Viviana De Jesus testifies on retaliation at Praxis shelter

Good evening, Chair Hudson.

I want to thank you for the pointed questions that you asked the DHS Commissioner, Commissioner Dalton.

You asked really great questions, and it was very frustrating to sit here for almost two hours and listen to her say that she didn't have answers, that she would get back to you.

It really feels like she thought she was coming to a social networking event and not to a city council member hearing where she actually had to provide data, real hard facts.

There is no grievance process through shelters.

Let me begin by saying that I am.

My name is Luz Viviana de Jesus.

I am a 51-year-old woman.

I have 20-plus years as a workforce development professional and 10 years as a business owner.

I have earned the respect of the maternal reproductive care community in Washington, D.C.

I ran a business for eight years in Washington, D.C., providing maternal services.

Doula services, birth and postpartum services to the Medicaid population, Black and brown and immigrant women.

And I served.

the community faithfully through COVID in the hospitals.

And here I am today with my daughter, who is a fourth year college student here in New York City.

In a shelter at the Praxis West End Housing Initiative.

CEO is Svane Jorgensen.

This shelter is, the site director is Lisa Harris.

This woman is employing and continues to this moment to employ abusive retaliatory tactics against compliant

DHS and HRA compliant families in compliance who simply are seeking to advocate for our legal rights to transparency and due process.

In August, I was informed by the case management staff there who is overwhelmed, overworked, underpaid.

Berated by her.

She is railroading their careers because she uses them to reinforce her tactics at the shelter.

I have seen two case managers quit at Praxis in my two and a half months there.

We arrived July, June 29th.

So from June 29th, I have seen two

And three staff members quit.

A housing coordinator quit and two case managers quit.

And she just hired another one and she berated her for asking me how I was doing.

and how my housing situation was going, berated her.

Ganged up on her with her CM supervisor and my previous CM, Charlene Lloyd.

I submitted a five-page testimony on this and the entire thing that's going on there.

She uses her security staff to reinforce her retaliatory and abusive tactics.

They don't want to do that.

I promise you that security staff doesn't want to do that.

They have families too.

And she uses them to intimidate us.

Thank you.

Your time has expired.

Are you able to submit written testimony, Ms.

DeJesus?

I submitted written testimony yesterday.

Okay.

Thank you.

We will review the written testimony.

We have your contact information.

I just want to...

Confirm.

We have your contact information, so we'll reach out directly to get more details.

Thank you for your testimony.