Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Announces $27 Million Available to Provide Hurricane Ida Relief to Undocumented New Yorkers

Today, while speaking at the Queens Museum in Queens, Governor Kathy Hochul announced $27 million is available to provide relief to undocumented survivors of the storms and flooding caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida. This funding will be distributed through grants to an established network of community organizations and provided to New Yorkers who are not eligible to receive storm recovery assistance through the FEMA Individual Assistance Program or other means.

To get connected with assistance, impacted residents should call the ONA Hotline at 1-800-566-7636 9:00am to 8:00pm, Monday through Friday or visit the partner not-for-profits starting September 27. Hotline assistance is available in over 200 languages.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks are available below:

Buenas tardes. I'm so happy to see you. Great to see everyone. This is a day that demonstrates one thing - that every New Yorker matters. Let me repeat that. Every New Yorker matters.

I have been blessed to be surrounded by some exceptionally passionate individuals who will always make sure that we do the right thing and I want to thank our incredible Secretary Rossana Rosado who has done an amazing job for many years and when you need help you call this woman and she'll make sure that good things happen. I want to thank her for being such a friend and ally for such a long time.

Grace Meng and I became great friends in Congress and our time there, but also you've been an incredible leader and making sure that everyone is taken care of. We literally spoke about some of the individuals in your district who we had met weeks ago and I said, how are they doing, and you said they still can't cook because they don't have gas, and we said we're taking care of that, and they had gas. I'm going to go there for dinner so they can cook. That's how in tune she is with the needs of her district. And also I know our Speaker will be joining us, but Donovan Richards also - it's a lot of responsibility to govern such a diverse and federal place. I know our District Attorney has joined us. Melinda Katz can speak to this, but you've done an amazing job with a lot of challenges. I kind of know it's like to be new on the job with a lot thrown at you so we have some simpatico here, but also, thank you. Thank you for all you've done. And, again, our District Attorney Melinda Katz, who does an extraordinary job protecting the people in their time of need and making sure that we do what's right by Queens. Let's give her a round of applause as well.

You had to see your state representatives on the ground. I mean I was so touched by their willingness to roll up their sleeves and be out there literally day after day after day, neglecting their own families or bringing their kids with them, showing up on site, and to Jessica Ramos, I'm still in awe of what I saw you do over that period of time when people needed you the most. Let's give her a round of applause, Jessica Ramos.

Assemblymember Catalina Cruz, showing just heart and compassion to the people who look to you for leadership and you were there on the ground as well. Catalina Cruz, thank you. Assemblymember Jessica Gonzáles-Rojas. Same thing. It was some hot days. We were all getting a little sweaty and a little warn and a little dirty, but you didn't give up. You were there every second. Assemblymember Nily Rozic, I want to thank you as well for just showing up when the people of your district needed you the most. I also want to give a huge shout out to the City of New York. That might just make news right there by itself.

Raquel Batista, thank you. We did have many conversations literally the night that the rain started coming down, Mayor de Blasio and I were on speed dial. We spoke through the evening, through the night, the next day, the days afterward, and we showed up in person and we just said to ourselves, we have to do something.

This is unexpected in the sense that no one could have dreamed that much rain would fall, literally shattering a record that was set the week before. And people talk about 500-year storms. They don't do math very well because this was 10 days apart and the way we handled it was just to show for our first time really working together, having the opportunity to work together, what teamwork means and how we can put the needs of the people first. And that will always be the hallmark of my administration going forward. The current mayor, the future mayor and anybody who wants to help me take care of the people of this great state, I will consider you a friend and an ally and that's how we're going to change dynamics here. So thank you to the City of New York who also helped put financial resources on the table for this as well, which is amazing.

So having seen individuals at their lowest point in their lives, I think about our first visit to East Elmhurst walking down a flooded alleyway which never should have been a place where people had to call home but they didn't have a lot of options. This was their home. They lived in basements and these basements were not meant for people to be in because they ended up being deathtraps.

