Times Ledger: Senator Avella heads up NYC social services task force

State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (D-Nassau) announced last week the new Task Force on the Delivery of Social Services in New York City.

Selected to lead the task force was Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside), who said there is a lot of work to do in identifying areas where services can be improved, “whether it be eliminating some of the bureaucracy or reaching out to underserved individuals.”

Avella served the last Senate term as chairman of the Social Services Committee. The new initiative will bring a group of state senators together from the city to examine the system in place that already serves over a million residents, facilitate discussions and find individuals still in need of publicly funded social, economic and health benefits.

Task force members include Sen. Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn), Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn), Sen. Andrew Lanza (R-Staten Island), Sen. Diane Savino (D-Staten Island) and Sen. James Sanders, Jr. (D-Rochdale).

Members plan to collaborate with experts in both the public and private sectors to promote economic growth as well as serve children, families and individuals who are not able to meet their fullest potential under a high cost of living.

Avella said often those who need social services the most are not enrolled, which may not necessarily be the result of limited access to services, but rather that some individuals just aren’t aware of what is available to them.

Often social services are underutilized by new Americans, immigrants and non-English speakers, according to Avella.

“At this point, we’ll just start to meet with various social services and (city agencies), and perhaps convene a public hearing to develop a better understanding of what we need to address,” he said, which may eventually lead to new legislation and new programs.

The number of temporary assistance and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients has been on a steady decline since 2012. Temporary assistance case loads dropped by 3.8 percent in New York City between 2013 and 2014, while SNAP case loads, at 1.7 million, dropped by 5.8 percent, according to the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance. SNAP is an example of just one of many social services that will be reviewed. Additional consideration will go out to the roughly 2.6 million New Yorkers who experience food insecurity, a number given by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.

The number of temporary assistance and SNAP cases were on the rise, however, throughout the state.

Legislators are hoping the task force may be able to find ways to extend social services and benefits to those that are underserved, taking advantage of a currently shrinking pool of city recipients.

Though the economy is rebounding from the recession and service enrollment is on the decline, more than 20 percent of the city’s population continues to live below the poverty threshold, according to U.S. Census statistics. The Coalition for the Homeless released a report last year that estimated an increase in the city’s homeless population from 32,000 people in 2005, to 60,000 in 2014.

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