Council Member Helen Rosenthal, the author (photo: John McCarten/City Council)
I am proud to support and fight for workers in the human services sector. The city’s 125,000-plus social service workers provide essential services to 2.5 million New Yorkers, especially seniors, children, people with disabilities, and our neighbors experiencing homelessness. Most recently, they have been absolutely central to New York City’s response to the pandemic, ensuring that the most vulnerable do not fall through the cracks.
Human services workers are predominantly women and women of color; many are single moms raising a family on one income. For the past eight years, the sector and its allies have fought to convince New York City (and State) government to fund service providers enough so they can pay their workers a decent wage, provide full benefits and a pension, and have enough overhead for programs to function. The battle is Sisyphean.
During the past 16 months especially, the City has treated the human services sector as a second-class partner. It required workers employed by non-profit providers to come to work (when many City workers did not, due to health and safety concerns); cut programs, which led to sudden layoffs during the height of the pandemic; allowed a cost-of-living wage adjustment (COLA) to expire; and failed to provide frontline workers with PPE.
Last month the City Council passed legislation that mandates that these non-profit providers abide by “labor peace” agreements in their workplaces -- in other words, providers cannot interfere with any effort on the part of their employees to unionize. I am unabashedly pro-union and voted for the bill’s passage, but the legislation obscures the real obstacle to better pay and conditions for human services workers: government.
Local government has gotten away with underpaying human services providers since they began as mission driven non-profits born from faith-based institutions. It’s been a great ride for government -- which has been able to maintain a much wider social safety net at bargain prices. The terrible truth is that both the City and State are responsible for leaving tens of thousands of human services employees in poverty.
The double standard cannot be denied. Our governor was lauded (rightly so) for backing a minimum wage of $15 an hour across New York. All businesses in the private sector complied. However, State contracts with human services providers were never increased to cover the $15 hourly wage for workers.
Similarly, our mayor has been praised (again, rightly so) for launching free universal pre-kindergarten. However, his administration continues to underfund non-profits providing UPK, making it impossible for them to pay competitive wages to match those of UPK teachers in public schools. Not surprisingly, the non-profits can’t retain UPK teachers because of the lower salaries, and children experience a revolving-door of teachers.
The legislation passed last month basically admits that we’ve lost the battle to get the City and State to support good wages and benefits for the workers who serve the most vulnerable New Yorkers. This is nothing to be proud of. Nonetheless, the legislation offers the hope of a different approach. We will build on the strength and wins of unionized labor, which has successfully negotiated higher wages for municipal workers, to bring wages up for those in the non-profit sector.
After my eight years fighting in vain to have the City fairly and fully fund human services contracts, I'm encouraged that we are bringing in the power of the union. But there are questions raised by this legislation that must be addressed.
The central issue pertains to funding. If unions are able to negotiate better wages and benefits for their new members, where does the money come from if the non-profit’s only source of income is government? Thus far, government has categorically refused to fully fund existing social service contracts, and now we are going to be asking them to increase funding for collective bargaining.
We need to make sure that this recently passed legislation does not ultimately create an unfunded mandate and more administrative burdens for providers who have already been pushed to the brink. The human services sector must be fully involved in the bill’s implementation -- and guaranteed full funding. And we need to be honest about the fact that the bill shifts responsibility for properly paying government-contracted human services workers to organized labor -- its passage is an admission our government leaders have failed these workers.
At the end of the day, government must stop taking advantage of our non-profit institutions, and providers and their workers must be paid fairly once and for all. This is the case whether they are unionized or not.
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City Council Member Helen Rosenthal represents parts of Manhattan. On Twitter @HelenRosenthal.
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The governor & high court (photo: governor's office)
Even with Governor Andrew Cuomo’s announced resignation, New Yorkers must keep in mind that whoever is Governor has the power to appoint a judge to fill a looming vacancy on the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court. And while Cuomo’s most recent nominations produced intense criticism and calls for the State Senate to deny confirmation, Cuomo is only partially to blame.
