'A Day Without Human Services': Nonprofits Protest Lack of City Funding
Serving meals (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
The organizations that New York City contracts to deliver everything from essential health and homeless services to youth and senior programing are striking for better compensation in the next city budget.
Over 100 human services providers will pause many non-life-saving activities on Thursday to demonstrate what they say are the consequences of underfunding the sector as inflation and compounding economic and social crises strain the system. Led by the Human Services Council of New York, the "day without human services” is aimed at securing a $200 million investment from the city, equivalent to a roughly 6.5% cost of living adjustment (COLA). It is part of the ongoing "Just Pay" campaign run by the Human Services Council and its members.
Campaign representatives say thousands of nonprofit workers will rally at City Hall on Thursday morning with Comptroller Brad Lander and members of the City Council. Programs not legally or contractually mandated or considered essential – including a host of educational, legal, and clinical services – will be suspended for the day. Providers are encouraging their staff, boards, and clients to write to Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council in support of the COLA.
"We're asking our members to consider closing up to 30% of their programs because that's how much our workforce is paid less than their government counterparts who do similar work," HSC executive director Michelle Jackson said in an interview with Gotham Gazette. "We are very concerned that if we don't get this COLA and more investment in future years, actual life-saving services will not be around next year."
Human Service Council represents 175 providers, a vast majority with city or state contracts, serving 2.5 million New Yorkers each year.
Adams and the City Council are negotiating over the mayor’s $106.7 billion executive budget proposal ahead of the July 1 start of the city fiscal year. Adams' proposed spending plan does not include a human services COLA. The Council, led by Speaker Adrienne Adams, pushed to double baseline funding for human services workers to $120 million in its response to the mayor's earlier preliminary budget. That money is still less than the $200 million providers are seeking to keep up with inflation.
"Human services nonprofits play a vital role in our city by caring for our most vulnerable and the Council fully believes that they must receive an adequate COLA increase," wrote a Council spokesperson by email about the day of action.
Speaker Adams has not taken a public stand on the higher funding ask from the coalition. "The Council is in negotiations with the Administration on the budget and remains committed to fighting for a healthy, functioning human services sector," the spokesperson wrote.
Roughly 80% of New York City's human service workforce is people of color, with three out of five qualifying for some form of government assistance themselves, according to HSC.
"Human services workers show up every day to make sure that residents are fed, housed, and have their most fundamental needs met—often while earning poverty-level wages themselves," Lander said in a statement to Gotham Gazette. "Fair compensation that matches the cost of living is what we owe the essential workers who provide these services.”
Of the thousands of after-school programs, childcare centers, counseling services, supportive housing and shelter providers, domestic violence and eviction prevention programs, summer programs, and other social services across the five boroughs, the city government itself administers only a small number. The city runs some pre-kindergarten, shelters, and community health clinics, for example. But the vast majority are contracted to nonprofit providers around the city. Jackson estimated close to 9 out of 10 human services are provided by a contractor, including nearly all senior and youth, and most homeless services.
Workforce shortages across the health and human services sector have significantly hampered a myriad of programs. The shortage has been at the center of city and state struggles to staff hospitals, psychiatric beds, and street outreach programs. Among other factors, pay is a key reason for the personnel challenges.
In the state budget passed in early May, Governor Kathy Hochul and the State Legislature included a 4% COLA for human services workers paid through state contracts, higher than the 2.5% Hochul had originally proposed, but less than the 8.5% advocates sought. To balance differences in pay, both between city and state contracts and between public and private sector competitors, nonprofits try to subsidize their employees' pay with private fundraising.
"Our members are reporting 30 to 40% vacancy rates," Jackson told Gotham Gazette. "Which means at some point services are not being delivered when you cannot hire and retain talent. So the sector is in true crisis and this investment is one step to solving that," she said, referring to a city COLA.
It is unclear how many New Yorkers will be impacted by the day of action but Jackson said providers are taking steps to ensure clients aren't left out in the cold.
"You're certainly not going to see residential service close, but you might see wraparound services like case management…delayed until Friday," Jackson told Gotham Gazette. Court-mandated and contractually-binding programs will continue but others relied upon by tens of thousands of residents will pause. That includes many older adult centers, afterschool and youth programs, adult literacy and professional development courses, and counseling services, among many others.
