NEW YORK, NY — In response to Mayor de Blasio’s Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2022, Raysa Rodriguez, associate executive director of the Citizens’ Committee for Children, released the following statement on behalf of the Family Homelessness Coalition:

“Mayor de Blasio’s FY22 Executive Budget goes a long way to support working families during the City’s economic recovery, especially when it comes to providing financial stability for human services providers supporting the most vulnerable New Yorkers by increasing the indirect rates, and by its ongoing investment in affordable housing. However, thousands of New York’s lowest income families will continue to stay in shelter, and more will enter shelter, because the administration failed to increase the value of the City’s rental vouchers, CityFHEPS. Additionally, as New York works to counteract lost learning during the pandemic, special attention must be paid to children experiencing homelessness, who are most likely to have fallen behind in school. In the Adopted Budget, the City should fund key educational supports such as 150 shelter-based community coordinators to connect students in shelter with new educational resources in the DOE system. In order to truly create a ‘recovery for all’ the City must do more to end New York’s family homelessness crisis and address the needs of the thousands of women and children without a place to call home.”