. I am chairwoman of Boricua Power. I am a 40-year-old Boricua mother, survivor, and advocate from Spanish Harbor. I come to you today as a mother and a survivor and as a leader of families who depend on the very office you are reorganizing and moving. You are making the decision about survivors without survivors in the room.

On paper, you call moving NGBV into the larger Office of Community Safety Coordination. To us, it feels like erasure. When you move a program, you don't just move an org chart, you move someone's lifeline. And that erasure is already happening. All the programs that were put in place to keep survivors and our families alive— flexible grants for rent, housing help, legal advocacy, food, clothing, and supplies for our children— on paper, they exist.

But when you actually need them, they feel nonexistent. They are being slowly removed, defunded, or shuffled into other offices where no one is accountable. No one is asking what happens to a mother and her children when that lifeline disappears. This is what that failure looks like in my life. I did everything we were told to do. I have photos of the abuse, police reports, real-time voicemails threatening my life saved on my phone.

My lawyer wouldn't present that evidence. The judge did not ask for Orders of protection were issued, and they were not enforced. There were no consequences, and now 4 of my 5 children live with the person who hurt us fully. When I sought emergency housing, I was told I was a low priority because he was no longer in the home on paper.

When I said I was still being threatened, I was told he seemed like he calmed down now. I'm sorry. I stood in a precinct playing death threats of real time out loud for officers and was told to go home and call if he showed up. He did show up and nothing was done to him. When I turned to the Family Justice Center, the revolving door continued.

For almost a year, I have been assigned and reassigned to multiple case managers. Each one promised help with the basic Food insecurity, clothing, supplies for my child, and most importantly, housing stability. My emergency housing voucher is being removed from the Section 8 program. I need to transition to a new voucher to keep a roof over me and my 20-month-old daughter's head.

For months, I have asked for help applying. It took forever for someone to finally sit with me. Then at the last minute, I was told there were steps I personally had to take. Take, steps that could have cost me my eligibility and my spot, steps no one told me about until it was almost too late. At the same time this is happening, Section 8 placed multiple rent abatements on my apartment.

Management left that balance as my responsibility. I am now facing eviction for arrears that are not my fault. I beg to access the grants for family Justice advertises for exactly this. I emailed, texted, and called every case manager they ever assigned me and their supervisors, and it was silent. When someone finally called back, I was told the grants were gone and that I should have reached out for an update.

I have the receipts, the emails, the texts, the call logs providing I did and proving everything. The system did not answer. I am counting in those 67,733 visits that Family Justice Center says they get. But my daughter and I are one missed grant away from losing our home. A referral slip is not a service. We all know how bad it is out there.

NYPD writes up a quarter million domestic incidents a year. We lose more than 60 New Yorkers a year to domestic violence. violence, half killed by a partner. The hotline rings nearly 100,000 times, and on any given day across this state, over 1,000 survivors are turned away because there is no capacity. But those numbers, which I've included on page for the record, don't show whether a mother actually got help or how long she waited.

So I'm asking the committee to do what survivors need you do. Protect the programs we depend on. Stop quietly removing them. Track real outcomes, not just visits. How long to a lawyer, to therapy, to funds, to stable housing? Audit what you call a service. Preserve NGB's independent and its own director budget and trauma-informed staff who understand coercive control and family court.

And fund consistent, accountable case management. judgment and enforce the court orders you issue. I am not a case number. I am Luz Katari, a mother. The system failed me and my children. Don't let it fail the next family. Thank you.

Sorry, and just before you begin, part of the bills that we're hearing today is exactly for that on the hotline. We need to know the breakdown of the calls and if there's follow-up or not. And if— and so the council, at least on our side, we're trying to figure out different ways on getting that data and actually be actionable, not just another data point that we reference.

Does it turn green? Okay. Hello.

Thank you, Chair Farias and members of the City Council, for this opportunity to testify today. My name is Taina Bien-Aimé. I'm the Executive Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, one of the oldest international organizations dedicated to prevent and end the trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and girls worldwide. We do so through legal advocacy and working with a global survivor leadership network.

We oppose the downgrading of the NGBV Commission and its Commissioner, which is capped vouched as a simple integration under the Office of Community Safety. Gender-based violence is not a simple subset of general crime or community safety. It is a pervasive and grave human rights violation often perpetrated by members of the community, which requires highly specialized expertise, dedicated institutional infrastructure, and targeted investments.