People are literally trapped in their homes because if you walked down this alley and saw the entrance into their homes and these homes were tiny but it was their place. It was their place where they had all their most precious belongings. There was no exit out the back. So when the water started coming and people like Murphy who was sleeping in his bed, and we all met Murphy, sleeping in his bed, all of a sudden he wakes up, the water is up to his chin and this was a big guy and he couldn't get out the back and he almost drowned in his home until the first responders, and God bless our first responders, they broke down that window and reached him and pulled him up. He says he would not have been there if they'd waited just a few more moments.

Some others were not as fortunate. We lost them. We lost part of our family we'll never forget them, but others who went back the next day we were there on the third, September 4, September 7, we came back with the President and every time we went back, I just saw more heartbreaking stories, people literally on the ground picking up scraps of pictures of their wedding or their babies and the clothes that were destroyed.

And then when Grace Meng and I walked the neighborhood, not far from there, people, literally a family who lost their lives, and we placed flowers on the doorstep and just, it's the smallest token of what we can offer but knowing that we had a responsibility to these people, we could not walk away. You could not see this and turned your eyes away and not say I have to do something about this. And when President Biden was there we talked about how grateful we were that he gave us the declaration that allowed us to bring in FEMA money. And we set up Department of Financial Services vans on the site, along with food trucks right there so people could get the forms filled out. And what we thought was this is a great program until the realization set in that if you were not documented, you didn't have access to the FEMA money, and that was really hard for people to hear that and to understand that.

If you had a member of the family who did have citizenship, perhaps a child, that was great. It allowed the whole family to get FEMA benefits. But as I left there and I realized these people are looking to us in government to help them rebuild their lives, and we are going to have to say, sorry, you don't qualify? No. We're at war with Mother Nature sometimes but we don't leave anybody on the battlefield. We bring everybody with us. We find out a way to help them regain some semblance of their past life and tell them we care about them, we believe in them and we love them. And as a statement of our compassion for these individuals we are establishing - and the applications start today - a brand new Ida relief fund for excluded New Yorkers. We're announcing it right now. The program is $27 million - $20 million from our State emergency appropriations, and I thank the City of New York for adding $7 million to that pot as well, so thank you to them and to all of our team who pulled together the ability to make this happen. And what we're going to do is basically treat everybody the same - the same qualifications, the same documentation is required. Not a lot. We're just going to let you get a letter from my landlord to say, lived here or utility bill. It's not going to be that hard, but the difference will be you do not have to prove citizenship to get this help. And the money will be $36,000 up to that available for housing assistance and up to $36,000 for other needs. So they're eligible for $72,000 to start getting their lives back. That is powerful. That's how we start letting people know that they matter in the state of New York.

And how are we going to get this money out there? Because enough time has passed already. I know I was praising us for doing this quickly, but no one is more impatient than I am. I wanted this done and it's happening immediately. So we're going to, first of all, have partners and I thank everyone who stepped up. In the Bronx, we have Catholic Charities Community Services. And in Brooklyn, we have the Chinese American Planning Council. And Queens, we have two locations - Make the Road, thank you, and MinKwon as well. In Staten Island and in Suffolk, Make the Road, will be helping there. Nassau will have the Equal Economic Opportunity Commission of Nassau County. And in Westchester and Rockland have Neighbors Link.

So these are the individuals that are part of our army to go out and help people. When I say we're not leaving anyone on the battlefield, these people will be going out. These organizations and the incredible leadership that they have will be going out there, literally meeting people where they are and helping them fill out the forms.

There's also a hotline, write this down and my six years of Spanish are not going to let me translate this properly. I don't want to be off a number, so someone else will come up and give this number in Spanish for me. But 1-800-566-7636. And that's the Office for New Americans. And that has been operational for a while, but this is an additional responsibility we're asking them to do, to be the, the clearinghouse. Calls go in there. And then we connect people with the information they need and also the not-for-profit partner to help them get over the finish line.

Again, this money came about because of the way that this community has had so many incredible champions. And I want to thank everyone. Most of you in this audience are part of why this has happened. And I thank you. And I know individuals who suffered for far too long. Thank you as well. And to me, this is the best summary of my philosophy of government. It's real simple, my friends: We help people. We take care of people. We care about people. That's it. That's what our responsibility is as public servants to everyone, regardless of their status, because to me, they're part of my family. They're part of the New York family and we'll do everything we can to help them feel loved and cherished as part of their family. So thank you.