CM Brewer on John Jay North Building and mental health staffing

Councilmember Brewer, followed by Epstein.

Thank you.

So I always get asked about the North Building.

I want it to be affordable housing at John Jay.

What's going on with the North Building?

And you always give me the same answer, which I don't like.

Go ahead.

You have my answer already, counselor.

No, go ahead.

Same old stupid answer.

Go ahead.

Sure.

Thank you for your question.

We are, you know, obviously still analyzing

As you know, there's an active litigation, and based on the active litigation that's going on with the government foundation, we

can't really talk about sort of what the plan is for the future at the school, but our goal is to continue to assess what the need of that school is and to make sure that that need is being met.

When it comes to, with regards to North Hall, we are analyzing North Hall to see what's the best use and what's in the best interest of the university.

Okay, I still want affordable housing there.

It seems to me that that would be a priority, so we'll keep working on that.

The other issue I have is, I think we talked about mental health services, but just generally, how many folks are employed who are mental health professionals?

How many more would you like to hire?

I must admit I was a little disappointed in the numbers for

For ASAP because I thought it should be higher in terms of finishing.

And I think that these services are helpful to get people through.

So how many sessions is a student provided with the council?

Just generally, mental health services, what you need and what you think is working.

So the number of mental health counselors that could be hired with requested $2.8 million.

We currently employ 120 FTEs.

We would like to have two more per community college for a total of 14 additional mental health.

clinicians.

Okay.

And if those have to be left campus because they're not able to be dealt with locally, do they have insurance?

Is that an issue that you have to address or is it not an issue?

If you have to go outside of the campus for help, do you know if there's always ability to get insurance or is that an issue?

Well, I can say that we provide some free services.

We have partnerships with other entities and organizations, a hotline that's available 24-7, chats that are available.

So we make as many services, free services available to our students should insurance be an issue if they were recommended out.

Okay.

Do you know in terms of the new excellent program with public schools, do you know how many more students came in with that program that I think you initiated with SUNY a few years ago?

Do you have some sense of the numbers of people who came in because of less waiver fees, all the ways in which you're trying to get more public school students to go to CUNY?

Well, I mean, I think that one metric is not all, right?

The 3% or 4% increase that we receive in enrollment, the bulk of our enrollment comes from the New York City Public Schools, right?

So that is a rough estimation of that investment.

All right, so there's no new number.

Wasn't it an increase?

I thought there would be a large increase as you did the letters and you made extra effort.

I can get you the exact figures for that.

Okay.

I'd love second round if possible.

Thank you.

Great.

Okay.