The data in our city reflects the critical need for a standalone and independent NGBV commission and commissioner, whether in cases of intimate partner and domestic violence, sex crimes and rape, which are increasing in New York City, and specifically for, for our organization, the trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation, an acute crisis in New York City that is being largely unaddressed.

Thank you. and whose victims are overwhelmingly women. I'd also like to take a few seconds to thank the survivors on this panel and in this room for your courage and your leadership and for sharing with the city your lived experiences that will hopefully help us develop comprehensive policies to prevent and end gender-based violence. Just on the few testimonies, the searing testimonies we, we heard today of the brave survivors, it is clear that New York City city cannot afford to address gender-based violence, sexual assault, and commercial sexual exploitation as mere footnotes to public safety and municipal budgeting.

Dismantling, weakening, or merging this specialized commission would signal to survivors that their safety and rights are not front and center to the political will of our city. We therefore urge the City of New York to maintain and strengthen the NGBV Commission as a specialized entity headed by a commissioner. And please listen to survivors. Thank you.

Thank you folks so much. I don't have any additional questions because I feel the testimony was very thorough. But if there's anything that anyone would like to raise about a service or experience that you found helpful, that the city— like navigating through the city resources that's good for us to know. But also, I feel like all of you spoke really wonderfully on how your voice can be included in the decision-making process with the administration.

But if there's any last notes, I'm happy to allow some time to hear it. I just want to advocate that the statute of limitations be removed, that there be no deadline on justice. And that when it comes to rape kits, that those are preserved. Thank you. I don't have much because I gave a few recommendations, but it's just that anything that impacts survivors, they need to be included at all times.

That's it. Yes, I hear that. That's why we're having an oversight hearing. Yeah, of course. I think it's been about 15 people that have spoken. And when I was thinking through what is it that we're missing, I think we'll be missing a lot more if OCS continues the way that it's been discussed about today through the Commissioner, because these are all needs that are all diverse.

And making it all one thing or another, or just really focusing on, but we've given $15.7 million, the biggest amount since 2018. That's terrific. Liz Roberts saying the pie needs to be expanded. Yes, all of it is important so that survivors can elect to move forward and have the privilege decide who's going to help us, how do we want to be helped, and if you're not helping me, I can elect to go somewhere else.

But the more we narrow things and make it where we're actually almost infighting for a bucket of money that the way it is defined is through deliverables that don't really have anything to do with the work that's being done or a comprehension of the complexity of it. I will say that one of two— for, in my experience, two buckets of funding that have been exceptionally helpful have been Dove because it does allow you to pivot in ways that other grants simply don't allow.

Like, you have to beg to, can I please use this money instead of MetroCards for this? And the flexible funding that came as a result of COVID that has been continued statewide. And I think that that's what we need. We need a belief in what survivors are saying is their need, and that need isn't stagnant. And privilege is, in many respects, the ability to choose what you want and not lose your foothold.

And I think that this administration Although I hope that they step up, they've made it real clear for 8 months that it's all right, we got this. I mean, we got it. It's under Office of Community Safety. They even recognize that mental health should be a separate division within Office of Community Safety, but not DV? Right. With these stories?

Not DV? I said a few seconds. I said sometimes I'm not truthful. Sorry. Listen, I, I very rarely in my tenure in the council in the middle of a hearing extend the time. That's probably the first time I've ever done that. This is a moment where, um, I, I have an understanding, I think, beyond what I can vocalize of the, the time that's been given to everyone here.

I'm trying to just really in my duty respect Even just the bravery of showing up to testify for survivors means a lot to me because it's the only way that I'm going to have the tools that I need in my toolkit to fight for the things that we need that are coming out of this hearing, that are within these bills that we're hearing today.

And that through numerous conversations I've had, site visits I've made, we're able to do the work together continuously. So I thank everyone. I don't have any additional questions for anyone. Thank you. for this panel. You've— yes, of course you can add. I just wanted to add one last thing about you saying about the bravery. And another part of my situation that's going on that I don't think a lot of maybe the council or even just the organizations know, but there are certain situations where the unthinkable scenarios happen with survivors, and you wouldn't think it's like feasible, possible, or whatever.

But as of right now, I am going through child support, fighting my abuser, only because he wants to incarcerate me and continue his abuse with me, even though I am unable to work at the moment due to his abuse. I have agoraphobia, anxiety, PTSD, and palpitations. And because of that, I can't work because as you saw earlier, I have to travel with someone all the time.

