Playbooks — a guided experience
Help an asylum seeker access jobs & benefits.
A new client walks in and you need to move fast and responsibly: figure out what they can apply for, find the right providers, and stay current on the rules — without over-promising. Here's how to do it with public sources, in the order you'd actually use them.
The path: Screen for programs → locate the right centers & agencies → track recent policy changes → follow the budget hearings → escalate to the Council member.
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The question
What might this person be eligible to apply for?
The source to reach for
Official Web onlyThe city's official benefits-screening site — find help with food, money, housing, and work — with ACCESS HRA as the application portal for many programs.
Run the screening questionnaire with your client to get a list of programs they may qualify for, then move qualifying applications into ACCESS HRA (the application portal). Read the result as a starting list, not a determination — the administering agency decides eligibility.What you'll find
A plain-language list of programs across food, cash, housing, and work, each with a short description of who it's for and how to apply. For programs that take online applications, ACCESS HRA picks up the actual filing.
Honest limit, straight from the source: it's a screening tool, not a determination; eligibility is decided by the administering agency. Don't over-claim eligibility from the screener — frame results as "worth applying for," not "you qualify."
Handoff: you have a shortlist of programs to pursue. Next, find the actual centers, agencies, and providers your client should walk into or call.
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The question
Where do I send them — which centers and agencies handle this?
The source to reach for
Official APIReport problems (litter, potholes, noise), request services, and look up agencies. Every request becomes a 311 Service Request in Open Data.
Use 311's agency & service lookup to find the right front door for each need — HRA / DSS for benefits, SBS Workforce1 and DYCD for jobs and youth services, the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) for immigrant-specific help, and legal-services referrals. Note the office, hours, and what to bring.Then pull the underlying data
Official APIThe central catalog of thousands of datasets with Socrata APIs, maps, and visualizations — the backbone for civic hackers.
Search the catalog for facility and service-location datasets (job centers, HRA/DSS sites, community-based provider directories) so you can map the nearest options to your client's address instead of working from a single phone call.What the data looks like
Facility and service-location datasets are typically one row per site. You're working with column shapes like these (no need to invent values):
- From 311: the agency that owns each need and how to reach it, in plain language.
- From Open Data: the geocoded locations so you can pick the closest, in-network option for your client.
Stay conservative: dataset freshness and documentation vary by owning agency, so confirm an office is open and serving before you send someone across the city.
Handoff: you know who handles what and where. But rules and programs shift — before you commit a plan, check what's changed recently in the law.
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The question
What recent policy changes affect these services?
The source to reach for
Independent APIA fast, readable front-end for Council legislation built on the Council's public Legislative API, with clean shareable URLs (e.g. intro.nyc/0139-2026), status, sponsors, and reports.
Search for legislation touching immigrant services, benefits access, and workforce programs to see what's been introduced, its status, and its sponsors. Save the clean intro.nyc/<file-number> links so you can share them with your team.What you'll find
- A readable view of each bill — what it does, where it is in the process, and who's behind it.
- Shareable URLs you can paste into a case note or send to a colleague tracking the same issue.
- An early read on whether a service your client relies on is about to expand, narrow, or get reorganized.
It's a reading layer over the official data — confirm anything decisive against Legistar before you act on it.
Handoff: you know which bills matter. Now hear what's actually being said — and funded — in the hearings that decide whether services exist.
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The question
What's actually being funded and said about these services?
The source to reach for
Independent Web onlySame-day, AI-with-human-oversight transcription of Council and Charter Revision Commission meetings, broken into skimmable, citable chapters linked to the video and transcript. Free, with a newsletter.
Search budget and oversight hearings for asylum-seeker and immigrant services to find the chapters where funding is discussed. Use the citable chapter links to quote exactly what an agency or member said about what's funded.What you'll find
- Skimmable chapters of long hearings, each linked to the exact moment in the video and transcript.
- Testimony from agencies and advocates about what's funded, threatened, or being expanded.
- Citable references you can drop into a memo or bring to the Council office in the next step.
Worth knowing: occasional AI transcription errors, and it covers the Council and the Charter Revision Commission only. Confirm a decisive quote against the video.
Handoff: you have a documented picture — eligible programs, the right providers, the relevant bills, and the budget context. Take it to someone with a vote and a budget line.
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The question
Who can push when a client hits a wall?
Where to take it
When an application stalls or a service gap blocks a client, bring the documented picture — the screened programs, the provider map, the relevant bills, and the budget testimony — to the client's City Council member's office. A Council office can do constituent casework with the agency, raise the issue in oversight, and steer discretionary or budget funding toward the services your clients depend on.
We don't name the officeholder here on purpose — who represents a district changes, so look up the client's current Council member rather than relying on a name baked into a page. Use the same evidence packet; you've already done the hard part.
What makes the ask land
- A concrete client situation, with the specific programs and offices already identified.
- The policy context: the bills (via intro.nyc) and the budget testimony (via citymeetings.nyc) that bear on the issue.
- A clear, narrow ask — a casework escalation, a referral, or a funding line — not a general complaint.
That's the trail. You moved from a first intake to a screened, mapped, policy-aware plan — and an escalation path for when the system stalls.
You now have…
- A screened shortlist — programs worth applying for, from ACCESS NYC, with ACCESS HRA ready for filing.
- A provider map — the right agencies and the nearest centers, from 311 and NYC Open Data.
- Policy awareness — the bills that could change services, tracked on intro.nyc.
- Budget context — what's actually funded and said, from citymeetings.nyc hearings.
- An escalation — the documented picture in front of the Council member, who can do casework and move money.
Keep going
Conservative by design: source descriptions are quoted from the verified Directory, program and agency names are checked, and no eligibility rules or figures are invented. ACCESS NYC is a screener, not a determination, and officeholders are deliberately left out so this stays accurate as people change.