In 1977, New York voters approved a constitutional amendment that repealed elections to the Court of Appeals and gave the Governor power to nominate judges to the Court subject to Senate confirmation. This new process of judicial selection also spawned the creation of the Commission on Judicial Nomination. The 12-member Commission is comprised of four people selected by the Governor, four selected by the Court’s Chief Judge, and one each by the majority and minority leaders in the State Assembly and Senate. The Commission’s mandate is to vet applicants to fill vacancies, then send a list of potential nominees to the Governor. Critically, the Constitution requires that the Governor can only select a judge from the list provided by the Commission.
Even a cursory look at the most recent list of nominees forwarded to Cuomo reveals a Commission in need of an overhaul.
For the past several years, advocates, scholars, and even United States Supreme Court justices have called for experiential diversity in the judiciary; shunning the usual suspects of prosecutors and big law partners for lawyers with backgrounds and experience representing the most vulnerable.
New York’s Commission on Judicial Nomination sent Cuomo two lists of seven potential nominees to fill two vacancies this summer. None of those named had careers as civil rights lawyers, public defenders, or any other work that reflects a lifelong commitment to individual rights and liberties. And so, from that business-as-usual list, Cuomo nominated a longtime civil court judge and a career prosecutor who got her start in the oft-maligned Queens District Attorney’s office. Neither person has any meaningful experience representing people facing criminal charges, eviction, deportation, or anything similar.
The contrast with what is happening at the federal level is stark. Unlike New York’s Commission, the U.S. Senators with the power to recommend judges for nomination to the federal bench have heeded the call for a revamped judiciary by retooling their vetting process and forwarding to President Biden an unprecedented number of public defenders and civil rights lawyers. And, to his credit, Biden has followed through and nominated many of those people.
The failure of the New York Commission to forward to the Governor a list of candidates with diverse backgrounds is inexcusable, especially given its mandate, stated on its website, to “broadly solicit” applicants. With the large number of qualified social justice lawyers practicing in our state, only a commission intentionally wearing blinders could have ignored that vast pool of candidates.
New York Senator Chuck Schumer seems to have no such problem.
In just the past few months, the Majority Leader has recommended to the federal judiciary several New York lawyers who practiced at various stalwart civil rights organizations, including the Federal Defenders, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Office of the Appellate Defender, the Brennan Center, and the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund. Many other experienced lawyers at those and similar organizations stand ready, willing, and well more than able to serve as judges on New York’s high court.
The need for progressives on New York’s highest court is more crucial than ever. The current court has taken a markedly pro-prosecution turn -- it seldom agrees to review appeals from those seeking to challenge their conviction or sentence, and sides overwhelmingly with the prosecution in the few criminal cases it actually does accept. Furthermore, with a United States Supreme Court dominated by judges unsympathetic to voting rights, abortion, climate change, and the rights of the accused, there is an urgent need for New York judges willing to find greater protections for individuals in the state’s own constitution against practices that have overwhelmingly and disproportionately harmed individuals and communities of color.
The New York Commission on Judicial Nominations’ members will soon forward to whoever is Governor their latest list of seven potential nominees for the upcoming vacancy. If Chuck Schumer can get it right, so can the New York Commission.
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Steven Zeidman is a professor of law at CUNY School of Law. On Twitter @SteveZeidman.
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New Yorkers in search of affordable housing (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
With the rights of those experiencing homelessness being debated - or disregarded - in the move from hotels back to congregate shelters, homeless New Yorkers declared July Homeless Rights Month, forcing our leaders to reckon with those often ignored in our policy debates, simply because they don’t have a permanent address. While the United Nations has condemned America for its criminalization of homelessness despite having the resources to solve it, the timing has never been politically expedient to tackle this public health emergency — until now. At the end of a pandemic and a mayoral administration, it is finally too big an issue to ignore that Housing is a Human Right, and we are failing tens of thousands of our fellow New Yorkers every day.
It is possible to move past ‘Housing is a Human Right’ being just a slogan, and make it a reality in the United States, especially right here in New York City. This is not some far-fetched dream. It is within our grasp.
The Section 8 housing program is a guaranteed path to housing stability - for those lucky enough to have access. We should expand the Section 8 program that provides a housing subsidy universally to everyone who is eligible, giving renters a similar benefit as homeowners who receive tax deductions on their mortgage. Congressman Ritchie Torres (D-NY) introduced the Ending Homelessness Act that takes us closer to this being a reality, which if passed, would be the biggest step towards ending the city’s housing crisis.
