About CIDNY!

CIDNY is Your Voice!

CIDNY is the voice of people with disabilities in New York City. We work with people across all five boroughs. Our staff and Board include social workers, lawyers, and other highly qualified professionals, most of whom are people with disabilities. The staff all have a strong belief in self-determination and bring valuable life experiences and insights to their work. We are racially and ethnically diverse, with language capacity to assist participants in American Sign Language, Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Edo, English, Farsi, French, Greek, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Loma, Mandarin, Nepali, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Tibetan, Urdu, Uzbeki, and Yiddish.

woman holding a microphone speaking
CIDNY attends a Rally Against Mental Health Involuntary Hospitalization on the steps of City Hall.

Advocacy and Policy

Throughout our history, CIDNY has advised government officials on ways to make public services like transportation, health insurance, education, and entitlements work better. We monitor public and private initiatives that affect people with disabilities and offer constructive solutions to problems we see. CIDNY conducts an array of training and technical assistance activities for public officials, healthcare workers, and other service providers on disability awareness and disability-related issues. CIDNY also provides information and workshops for its consumers on everyday skills, such as searching for housing, budgeting, transportation, housekeeping, self-advocacy, and goals planning.

Direct Services

CIDNY’s offices in Manhattan and Queens provide benefits counseling, independent living skills development, direct services (e.g., housing assistance, employment-related assistance, healthcare access, peer counseling, nursing home transition and diversion, and youth transition), information and referrals, and recreational activities. All our services are free. You can also complete this form to request more information: https://www.cidny.org/gethelp/

a woman sitting at a desk with a headset on typing on a computer wearing a gray shirt and has brown hair up in a ponytail