Policy and Advocacy

For 130 years, Lenox Hill Neighborhood House has advocated for the well-being of New Yorkers. Today, our dedicated teams continue to represent the interests of our clients and our community at the city, state and federal levels. Whether working independently or collaboratively in coalition, we advocate for laws, regulations and policies that will improve our clients’ lives and enhance the prosperity of our community.

Much of our advocacy efforts occurs daily at the client level, as our teams persevere in the grueling work of navigating the antiquated and often oppressive systems in the pursuit of financial assistance, housing stability, food equity and medical care access for our clients. In alignment with our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Community Engagement efforts, we engage with partners and key stakeholders to maximize and amplify the voices of our clients.

Areas of Focus Include:

Early Childhood Education

The Neighborhood House ensures that low-income children achieve kindergarten readiness and that their families have expanded employment opportunities through improved English language and technology skills. We support this critical educational programming by advocating for ongoing funding and program expansion.

OLDER ADULT SERVICES

We are the largest provider of older adult services on the East Side of Manhattan, serving more than 10,000 older adults each year. There are currently more than 1.73 million older adults in New York City, of which 20.6% reside within our catchment area of the East Side and Roosevelt Island—the highest proportion of older adults in the City. In addition to providing essential services to thousands of older adults, our advocacy efforts to support funding and resources to achieve critical outcomes on behalf of older adults continue to be a major focus.

Healthy Foods

We serve more than 400,000 farm-to-table meals annually to our clients using 90% fresh produce, 40% of it locally sourced, and The Teaching Kitchen® at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House has trained more than 400 staff from 200 programs serving more than 17 million meals annually how to incorporate more fresh, healthy and local food—without raising costs. Our teams work to ensure food security and access to healthy food for all New Yorkers, to encourage local procurement for government-funded meals and to make New York’s food systems more equitable and sustainable.

Health Care & Benefits

The Neighborhood House assists low-income New Yorkers with enrolling and accessing necessary medical care and public benefits such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Our staff advocate to ensure that these programs remain available to our clients who depend on them.

Immigration

We were originally founded as a free kindergarten for immigrant families in 1894 and today we serve immigrants throughout our myriad programs. In doing so, we joined the Protecting Immigrant Families Coalition to advocate against policies that impose a wealth test on immigrants.

Nonprofit Organizations

As a human services organization which has provided critical services to New Yorkers for more than 130 years, we understand the challenges of nonprofit organizations. We advocate for nonprofits to receive the support they need and deserve from government.

To learn more about our Policy and Advocacy efforts on behalf of thousands of New Yorkers, please contact:

Justine Tetteh
Director of Policy & Advocacy
212-218-0407
jtetteh@lenoxhill.org