HRA Meeting Minutes

Saturday, 2002 January 19

GIVE YOUR VOICE Review of HRA\WTC Family Assistance Center – 180 Water Street, New York NY

Members Marie Granieri and Michele Cartier met with Jane Corbett, HRA Deputy Commissioner and Jennie Roper, Site Coordinator to obtain an update on the progress of the WTC Family Assistance Office. The office was created by the City of New York at the request of GIVE YOUR VOICE and families of non-uniformed civilians who lost their lives on September 11th. GYV brought the many problems civilian families experience when attempting to obtain financial assistance from charities that received donated funds by generous fellow Americans.

These problems include the following:

• Lack of a comprehensive contact list of all charities available to the families in need of aid during this difficult time. Many of our members continue to write us about the challenge of receiving aid from even 2 charities let alone 140 that received funds.
  

• Insufficient information about support services available
  

• Lack of support to help families navigate through a very complicated “non-system” process to receive aid, the nuances involved with filling out multiple applications and forms, requirement to repeat personal history an unlimited number of times, lost records and difficulty in accessing support offices due to location and travel logistics
  

The meeting began with a general overview of the purpose and services the Family Assistance Center makes available to the families. Ms. Corbett stated that the center does not issue benefits to the families but does provide individual case workers that can assist families in understanding all of the major benefits and support services that are available to them. This is done through a “Family Consultant” that can work with families either in person or telephone. Services are provided by appointment only.

GYV found the office environment conducive to helping families and the provision of a family “case worker” very supportive. However, the office’s ability to indeed assist families obtain the help they need depends on the currency and accuracy of its own knowledge about the charities (and other benefits) that received funds to help the victims’ families.

At this time, the office could not provide a complete list of charities confirmed as up-to-date by HRA. Ms. Corbett completely recognizes the need to make this information available to the families in one place and stated that will provide a confirmed up to date list this week. If the families had such a list, they could directly and more efficiently contact the appropriate charities that can indeed help them. So many WTC victims’ families lost loved ones that were represented their sole source of income. Help must be provided to these families in the shortest term. The way to provide this help is to offer information-based tools the families can reference so that they know who to contact and how to best reach the help that is available to them.

To expedite help to the families, GIVE YOUR VOICE asked if it were possible for HRA to more aggressively go about preparing this information for the families. Ms. Corbett committed to provide a more current list of charities reviewed by their office on Friday, January 18. As many charities as possible will be included. Hopefully after this information is received, it can be quickly distributed to the families.

GIVE YOUR VOICE greatly appreciates Ms. Corbett and Ms. Roper’s time and efforts. We look forward to our next meeting and to the material.

Other information – JOB EXPO

HRA asked that we inform our members about an upcoming Job Expo on January 29 10 am – 4 pm. For more information please contact 1-866-JOBSNYC