Carr on Local Law 4, Intro 928 details, and data collection needs

Four years ago, this council unanimously passed legislation authored by former council member and LGBTQIA Caucus Plus chair Danny Drom.

to help correct this historic injustice.

Local Law 4 of 2022 extended city veteran benefits to those who were discharged because they were LGBTQ and required the city's Department of Veteran Services to offer discharge upgrade assistance to help obtain federal benefits.

The legislation I've introduced and being heard today, Intro 928, will help fully realize the goals of Local Law 4,

establishing an LGBTQ liaison within the Department of Veteran Services, specifically tasked with conducting

outreach to LGBTQ veterans, coordinating the department's assistance with discharge characterization upgrades, and connecting these veterans with programs and services offered by DBS and other relevant agencies.

I understand this will largely, hopefully, codify existing practice, but I think there are some practices and policies that are so good, they absolutely need to be enshrined into law.

It will also require the department to issue an annual report related to assistance for LGBT veterans, which will hopefully and finally give us some idea of how many veterans still suffer from the effects of the shameful legacy of DADT.

I think the chair was quite right.

We have a data problem with respect to our veteran community.

I know the commissioner knows this well, and we need to do more to get veterans to self-identify, both within the LGBTQI plus cohort and beyond.

Because if we're going to start adequately serving the veteran community, particularly with the swath of benefits that we have to offer, we need to make sure that they are able and feel comfortable to come forward, and that means really engaging in a mission of finding them.

over the next several years.

So I appreciate the chair hearing this bill, and I look forward to hearing testimony from the administration.