Council Member Brewer Questions Home Health Aide Training for Asylum Seekers

Thank you.

Thank you, Chairs.

Thank you.

Councilmember Brewer?

Uh thank you.

First of all, Commissioner, thank you for showing up at Open Arms District 3.

They very much appreciated that.

Number two, um, as you know, Ruth Messenger is very involved with uh people who are here seeking asylum.

And she has managed, thanks to money that you and previous speaker Adrian Adams allocated to the uh Jewish hospital to have a teaching program for home health aids.

Really successful.

So my question is are you doing that elsewhere?

In other words, it's my experience because I have folks who are seeking asylum in my house.

That the job situation is what they're looking for.

Obviously, people are delivering, but they would like something more secure.

Unfortunately, we're all getting older, and home health aids are desperately needed.

So, my question is are there other such programs?

Will money be allocated?

Is it something you're looking toward?

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember.

Um, I actually had a very good um and lengthy discussion with Ruth.

I'm sure specifically about the success of this program because it was a pilot and talked a little bit about ways to expand that and into other um, you know, into other uh job opportunities as well.

So it is part of an ongoing conversation that we are hoping to continue with Ruth um on that on that specific teaching hospital, but also just using that model to see if if it's something that we can scale up and support.