My shakes are bad. I can't stand for too long due to his abuse. I can't be outside in public due to the abuse because to this day he still stalks me. Mentioned him stalking me in child support court, and when I brought it up to my attorney, my attorney told me it had nothing to do with child support.

And situations like that is the problem where they still are are finding ways to abuse us. And when we bring it up in those certain areas, because it doesn't have to do with what we're there for, they don't care about it. And I keep pushing the issue with my lawyer that because of his abuse, I can't work.

So how does he expect me to pay child support for these children if he continues to abuse me? He literally just said he's seen me in the He's stalking my Instagram. He's stalking my Facebook, putting pictures to present in evidence of me. And yet you guys are not doing anything about it. But yet I'm supposed to sit here and let the same man that almost took my life now be the judge of whether I should go to jail or not.

And I think that's one thing we need to change where certain situations, yes, we should have the option to put put people in jail, but not your abuser. Your abuser should never have the option in any scenario to put his victim in jail, no matter what is the reasoning. I appreciate you sharing that with us. I do want to— just my last 2 notes before I excuse you folks.

There are issues that are being elevated in this hearing that are out of the city's jurisdiction that you have my commitment to uplifting to the state officials and to our district attorneys, the folks that are relevant on those jurisdictional matters, whether it's statute of limitations or some of our family court custodial issues. I will absolutely uplift those.

And I'm really happy to hear the expanded Dove funds and the flexibility that it allows. I was a part of the team in my first 4 years in the council to fight for those expanded Dove dollars for council members and the office's impact. impacted. We created a tier system for those that are unfortunately most impacted are receiving more funds to allow our groups flexibility.

So I appreciate hearing that and knowing that, and I will uplift that also to the speakers team and the finance division. But thank you folks for testifying today.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I'd like to call up our next panel before we move on to virtual panelists. I will recall Cheri Yvette Barnett, if you're in the room. Kavita Mehron. And Christopher Johnson. As you folks are coming up to testify, as a reminder, there's 3 minutes to testify, and all testimony must be relevant to today's hearing on examining the restructure of the mayor's office to end domestic and gender-based violence under the Office of Community Safety.

If remarks stray from the subject matters, this Speakers will be reminded of the topic and asked to refocus their comments from myself up here as chair. And if you want to submit any additional testimony or elongated testimony, you can do that within 72 hours at testimony@council.myc.gov. And you may begin when ready.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Chair Farias, and members of the Women and Gender Equity Committee for this opportunity to testify. My name is Skavitha Mehra, and I am the executive director of SAKHI for South Asian Survivors. I'm here today to testify in opposition to the proposed restructuring of the mayor's office to end domestic and gender-based violence, or NGBV.

SAKHI has worked with the South Asian and Indo-Caribbean survivors of gender-based violence in New York City since 1989. And through this work, we have become acutely aware that gender-based violence is the defining crisis in our city. For survivors, it is not an issue that exists in isolation. It affects their ability to access safe housing, economic stability, food security, education, healthcare, and community safety.

That is why the city's response must be strong. coordinated, and centered on survivors. The urgency of this public health matter is reflected in the experience of the communities we serve. Among South Asian American New Yorkers, 85% of women between the ages of 18 to 34 report experiencing sexual assault at least once in their lifetime. 48% of South Asian Americans report experiencing gender-based violence violence, 41% have witnessed domestic violence in their homes, and 25% have experienced child sexual abuse.

Behind each of these numbers is a survivor, a family, and a community. That is why we are deeply concerned about the restructuring that could diminish NGBV's standing and access to decision-making in City Hall. At a time when survivors and services service providers are calling for stronger coordination and greater investment, we should not be creating additional barriers between survivors and institutions responsible for serving them.

A meaningful gender justice movement must be survivor-led. Survivors must have direct and meaningful voice in the policies and systems that affect their lives. They deserve to to be seen, believed, heard, and included in decisions about their communities. A reorganization that buries NGBV deeper in bureaucracy with no constitution sends the opposite message. Saki welcomed Mayor Mamdani to our iftar in March.

We— and we appreciated the opportunity to welcome him in our community. But meaningful engagement with survivors and advocates must extend beyond individual moments. It must be reflected in the structure, authority, and resources of city government. We look forward to building on this engagement with Commissioner Sethi and working together to strengthen support for this important and often overlooked population.

For these reasons, SAKHI urges the City Council to oppose the proposed restructuring of NGBV and to ensure that the office maintains strong and meaningful— a meaningful position in the city, in City Hall, and with the authority and resources necessary to lead coordination citywide in response to gender-based violence. We also urge the city to strengthen its investment in community-based organizations and services provided directly to survivors every day.

Thank you. If we are committed to a safer, more equitable New York City, survivors must not only have their voice, they must also have a meaningful place in decisions that shape their lives. Thank you.

Yeah. Hello, my name is Christopher Leon Johnson. I oppose this proposal and I'm going to explain why. Because we have a mayor, Momdani, that not only when he ran for mayor, he's still mayor to this day, day, he refused to really address the gun violence problem in the city. Second, he refused to really address the domestic violence problem in the city.

And I think everybody knows why. You know why? Because Mamdani is a Muslim. And I'm going to tell you this right now, that the problem with— I'm gonna keep you to topic. This is on topic. This is on topic. The problem— You are straying very, very closely to being off topic. I understand. The problem with this mayor is that he surrounds himself with a lot of abusers that are part of that religion.

So of course he has to cover it up by putting that division— putting— making sure domestic violence gets into the division. That's the truth. He has to make sure that— that's the facts. Let me tell you right now, I think that the city council needs to come and make a statement condemning Um, Islam in general when it comes to domestic violence.

This is the facts. But I'm gonna go forward. I'm gonna go forward. That nonprofit that just walked out, you know, they got an abuser that abuses women in his— in that nonprofit, Sisters in Purple. His name is Elvis Qatari, something like that. People been telling you to remain on topic. I'm saying right now, accusatory of the perpetrator.

I got the receipts on Instagram, on my IMDN. I could, I could, but this is, this is the facts, right? However, going forward, going forward, I'm gonna say like this, the city council needs to make a statement calling, condemning the religion of Islam for the domestic violence. I'm gonna cut your time and cut you. Why you cut my time?

Because that is not true. The truth about, that's the truth about Islam. We've gone through this before. Domestic violence organization. Yeah, please remove him from From the chamber. Yo, this is crazy. I'm leaving. I'm leaving. Great. Thank you. Gotta stay at a topic. I don't have any questions. If there's anything, as I stated before, as a provider in the city of New York, if there are items that. that you think are working, that are helpful.

I know you provided testimony. Obviously, we want you folks at the table when decisions like this are made. Of course. Um, but if there's anything that the city could be doing more of— I know some folks mentioned prior funding is always more supportive, any of the pots of funds, things like that that we can take back would be helpful.

Chair Farias, I think one of the things that I didn't hear through the course of this testimony is that this is ultimately the leading public health issue in our And it needs to be addressed as such, and unfortunately it is not. When we put NGBV in this scope of community safety, we are not examining the fact that it is a public health matter that is ultimately preventable and solvable, and that is really critical.

What we are seeing, particularly for culturally responsive organizations at this moment in time, is just a really critical need, right? Like the federal ecosystem, that is impacting immigrant communities. 80% of the survivors that we work with at SAKHI identify as Muslim, 12% are undocumented. We are seeing a really challenging moment between the result of HR 1, the changes in VAWA, and the expansion of public charge.

We've seen a 14% increase in survivors served over the course of this year, a 50% increase in our food justice program, a 1,000% increase in our legal justice program when we compare the same numbers from last year to this year. Ultimately, we are under-resourced, we are completely treading on water, and also we are seeing a diminishment of the impact of this issue across the city.

So I think the framing of the matter ultimately needs to be examined, which is that it is a public health matter that needs to be exempt across the city. I appreciate that response greatly, and I couldn't agree more. Thank you so much for testifying today. Thank you. Have a good day.

Yeah, I'll now move to our virtual testimony. I'd like to call Oren Hemovitis. Hemovitis, sorry, apologize. That's okay. You can begin when ready.

Okay, um, good afternoon. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Anna, to Chair Farias and the committee for the opportunity to speak. I'm speaking today on behalf of the Legal Aid Society. The Legal Aid Society was founded here in New York City in 1876. We are the oldest and largest provider of legal services in the United States.

We handle some 300,000 cases and legal matters per year for low-income New Yorkers with civil, criminal, and juvenile rights problems. I have been a staff attorney in our family law domestic violence unit in our civil practice since 2019. The Family DV Unit represents survivors of domestic violence in both Supreme and Family Court. My fellow attorneys and I provide full representation to help survivors assert their rights to custody of their children, to child support and maintenance, to equitable distribution of property, and their right to be safe and free from harm.

We urge the Mamdani administration to keep NGBV operating as its own office. NGBV has been operating for 25 years and has been successful We strongly believe that independence was a key to that success, and that making the office part of OCS will detract from its independence and by extension its mission. OCS seeks to address community violence with a community-centered model based in restoration and community accountability.

This goal is commendable and needed, but domestic violence is not a community safety issue. The New York City Charter itself, Section 19, the section which established NGBV in the first place, classifies domestic violence as a public health issue, not a community safety issue. NGBV was created and structured with the clear goal of making a focused and streamlined effort to address domestic violence coordinated across city agencies.

The director was appointed by and answered directly to the mayor to give NGBV access to quick decision-making and high authority when needed to facilitate intensive cross-disciplinary focus, which Section 19 of the City Charter envisioned. Every layer of bureaucracy which is added between NGBV and the mayor lessens the perceived authority of the office and accordingly the ability of NGBV to work across agency lines.

I can personally attest to the success of NGBV. I've been very familiar with that office through the Family Justice Center. Their dedicated and hardworking staff offer survivors of a wide range of counseling and services, including legal services, and they send people to me to screen, to discuss their cases and give legal advice. They help other legal service providers also coordinate with agencies to better represent their clients.

On my own cases, I have seen the ease with which agencies can communicate when facilitated by the Family Justice Center and when they coordinate how they can help provide a systemic answer to a devastating problem And I'm concerned about anything which could take away that coordination and communication. Efforts to streamline the city government and reduce bureaucracy are needed, but NGBV represents just such an effort, a successful and long-running one.

NGBV already had access to resources and was empowered by the charter to coordinate with other agencies, and I have personally seen that coordination in action to good effect. effect. Taking away NGBV's independence sends the wrong signal to survivors and those who advocate for survivors. The people of New York City voted to amend the city charter to establish NGBV in 2001 so that the city could have an office that would comprehensively address issues of domestic violence.

The administration should listen to that mandate and keep NGBV independent from OCS and let it continue succeeding in its Thank you so much for providing testimony today.

I'd now like to call on Joanne Kim. Hello, good afternoon. My name is Joanne Kim, and I am the Assistant Director of Community Engagement of the Korean American Family Service Center, or KAFSC. For 37 years, KAFSC has supported survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and trafficking. Sexual assault, and gender-based violence, particularly immigrant survivors who face language, cultural, economic, and immigration-related barriers.

Thank you for holding this important hearing and for the opportunity to share KFSC's perspective on the restructuring of the Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence under the Office of Community Safety. KAFSC welcomes its— this new structure and sees real value in a more connected approach to community safety. As a culturally specific organization, our work has never existed in just one category.

The survivors and families we serve may come to us because of domestic violence, but they are also navigating language barriers, immigration concerns, economic insecurity, hate incidents, community safety concerns, and fear of engaging with systems that may not understand their culture or language. For organizations like KFSC, bringing this work into a broader community safety framework makes sense. We have deep language capacity and longstanding trust within the communities we serve.

We also know that that preventing domestic and gender-based violence is closely connected to preventing other forms of violence, addressing hate crimes, strengthening community trust, and making sure people know where they can turn before a crisis escalates. This structure creates an opportunity for greater coordination across these areas while still recognizing the specialized expertise that domestic and gender-based violence work requires.

For immigrant communities in particular, trusted culturally specific organizations are often the first point of contact. Survivors may not initially identify what they are experiencing as domestic violence, or they may be hesitant to contact law enforcement or government agencies. They may first come to us because they feel unsafe because of a family crisis, or simply because they need someone who speaks their language and understands their culture, cultural context.

That is why we believe this broader community safety model has the potential to strengthen and strengthen the city's response. As a new structure continues to develop, we hope culturally specific organizations will remain strong, strong partners in shaping how these systems work on the ground. Our organizations can help bridge the gap between city systems and communities that have historically been harder to reach.

We look forward to working with the Office of Community Safety, NGBV, the City Council, and our community partners to make all he— all this new model successful and to ensure that survivors and families receive coordinated, culturally responsive, and accessible support. Thank you.

Thank you so much for testifying today. I don't have any questions for our virtual panel. Okay. If there is anyone either virtually or in person that would like to testify, use the raise hand function or come raise your hand here to get an appearance slip. Seeing none, um, this hearing is now adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.