Mayors Public Engegement Unit

April 2022

What's NEW at PEU!

PEU is working in partnership with NYC’s Small Business Services (SBS) to staff a mobile unit with tenant, employment, and other resources for New Yorkers. This month, Angela Yee joined PEU and SBS at a mobile unit event at Coffee Uplifts People (CUP) in Brooklyn.

TEAM WINS

DFTA Recovery Meal Program Outreach

PEU is working with the Department for the Aging (DFTA) to reach out to clients who were receiving Recovery Meals, a temporary service set up for older adults during the pandemic. PEU called more than 6,000 clients to gather information for anyone who might want additional support when the program expires on June 30th. PEU and DFTA’s partnership is ensuring that every single New Yorker who enrolled in the emergency program has continued support from the City.

GetCoveredNYC Day of Action

GetCoveredNYC held a Day of Action earlier this month, in partnership with NYC’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) and NY State of Health. This day of action featured a joint social media toolkit, texting campaign, and a virtual health care enrollment town hall. The team texted more than 330,000 New Yorkers using the peer-to-peer texting tool, Hustle, to encourage eligible New Yorkers to enroll in health insurance. These efforts resulted in an approximately 130% increase in online form submissions to our GetCoveredNYC website. PEU staff make follow-up calls to New Yorkers who submit a request for support on the website, walking them through their insurance options, connecting them to a certified enroller, and staying in touch to make sure they are able to successfully enroll.

Thank you Jasmin (PEU), Shaina (MOIA), Greta (MOPT), Lydia (MOIA), and Kristen (PEU) for this Know Your Rights Town Hall for Tenants! Missed it? You can watch it using this link!

Free Tax Prep & Tax Credit Outreach

As part of a partnership with Department for Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), PEU staff reached out to more than 100,000 New Yorkers about NYC free tax prep services and tax credits through a peer-to-peer texting campaign. The team followed up over the phone with anyone who requested additional assistance scheduling an appointment with a certified tax preparer at one of the City’s partner sites.

SCRIE/DRIE Rent Freeze Benefit Renewal Campaign

PEU’s Rent Freeze team reached out to more than 3,000 tenants who failed to renew their SCRIE/DRIE rent freeze benefit after the deadline and provided those who were still eligible with application assistance. They will continue outreach to an additional 4,000 tenants over the next month. If you or anyone you know is looking for assistance with a SCRIE/DRIE application, please call PEU’s Rent Freeze Specialists directly at 929-252-7242.

SBS Mobile Unit Partnership

PEU, in partnership with Small Business Services (SBS) and Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), was in BedStuy this month to jointly deliver services to the public including free tax prep and extensions, benefits screenings, tenant support, health insurance education, and more. In addition, New Yorkers will also be able to learn about career opportunities with local employers like Shake Shack, NYC Bike Share, First Quality Maintenance, Allied Universal, Time Warner Entertainment, and Levy Restaurants.

“In order to give New Yorkers the services they need, the City can’t just wait for them to come to us—we need to come to them. With the launch of this new mobile unit, we will be able to provide critical support through several city agencies to New Yorkers who need it most, and continue building an equitable recovery.” — Mayor Adams

Stay tuned for upcoming mobile unit stops in your community!

Tenant Support Post-Eviction Moratorium

PEU trained and deployed the City’s Test and Trace (T2) canvassing team, to help expand its outreach to tenants after the eviction moratorium ended. The team has now knocked on nearly 16,000 doors of New Yorkers who may be at-risk of eviction that PEU previously was unable to reach by phone. PEU tenant support staff made more than 5,000 follow-up calls to those who needed case management during their conversations with the canvassers. PEU staff also canvassed to follow -up with tenants who were canvassed by the T2 staff and needed follow-up, but did not provide the Canvassers with a working phone number.

If you need free housing assistance, NYC residential tenants can visit https://nyc.gov/TSU for more information.

STAFF SPOTLIGHT

PEU Specialist from the Home Support Unit walks through an empty rental apartment before a viewing with a voucher holder.

PEU's Home Support Unit helps rental owners and brokers fill their empty units with NYC voucher holders. This month PEU received a last minute request from an agent to help with filling a larger number of vacant apartments in their building. Arriving on site at 9:30 am, PEU Specialists hit the ground running--literally! The elevator was down, so they had run up to the floor with the unit that matched the voucher holder and then come back down to assist the next wave of attendees. From 9:30 am to 6:30 pm, PEU staff helped run an efficient viewing system that resulted in 200+ viewings across 40+ apartments! The agent was impressed with how quickly and efficiently PEU staff coordinated viewings and plans to continue to help us house voucher holders in the future. Together, we can end the housing crisis in NYC and get New Yorkers out of shelters and into their forever homes.

