Morano Q&A: Dwyer program funding reduction from 31 to 23 organizations

Thank you, Commissioner, and thank you, as always, for your continuous outreach and communication, not only to me, but all the members of the Veterans Committee on Veterans Issues.

And congratulations on the Remembrance Ruck.

The only aspect that you didn't mention is that you had over 1,000 people participating and rucking across the Brooklyn Bridge in the rain the entire time.

And I must say I was pretty impressed at your rucking ability, and I was glad to be there as well.

You testified that the city funded 31 organizations through the first Dwyer program.

cycle, but only 23 organizations have been pre-qualified for the next cycle.

Does that mean we're going to have fewer organizations providing services to veterans?

Are any boroughs, including our home borough of Staten Island, at risk of losing programs?

And when will the next round of funding actually reach those organizations?

Thank you for the question.

I will pass this question shortly to my chief of staff, Nicole.

I would like to elaborate a bit on the history of this program.

It first came out in FY25.

However, it wasn't fully implemented, per se.

Organizations weren't fully funded because the program wasn't fully rolled out.

However, under...

My tenure, this FY27th, this program is going to be fully rolled out, is fully going to be implemented, and the organizations will be receiving the full amount

if they were able to do great work without the full implementation or the funding before, they're going to be getting the most support this time around as it's going to be fully implemented and fully funded.

And I'll pass this question over to Nicole.

Thank you for the question and thank you, committee.

For the Dwyer programming in terms of those who have received the $20,000 funding in the previous Dwyer cycle to now, what we are working very closely is with our partners at MOX, as well as our friends over with Passport to ensure that all recipients of Dwyer

are able to take the appropriate steps to be pre-qualified and to receive this additional funding, as Commissioner stated, when it is fully implemented.

So can you commit to providing the committee with a borough-by-borough comparison of the organizations funded in the first cycle and those funded in the next, including funding amounts and any gaps in service?

Yes.

So in terms of funding for the first cycle of Dwyer, each organization, no matter what borough it was in, received $20,000 in funding.

That was the piloted Dwyer programming.

And we do have a breakdown borough by borough that we'd be happy to follow up with that is included in our Dwyer report.