Video, Audio, Photos & Rush Transcript: Governor Hochul Highlights Affordability Initiatives to Support New York's Veterans and Their Families

Earlier today, Governor Hochul joined veterans on Long Island to highlight new and ongoing affordability initiatives aimed at better supporting New York’s veteran community. Joined by New York State Assemblymember Steve Stern at American Legion Post 360 in Huntington, Governor Hochul urged veterans and their families to check their eligibility status for benefits administered through the State, and to register for programs that lower costs and put money back in New Yorkers’ pockets.

VIDEO: The event is available to stream on YouTube here and TV quality video is available here (h.264, mp4).

AUDIO: The Governor's remarks are available in audio form here

PHOTOS: The Governor's Flickr page will post photos of the event here.

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

Good morning, everyone. What a gorgeous day here in Huntington. Please be seated, please. This is something I've been looking forward to, to return to this beautiful place, but also have a chance one more time to thank the men and women who are the one percent — one percent of Americans who go into the military and are willing to put their lives on the line, so the rest of us can sleep securely best in the freedom of this nation every single night. So to the one percent who are in this room, I am here to applaud every one of you. Let's give our veterans a round of applause.

I'll be introducing our Assemblymember Steve Stern, who's a great champion of our veterans, but I also want to acknowledge some of my local partners in government the State Assembly and State Senate. Senator Mario Mattera joined us here. Senator Mattera, thank you. Assemblymember Keith Brown has joined us. Thank you. Thank you for being here today.

I know we have members of the legislature and Ed Smyth, the Supervisor of Huntington. Ed, where are you? I spent 14 years on a town board, so I'm always deferential to my supervisor. So, appreciate all the work you do. Local government is everything to me.

And also for my administration. Our Deputy Commissioner of Veterans Services, William Smith, has joined us. And American Legion Post 360 for hosting us – we have our Commander Andrew Brady has joined us. Where are you, Brady? There you go. There you go.

We have about half a million veterans who call New York home — more than 80,000 right here on Long Island. I've always said as I come out to veterans’ events here, even when I was Lieutenant Governor, this is a very patriotic place. And we believe in our country and our flag, and we are not ashamed of patriotism. We wear it on our sleeves, and I don't think it's what defines one party or the other. We are all Americans, and that is why I come here today. It's a heart full of pride to know that I have men and women who are courageous, who leave their families, who come home, and sometimes that homecoming is not always that easy.

And when I was in Congress a long time ago, I served on the Armed Forces — Armed Services Committee, and in that position I was able to travel to foreign lands, going to military bases, five across Afghanistan during the heat of war, and the respect that I had already had seeing it through the eyes of my five uncles who served in Vietnam, my father-in-law, who proudly served in World War II, my family members who always talked with such pride of their work. Not a lot of stories. People kept their stories to themselves, but they were so proud to have been part of the American military.

But when I had a chance to go see the threats that these individuals encountered and gathered them — in one was in Helmand Province — and I sat there and had breakfast with those from New York And you know what, I asked them what their biggest fear was. And I assume they'd tell me their biggest fear was — we had the Taliban right over here and they're watching every move we make and we are vulnerable sitting here. I was there. I felt it.

Their biggest fear at the time — universally — was coming back home and not having a job. That broke my heart. I was sitting there — this is what they were worrying about? Tens of thousands of miles away from home, they're worried about when they come back home, will there be a job? Because the unemployment rate for returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan at this time in our history was about 20 percent. We had veterans who had served over there or had served in the Gulf War or had served in Vietnam, sleeping under bridges in our city streets and sleeping in boxes because they were homeless and they couldn't afford life when they returned home.

That was a disgusting, abhorrent chapter in our history, and I'm proud that we've worked hard to reduce those numbers, to give people the dignity of a job when they come back. I've supported these initiatives here in the State of New York to give advantages to employers who will hire veterans, especially those with disabilities. Women veterans who come back home, many had endured incredible, not just discrimination, but physical abuse as I talked to women over there. And had round tables. So they come back here, what support system is here for them? So we had to build this system that took care of our veterans, not just when they're part of the active military, but when they come home, because they're always going to be part of our family.

And that has been my commitment since day one to know that we owe this to the individuals — whether it's education, housing opportunities, job training, and the comradery that you get at a place like this. I used to represent the most rural part of our state — upstate New York. Anybody been upstate? It's nice — Buffalo Bills country. I get in trouble when I say that in some parts of the state, but they could always be your second favorite team.

I always remember going into the Wyoming County, which had about 20,000 people, about 40,000 cows, and I knew every one of the cows too. I mean, this is your small town, but the center of that community was truly The American Legion and the VFW Post — that was the epicenter. It was where people gathered and people felt a sense of understanding because how do you tell your family members what you went through when you want to spare them the trauma of hearing about it. But there's others who have the same lived experience. And that's the beauty of the American Legion and in our veterans posts. Where you feel normalized and you can talk to someone. And what I also saw, was with some of the older veterans who were starting to get to know the younger ones, the guy says — returning from Iraq and Afghanistan — “They're like big brothers to them.” They embraced them and said, “You're going to be okay. You're going to be okay.” I felt so good about my country when I would witness that.

Not the least to mention. I shouldn't say this. I drove by on a Sunday afternoon. I saw a lot of cars in the parking lot at this particular veteran post. My husband says, “Let's drop in. Maybe they're having a party or something.” Within an hour, I was doing shots at the bar with everybody. So, it's just a fun group of people too — I digress.