TWEET OF THE MONTH

IN THE NEWS

Dunya International: Mayor Adams Launches New Multiagency Initiative to bring City Services Directly to Underserved New Yorkers April 22, 2022

Queens Chronicle: Multiagency mobile units to provide help April 21, 2022

Brooklyn Daily Eagle: Good Morning, Brooklyn April 19, 2022

Telemundo: NYC lanza iniciativa con unidades móviles para llevar servicios municipales a los neoyorquinos en comunidades desatendidas April 17, 2022

ANNOUNCEMENTS & RESOURCES

Our Tenant Support Unit (TSU) team holds tabling events with the Jamaica Library and La Jornada food pantry in Queens every Saturday from 10:30-2:30pm. Stay tuned in our social media pages for tabling events near you!

Join our Rent Freeze team at one of their upcoming library office hours:

Francis Martin Library Friday, 4/29, 10:30 am - 2:30 pm, 2150 University Ave, Bronx, NY 10453

Brooklyn Central Library Wednesday, 5/18, 10:30 am - 2:30 pm, 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY 11238

Seward Park Library Thursday, 5/19, 10:30am - 2:30 pm, 192 E Broadway, New York, NY 10002

Francis Martin Library Wednesday, 5/25, 10:30am - 2:30 pm, 2150 University Ave, Bronx, NY 10453

The Hurricane Ida Relief Fund for Undocumented New Yorkers has re-opened until April 29. To apply, New Yorkers should call 1-800-566-7637. Please help spread the word with these graphics and resources!

We now have Tenant Helpline promotional resources like flyers and graphics available on our website in many languages. Check them out here and help spread the word.

If you are interested in applying for cash assistance or SNAP, visit https://a069-access.nyc.gov/accesshra/.

Mental health counselors are available 24 hours a day to provide free support in many languages. You can contact them directly by calling 1-888-NYC-WELL.

NYC Fair Fares: Eligible New York City residents can get a 50% discount on eligible transportation. Help us to spread the word by sharing this HRA toolkit or check your eligibility at nyc.gov/fairfares or call 311.

April is National Poetry Month and this week Cultural Affairs is launching their annual #PoetweetNYC campaign encouraging City agencies and the public to tweet poems throughout the week AND on Poem in Your Pocket Day on Friday, April 29, 2022. Poem in Your Pocket Day is a holiday that began right here in NYC as a way to inspire folks to carry a poem with them and share it with friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors. It's gone national thanks to our partners as the Academy of American Poets as a fun way to embrace poetry and celebrate the power of the written word collectively. Check out the Poem in Your Pocket Day toolkit!

About the Public Engagement Unit (PEU)

The NYC Public Engagement Unit (PEU) uses community organizing principles to re-envision how the City provides services to its most vulnerable communities. Rather than expecting constituents to navigate a complex City bureaucracy to get the help they need, PEU adopts grassroots tactics to meet residents where they are — at their doors and on their phones, in their social media feeds and in their communities. PEU combines this proactive outreach with comprehensive case management, and in doing so, builds long-term relationships between New Yorkers and their government.

The Tenant Support Unit (TSU)

TSU provides free information on tenants’ rights, assistance navigating housing-related issues, and connection to a range of resources. For information on tenants rights and the Right-to-Counsel, call 311 and ask for the “Tenant Helpline,” or visit nyc.gov/TenantSupportUnit. For information on rent freeze and homeowner tax exemption programs, call the hotline at (929) 252-7242 or visit nyc.gov/RentFreeze.

The Home Support Unit (HSU)

HSU works with rental owners, real estate agents, and property managers to lease vacant units to qualified New Yorkers receiving rental assistance, including voucher holders. HSU helps participating owners navigate the rental process by arranging viewings, assisting with leasing paperwork, and ensuring access to financial incentives for placing qualified tenants into stable housing. To contact the Home Support Unit, visit nyc.gov/HomeSupportUnit.

GetCoveredNYC

GCNYC offers free assistance for New Yorkers seeking to enroll in healthcare, regardless of immigration status or income. Our Specialists speak more than 20 languages and conduct outreach to proactively identify uninsured New Yorkers and help them get access to healthcare. An unprecedented healthcare open enrollment period began 2 years ago in response to COVID-19, and since then, nearly 25,000 New Yorkers have reached out to us for enrollment assistance through our GetCoveredNYC website. To contact GetCoveredNYC, call 311 and say “Get Covered,” text CoveredNYC to 877877, or visit nyc.gov/GetCoveredNYC.

The Special Projects Team

The Special Projects Team works full-time to support all PEU units – Home Support Unit, Tenant Support Unit, and GetCoveredNYC – while remaining flexible enough to take on the coordination of new projects based on the City’s most urgent priorities. As the City’s in-house “campaign” experts, PEU’s Special Projects Team leverages interagency resources, City staff volunteers, and technology in agile and creative ways to design and implement new outreach strategies for the City’s most pressing initiatives.