At this year’s Breakfast Forum, our Executive Director, Christina Hanson, led a conversation with three experienced professionals concerning the accessibility of public benefits. We were joined by Kate Purcell, Executive Director of Community Outreach of the NYC Department of Social Services, who shared recent initiatives from the city to improve benefit accessibility; Professor Ester Fuchs, Director of the Urban and Social Policy Program at Columbia University, who shared data and analysis from a recent survey focused on identifying need, especially among women most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic; and Theresa Havelka, Case Management Supervisor at POTS, who gave us a close look at the ground level, describing the way POTS addresses the needs of its individual clients as they work their way through the public benefit system.
Watch the full video of the session here: