Squad 12

Squad 12 oversees City agencies that provide critical social services to New Yorkers: the City Department of Social Services (“DSS”), which includes the City Human Resources Administration (HRA) and the City Department of Homeless Services (DHS). Squad 12 ensures that these agencies fulfill their collective mandate to assist the City’s most vulnerable New Yorkers, including through complex criminal investigations into corruption, financial fraud, and mismanagement, as in the investigation that resulted in a Florida woman sentenced to 42 months in prison for defrauding at least 120 low-income City residents out of nearly $50,000 in benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides low-income individuals with electronic benefits that can be used like cash to purchase food; and the investigation that resulted in a 70-month prison sentence for a man who defrauded the government’s rental assistance programs of nearly $2 million. Squad 12 also proactively identifies weaknesses and operational failings in the social services agencies' processes and procedures, recommends reforms to fix and prevent weaknesses from recurring, and works with the agencies to address those weaknesses. For instance, Squad 12’s reports on DSS’s improper payments to brokers who place clients into private housing and on two allegations concerning data maintenance and reporting at the DHS’s PATH Intake Center.

Squad 12 Reports