Applying for public benefits can be dispiriting.

Angie Alston of Harlem would know.

“I applied for Section 8, I applied or food stamps, I applied for housing on Housing Connect — zero,” she told NY1. 

What You Need To Know

  • The city launched a new website, nyc.gov/moneyinyourpocket, that details benefit programs

  • The Mayor's Public Engagement Unit is sending about 300 volunteers out to screen New Yorkers in their neighborhoods

  • Benefits include food and cash assistance and rent freezes for disabled and senior New Yorkers

But she’s got personal attention from a member of the Mayor’s Public Engagement Unit, which is coordinating about 300 city employees and volunteers who are hitting up more than 20 neighborhoods to screen New Yorkers for benefits and help them apply.

Alston happened to come across the kickoff event at Marcus Garvey Park in East Harlem.

“I’m entitled [to 15 programs that would help me,” Alston said next to a volunteer who screened her. “The only thing I have to do is [to] apply, so I’m going to apply today.”

Mayor Eric Adams attended the kickoff of the outreach effort called “Money In Your Pocket” to inform New Yorkers about the dozens of programs available.

“All of these acronyms and terminologies that we know because we are in this bubble and don’t know that everyday New Yorkers are not aware of it,” Adams said. “We got it, but they had to get it.”

Adams had tasked his chief technology officer of developing a program that finds New Yorkers who already sent their information to city agencies, then has the city reach out to residents to automatically screen and enroll them in benefits.

“If we have your number, your Social Security number, your address, and all your date of birth, we should be contacting you saying, this is what you’re eligible for based on our analysis,” Adams said. “That’s the next level we’re trying to get to.”

But until that program is developed, New Yorkers can visit a new website — NYC.gov/MoneyinYourPocket — that lists dozens of programs, like cash assistance, rent freeze for disabled New Yorkers and seniors and free high-speed internet for public housing residents.

“There is just a lot of resources that are left on the table that new yorkers have access to, and maybe they dont know about it,” Adrienne Lever, executive director of the Mayor’s Public Engagement Unit, told NY1. “Maybe they also just need a little extra help.”

That little extra help could make the difference for determined New Yorkers like Alston.

“I don’t give up,” she said. “I keep knocking on doors.”