In the case of home-delivered meals, providers delivered an extra portion earlier in the week, Jackson said. The provisions organizations are making for Thursday are similar to the way they operate during natural disasters.
"The sector is at this point where they realize if we don't take bolder and bigger action now…we will see communities in real suffering in future years, when programs close," Jackson said. "We have made every plea possible to government before getting to this point."
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by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
@GeringerSameth @GothamGazette
Max Politics Podcast: New York City's 'Green New Deal' Comes Into Focus, with Pete Sikora
Pushing an NYC 'Green New Deal' (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography)
May 22 2023 - Max Politics Podcast: New York City's 'Green New Deal' Comes Into Focus, with Pete Sikora
Pete Sikora, climate campaigns director for New York Communities for Change, joined the show to discuss implementation of New York City's "Green New Deal" — particularly Local Law 97 that deals with building emissions — and more related to climate action, green jobs, gas bans, and other topics.
Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter @TweetBenMax. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts at Max Politics.
Read more: Max Politics Podcast: New York City's 'Green New Deal' Comes Into Focus, with Pete Sikora
Mayor, City Council Negotiate Priorities for Mental Health Care Workforce Funding
Mental health plans (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)
The New York City Council is seeking greater investment in the behavioral health workforce as leaders at all levels of government grapple with the longstanding crisis of untreated severe mental illness.
The Council and Mayor Eric Adams are negotiating the mayor's $106.7 billion executive budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. On the table is tens of millions of dollars to help boost staffing levels for a range of needed services – some new and some depleted by the pandemic — both in and out of city government.
The Council, led by Speaker Adrienne Adams, is seeking to double the $60 million cost of living increase for human services workers included in the current city budget, along with greater funding for nonprofit providers, a social work fellowship at CUNY, and other priorities.
Industry-wide staffing shortages caused by burnout and uncompetitive wages have stretched behavioral health services too thin, city health officials and providers say, threatening the city and state response to gaps in the social safety net. Mobile intervention, inpatient commitment, and outpatient services — the so-called continuum of care for those with serious mental illness — have become a defining focus for Mayor Eric Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul, both Democrats. They have sought to respond to the subway killing of Jordan Neely this month and other attacks in recent years on or by people experiencing acute psychiatric episodes and homelessness.
The Council's response to the mayor's preliminary budget for next fiscal year and its Mental Health Roadmap released shortly thereafter called for $117.4 million more in mental health care funding along with pay parity for the publicly-funded behavioral health workforce.
Two days after release of the Council’s wide-ranging Roadmap, Mayor Adams released his $106.7 billion executive budget proposal, which contained an additional $40 million for the crisis response program B-HEARD, youth telehealth services, peer-led clubhouses, and a digital services access hub, according to his office’s summary of the plan.
The mayor's latest budget proposal includes none of the city-level workforce development elements in the Council's Mental Health Roadmap, one of the central pillars of the plan. The Roadmap includes various Council bills, city spending priorities, requests of mayoral administration action, and state and federal policy changes aimed at bolstering mental health services and limiting the intersection with the criminal legal system.
Asked whether the mayor supports any of the Roadmap's workforce-related proposals, an Adams spokesperson pointed to the mayor's own mental health blueprint, issued earlier this year, but no specific funding lines in the executive budget.
“The ongoing mental health crisis in our city demands a strong response from all levels of government," the spokesperson wrote in a statement to Gotham Gazette after the executive budget was released. “We applaud the speaker for unveiling this agenda and thank her and the Council for their partnership,” the spokesperson added.
Workforce pipeline issues have led to bottlenecks in mental health programs throughout the state, frustrating proposals by the mayor and governor, including a marquee plan to restore hundreds of shuttered psychiatric beds.
The Council's Roadmap calls for more funding for nonprofit organizations providing culturally competent behavioral health services. The plan, which Speaker Adrienne Adams emphasized was an "ongoing roadmap" and a "pivotal start" as budget talks unfold, lacks specific funding targets. Last year, the Council allocated roughly $25 million in discretionary spending to mental health services, including autism awareness, programs for court-involved and LGBTQ youth, seniors, and other vulnerable populations, opioid treatment, and trauma recovery centers.
