Leslie Claire Allen (AVP) testifies on LGBTQ hate violence and survivor support

And on Zoom, if you are available, Leslie Claire Allen.

Okay.

But that's also different because some of them are part of the group.

You could begin.

Can everyone hear me?

Yes.

Thank you.

First, I want to apologize for not being there in person.

As you can hear from my voice, I'm very sick and I didn't want to get anyone else sick.

But my name is Leslie Allen.

I use pronouns she, hers, and I'm the deputy, I'm the director of legal services at the New York City Anti-Violence Project.

The New York City Anti-Violence Project is one of the PATH chairs.

I'm so sorry, I'm really struggling today.

We have been proudly working with PATH for the past five years, and I believe that our work is extremely meaningful in helping prevent LGBTQ.

Communities from facing extreme violence.

But in part of both the prevention of hate violence, there has to also be the structure there to help survivors of violence who

The hate has not been stopped and they've actually been harmed in the present.

And AVP very proudly has a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week crisis hotline where survivors can call who may be

uninterested in calling the police, maybe attempted to call the police and didn't get the response that they wanted.

Or simply don't really even understand how to place context into whatever hate violence they experience and don't know what they want to do next.

AVP's long history of working with city council to stop violence towards LGBTQ people is something that we're extremely proud of.

We believe that the new investment from the Windami administration, what we hope will be seen from the city council,

will usher in a new bright era for New York City that really allows us to be a beacon of hope while nationally we're seeing unprecedented rise

of anti-LGBTQ sentiment, especially towards the transgender communities and towards LGBTQ immigrants.

Our hotline calls are up 35%, which is very significant because we already thought of our hotline as sort of reaching maximum volume.

It's becoming harder and harder to meet the needs.

We have an extensive wait list for legal services.

We really need to see this future investment into more organizations like AVP in order to

help meet the people, meet the people's needs who are experiencing hate.

And I'm so sorry.

I'm going to let you go because I'm having such trouble talking, but thank you so much.

Thank you for your testimony and hopefully you'll have a speedy recovery.

And if you need to reach out to us to provide written testimony, that definitely is available to you at testimony at council.nyc.gov.

Thank you.