But I just want you to know how I feel. And it's genuine, it's real. And I just know that there's been a lot of challenges, and there's people out there who are trying to take advantage of our veterans. I mean, it's incredible. And it's something that our Assemblymember, Steve Stern, put a spotlight on talking about the fact that there's scammers out there who are trying to convince people that they have to pay them to be able to get their veterans’ benefits. They're making money off this, taking advantage of people and not everybody knows the rules of the road. They don't know. Steve said that we have to do something about it. And he was able to get legislation through where we are now increasing the penalties to $10,000 per violation with the Guard Act, and bringing new charges and making sure that we enforce this. Enforce this and say, “Stop preying on people.” And so I'm proud to be able to sign that soon — momentarily in fact.

But also, I want to let you know that we are so laser focused on putting money back in people's pockets. I know it's tough out there. It is a struggle for families. And you sometimes see your grandkids, and they want to live close to grandma and grandpa. You want the babysitters for free, but can they afford to live out here? This is a great quality of life. This is why I've been focusing on housing — the right kind of housing for each community. But let's build more so grandma and grandpa can have an influence on their kids like mine had on me. But also, we just have to be putting money back in people's pockets, and that's something that we really focused on with the legislature.

I mean, for people with little kids, a thousand dollars for children under the age of four. Anybody have kids under the age — grandkids under the age of four? Grandkids, don't they outgrow the clothes? I just asked my daughter — she's got a four-month-old, am I getting the three to six or is she up to the six? And the formula and the diapers. So we give a thousand dollars to someone saying, “You know what? Your grandkids and your kids, let's make it a little bit easier on families.” Older kids — $500.

Free breakfast and lunches for everybody across the state. And you know why that's important? Because it removes the stigma from those kids who are otherwise skipping lunch. I had a member of the legislature tell me when I was out here on Long Island, what it meant to him because when he was a kid, he used to skip lunch so nobody knew that he was the kid who needed the extra help and his parents couldn't buy lunches.

I also tell you this, your grandkids and kids — I've had more parents walk up to me on the street and say, “You gave me the gift of time back. I don't have to get the kids out of bed and make sure they eat breakfast and heat up the oatmeal or make the cereal and go to the grocery store and pack the sandwiches.” One guy said, “You gave me an hour back in my life every day. Thank you, Governor.”

So you never understand quite the full impact, but something like that makes sense. And the inflation rebate. Anybody get a $400 check back — couple hundred dollars check back? Did you spend it already? OK. You're welcome. Your husband — tell him to spend it on you. That should be a nice dinner. But someone came up to me on the street. I'm always walking the streets — people will come up to me all the time. Someone said, “I had my laptop stolen. I was able to replace it because the $400 check came the same day.” He said, “Thank you, Governor. Thank you because I wasn't sure what I was going to do. It would’ve taken a long time.”

So, here we're just trying to put money back in people's pockets and the largest middle class tax rate cut in 70 years — putting money back in people's pockets. But I also know we're doing all this in New York. We had a lot of stress over the last few weeks with this government shut down. And the people who rely on SNAP — and I had no idea how many people count on this. And I was actually talking to the new Mayor-Elect of New York City — it's going to be fine, everybody. I’m telling you right now, we're going to be fine. And on Veteran's Day, he was sitting at a Veteran's post and he said, “One of the veterans said to me — he said, ‘Would you tell the Governor that I said, thank you for fighting to get the SNAP money returned because I opened up my refrigerator and it was empty the other day.’” That was a veteran. It was a veteran.

So people are being affected in profound ways that we don't even know. We have to take care of our people and our veterans have to be at the top of that list because they offered us and gave us so much, and they have the memories and the impacts. And my uncles are still dealing with Agent Orange. Never been the same since they came home. Four uncles — they talk about it. They saw horrific things in Vietnam, but they were there. You know what? They didn't run. A lot of people didn't run. A lot of people left this country to not serve. They stayed and served. They stayed and served.

Lastly, on affordability, I want to make sure that everybody signs up for our Energy Assistance plan. Okay? We know – now I'm from Buffalo, so I know what cold is. Okay? This is moderately cold, but we need some help for families too. So if you yourselves, or you know anybody who needs help, we have a program. I know that we're still waiting for the federal government. They're supposed to send us $400 million for this plan. We're still waiting. Come on, federal government, give this to us because I want to get that out to everybody so when they're paying their next bills, they'll have some assistance there as well.

So, I'm here to say thank you to everybody. I really am so overjoyed to see many of you. I know we have some Girl Scouts in the room. Let's give a shout out to the Girl Scouts. Raise your hand, kids. I was a Girl Scout mom, so I know all about the badges, right? You have to get a couple badges. They're working on their democracy project — their badges. So I'm so glad they could be here as well.

One last thing I want to say about the civil penalties for what Steve came up with. The money that we collect, and I hope we don't collect any because I don't want anybody to be abusing people, but if there's money collected for the people who are scamming our veterans, it's going to go into a specific fund to assist veterans. So it goes right back to help the people that were being taken advantage of. That's important.

So, I’m proud to be your governor. Proud to be an American. It's the greatest country on Earth, and my job is to keep making it better and better. And I love this job, and I'm so honored to represent every one of you with humility and pride to know that there are others who've answered the call to serve their country, and there's no greater honor to know there's people like that in our state. So I thank every one of you who served. Thank you. Thank you very much.

With that, let me bring up Steve Stern, the author of this, the head of the Veterans Committee. And I want to thank him for his service to our veterans through legislation that is really listening to their needs, responding to when a concern comes forward. Steve's going to run it down and make sure it gets to my desk just like we're doing here now. So ladies and gentlemen, your Assemblymember, Steve Stern.