Coalition for Behavioral Health represents over 250 local mental health and substance use providers. In testimony before the City Council in March, CBH representatives called for a 8.5% cost of living increase for publicly-contracted mental health workers to match a parallel push in the state budget (that was passed early this month).
The money would help retain and recruit the psychiatrists, counselors, and social workers needed for Adams' various emergency and preventative programs, professionals often leaving for higher pay in other settings. The state included a 4% cost of living adjustment this year, which was less than the 8.5% advocates pushed for but more than the 2.5% Hochul initially proposed.
Cara Berkowitz, acting director of the CBH and Association for Substance Abuse Providers Association of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Providers' Policy Center, said the cost of living increase is a matter of equal access to health care as much as it is a fair pay issue. "When social service providers, especially those helping those most vulnerable, cannot find workers it is the clients who suffer the most with little or no access to care," she wrote by email. "Facilitating access starts with paying city-contracted workers on par with the state, federal and private sectors."
Dr. Ashwin Vasan, the city health commissioner appointed by Mayor Adams, called a cost of living increase for human services agencies "long overdue" in testimony before the City Council finance and health committees at a May 15 budget hearing. "As a former operator of a human service and community health organization this hits home," he said.
"It is not an agency by agency decision on whether to fill those funding gaps," Vasan added. "It is a citywide decision in part because we're all working with human services agencies and often multiple [city] agencies are working with the same human service agencies, so that's really handled centrally by [the Mayor's Office of Management and Budget] to ensure consistency and equity."
Hiring for the city's outreach teams has been particularly difficult because of the nature of the work and major shortages in social workers and doctors.
"There is a huge problem right now for all mental health professionals across the city, across the country. COVID has really disrupted the mental health market," said Dr. Mitchell Katz, president and CEO of New York City Health + Hospitals (H+H), the city's public hospital network and largest behavioral health provider, in his own budget testimony on May 16.
One of the city’s signature programs, B-HEARD, a non-police mental health crisis response pilot using H+H clinicians and FDNY EMTs to answer non-violent 911 calls, can't expand in part because of a shortage of social workers, Katz told the Council. B-HEARD is getting an additional $27 million in the mayor's executive budget proposal to bring it to the remainder of the Bronx and other parts of the city. The program, which only operates from 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. in a limited number of police precincts, has been criticized for failing to respond to calls often leading to the deployment of police officers.
"We are in favor of 24-hour coverage but we would need to be able to hire more people in order to do that," Katz told the Council. "The city has committed that if we are able to hire, they would provide the funding. The current funding we have is sufficient for the number of social workers that we are employing."
"So it's a question of, can we recruit enough to go to nights?" he added.
The Council Roadmap calls for subsidies for CUNY social work candidates, part of the speaker's State of the City agenda this year. Rendy Desamours, a spokesperson for Speaker Adams, said the body didn't have a specific dollar figure in mind but would be pushing for its inclusion in the final budget deal. Council Member Rita Joseph, a Brooklyn Democrat, introduced a resolution calling on the state to pay for the education and licensing fees of CUNY students who commit to working in the public sector in a mental health field. The resolution is sponsored by 13 City Council and Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.
In a recent podcast interview with Gotham Gazette on the City Council Mental Health Roadmap, the Council's mental health committee chair, Linda Lee, said pay parity and subsidized education were key to priming the pipeline of mental health workers. But to fill vacancies in the immediate term, Lee pointed to action the state could take to authorize out-of-state clinicians to practice in New York. Doing so would inevitably increase the reliance on remote service delivery by phone or teleconference, she said. Whether and how telehealth could be used for street outreach remains an open question.
"What we're asking is, can we increase the workforce pool, by actually allowing these folks from out of state to come. And we see that being tremendously helpful when it comes to telehealth," she told Gotham Gazette.
The mayor’s executive budget also includes $66 million for other outreach and crisis response teams run by the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, according to officials at the May 15 budget hearing. Recruiting for those positions has also been a challenge.
"Building trust, engaging people over time, coming back and coming back and coming back, never leaving, is extraordinarily difficult work," Vasan told the committee. "It requires extraordinarily special people who want to do that every single day. We're lucky in this city to have hundreds of people who want to do this work, if not more."
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by Ethan Geringer-Sameth, reporter, Gotham Gazette
@GeringerSameth @GothamGazette
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