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Agency Testimony

Taylor Brown: Strategic planning and implementation approach

New York City Council · Jun 24, 2026 · starts 0:12:38 · 2 min 53 sec

Brown outlines the office's phased approach: agency-wide regulatory and policy audits, programmatic evaluations, stakeholder convenings, and executive-level strategy to eliminate disparities through interagency coordination.

Taylor Brown

Against this backdrop, the Mayor's Office of LGBTQIA Affairs, housed within the New York City Mayor's Office of Equity and Racial Justice and within the portfolio of the New York City Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice,

Taylor Brown

has already begun its broad strategic thinking and planning to develop meaningful solutions to combat these specific disparities and other priority issues

Taylor Brown

holistically through interagency leadership, partnership, and coordination, and through innovative governmental solutions grounded in law, policy, humanity, and the lived experiences and realities of LGBTQIA New Yorkers.

Taylor Brown

Over the course of its inaugural year, the Mayor's Office of LGBTQIA Affairs will take a phased and analytical approach to ensure that we meaningfully understand and prioritize all major issues facing LGBTQIA New Yorkers

Taylor Brown

with a focus on quality of life issues and baseline needs, including in the broad context of housing and subcontexts like housing insecurity and homelessness.

Taylor Brown

The Mayor's Office of LGBTQIA Affairs will work to ensure that all New York City agencies are in compliance with non-discrimination law and protections and that they are utilizing best policies and practices to meet the needs of and their obligations to LGBTQIA New Yorkers.

Taylor Brown

The Mayor's Office of LGBTQIA Affairs will ensure that at the executive level, across agencies and across government, we are delivering bold and innovative solutions and meaningful interventions to redress and eliminate disparities and further needed progress.

Taylor Brown

Finally, the Mayor's Office of LGBTQIA Affairs will work to ensure that we are a community-based and driven governmental office that provides meaningful leadership and responsive governance to the communities we serve.

Taylor Brown

Some of our current plans to implement this work include agency-wide regulatory and policy audits.

Taylor Brown

to examine current policies and practices, assess what has been successful and where improvements can be made, and to work collaboratively towards better solutions and innovations to ensure that agencies are serving LGBTQI New Yorkers and addressing their unique needs.

Taylor Brown

Agency-wide programmatic evaluations to understand what city agencies have historically done and what they are currently doing in order to supplement, improve, and develop innovative governmental

Taylor Brown

interventions through programmatic and funding models grounded again in law, policy, data, community partnership, and centrally the shared goal of materially improving the lives of LGBTQI New Yorkers.

Taylor Brown

Substantive issue-based stakeholder convenings with our agency partners, inter- and intra-governmental partners, experts, advocates, and community-based organizations, as well as community members,

Taylor Brown

to ensure that the work of the Mayor's Office of LGBTQI Affairs is collaborative, holistic, responsive, and centered on the needs of the communities we serve.

Taylor Brown

And finally, executive-level strategy, coordination, and innovation geared towards bold solutions and government intervention.

Taylor Brown

Interventions to eliminate the myriad of disparities facing LGBTQI New Yorkers.

Taylor Brown

This includes combating, documenting federal hostility and the direct harms caused to LGBTQI New Yorkers, addressing historic and contemporary data and research needs and gaps that inform and drive our initiatives and goals,

Taylor Brown

and assessing and addressing governmental inefficiencies, policies, and practices that impact governmental operations and services.

Taylor Brown

For example, communications, contracting, funding, and other operational elements to ensure that we are delivering better, more equitable, and more responsible services and models of governance.