Hanif asks about DOF business centers and in-person assistance

And then where are the five business centers?

You said one in each borough?

Yes.

DOF has five business centers.

I don't have the addresses on the top of my head.

One of them, the Manhattan Business Center, is walking distance from here on John Street.

We are one in Brooklyn is near Borough Hall.

We can provide you with the addresses for all five.

And at these business centers, are they so that applicants can drop in to get the support they need to fill out an application?

Yeah, so...

Yes, we provide additional support in our Manhattan Business Center.

So our exemption unit has a separate exemption walk-in unit.

So people can either walk in without an appointment or make an appointment in advance.

So we have additional service there.

But for all of our business centers,

People walk in, the business centers do a wide variety of service to New York City citizens, ranging from

parking ticket hearings, assisting people paying their property taxes, and everything and anything in between.

People at the business centers.

We'll get people walking in who need assistance and we can provide them with translation services.

And then when someone's applying specifically for SCRI or DRI, is that also where they can come in to do that, or are there other centers?

The best place for people who want to have specific help with their application would be our Manhattan Business Center.

But again, I want to emphasize that we provide the same type of assistance at many of our outreach events.

We have outreach staff who know the applications and as indicated earlier, we

received, that staff received 1,200 applications in fiscal year 26,

precisely because we know that this population often needs hand-holding and can't do it online or can't do it on paper by themselves.

We have outreach that addresses that issue.