CM Hudson on CUNY CARES and food insecurity funding

Okay, Councilmember Hudson, followed by Dinowitz.

Thank you so much.

Hello, Chancellor and team.

You mentioned in your testimony work that you do around CUNY CARES, really important work.

We have a transition academy at Medgar Evers College, which is in my district.

And I'm just wondering, you know, given the number of students that are experiencing homelessness, food insecurity, things of that nature, how much in your budget is allocated towards supporting those students?

So it varies by campus and depending on the kind of support, and thank you for your question,

in, for example, things like the food pantries and that level of support, that is mostly philanthropic dollars that are raised from foundations.

The Petey Foundation has been historically a great partner of ours for decades in some of that.

Partnership with local vendors, right?

So that tends to be a bit more local.

In CUNY Cares, for example, one of the things that we learned from that experiment in the Bronx is that we're probably ready to do something and be part of the next expansion of CUNY Cares, which is to get students

immediately to know whether they qualify for SNAP or not and be able to get all those benefits.

We mentioned the testimony that we got about $3 million back for the students.

The other thing that I want to say is that is also $3 million that went to the local bodegas and businesses where our students buy their food too, right?

So this is something that if we do right, we're helping the students with food insecurity, but it's also a little bit of economic development in our neighborhoods.

Yeah, I would agree, and I commend you for that work.

I think it's really important work.

I have legislation trying to make automatic enrollment possible for certain benefits.

And also, I fund food pantry, the food pantry specifically at the Transition Academy and provide services.

We do resource fairs, all of that.

But I'm wondering if you can maybe ballpark a figure that would be helpful for you to have to address the needs of, you know, because the reality is there are so many CUNY students who are struggling to make ends meet.

And if there was, you know, you're helping them to bring in $3 million in resources and food, let's say.

But I'm trying to figure out how much are you spending?

I get that some of the money is philanthropic, but how much are you spending in order to make that happen?

And could, I mean, I know you could use more, but what would be an amount that would help?

Well, so in our green sheet, which is our request, we have 2.8.

The council already has a food insecurity initiative to be able to supplement and expand that.

And if you think also then about the CUNY CARES component, if we expand the benefits hub, that's something additional that can help all the campuses.

So the request on food insecurity is 2.5.

Okay.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

You're great.