But even if we ensure everyone can afford to pay rent, we cannot house them all until we see a major influx of new housing supply. Our housing supply has failed to keep up with our job growth over the past several decades. It is little wonder housing costs have skyrocketed, severely outpacing wages and leaving many households rent burdened and at risk of becoming homeless. It is simple supply and demand economics. The lack of housing supply in New York City puts a strain on services when essential workers are pushed out far away from the jobs where we rely on them and has led to massive increases in homelessness.
Unfortunately, we cannot just snap our fingers and create more housing. The housing supply our city needs is often slowed down and turned away by exclusionary community input that seeks to preserve the status quo rather than welcome new neighbors. We see this most often in high-income neighborhoods, especially when housing or supportive housing for New Yorkers experiencing homelessness is being proposed.
While proponents of more community input may mean well, not every housing project should be dissected, slowed down, and litigated by those who claim to speak for the community. If housing is a human right, then the rights of people to have a roof over their head should simply not be open for debate. Mayor de Blasio’s Racial Justice Commission should consider proposing city charter changes that exempt projects that are deeply affordable or contain housing for people experiencing homelessness from a public review process, therefore codifying that housing is a human right and not up for discussion.
When a patient is rushed to the emergency room, we don’t hold a community meeting to decide whether a doctor should treat them. Housing our homeless neighbors is a matter of life and death, it shouldn’t be up for negotiation by stably housed New Yorkers.
Beyond the supply and subsidy, we must remember that stable housing allows for a person or family to begin taking steps towards so much - mentally, physically and emotionally. We must ensure that, whichever stage of housing a person is at, the social safety net, including affordable, dignified housing with security of tenure, is as expedient and humane as possible.
We need to stop repeatedly asking people to prove poverty, searching for fraud where there is none to be found, or continually sending them from one government agency to another sharing the same information over and over again. These hoops force people who need it the most to stop asking for help. Access to services to get a family on the pathway to stable housing should not be an onerous process.
It is possible for us to end the homelessness crisis and ensure that New York City is affordable and accessible to all. It will take action at every level and compassion and commitment from each other, but if we truly believe Housing is a Human Right, is that too much to ask?
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Jessica Katz is the Executive Director of Citizens Housing and Planning Council. Robert Robinson is a formerly homeless individual, human rights activist and Staff Volunteer with Partners for Dignity and Rights. On Twitter @chpcny.
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Dogs for adoption (photo: Edward Reed/City Council)
Animal issues were given short-shrift in the recent Democratic primary for New York City Mayor. In fact, most of the major Democratic candidates did not come out publicly in support of any important animal concerns. In 2013, the last open mayoral race, animal issues were front and center in the election. This included a mayoral debate on animal issues attended by almost every candidate jockeying for support from the animal protection community. There is little doubt that Bill de Blasio’s promise to ban horse-drawn carriages on day one, a promise that was nevertheless broken, helped him win the election.
This year, the Democratic primary’s focus was on crime, the economy, jobs, health care, housing, homelessness, children, and education. Important issues to be sure — however, major animal issues, a blight on our city, continue to be ignored.
The still-low turnout of voters this year was perhaps indicative of the failure of any of the candidates to put forth a truly bold platform. Eric Adams emerged victorious and is the Democratic nominee for Mayor. Among others, he faces Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee, who also managed to get an Animal Welfare Party line on the general election ballot — clearly an effort to appeal to New Yorkers who care about animal issues but who might not otherwise support a Republican.
The major Democratic candidates were contacted by animal protection organizations to ascertain their positions on various issues but only a few responded. New Yorkers concerned about the deafening silence surrounding persistent animal crises staring us in the face felt they were being ignored by most of the Democratic candidates.
The failing, archaic New York City animal shelter system is reputed by many as a ‘hellhole for animals,’ a place where many get sick, and others are designated as “behavior” risks, both of which are used to justify their killing. It is appalling and disheartening to know that thousands of healthy, treatable, adoptable cats and dogs continue to be destroyed in our dysfunctional and outdated New York City Animal “Care” Centers, even when life-saving alternatives exist.
These include legislation, the state-level Shelter Animal Rescue Act (SARA; bill A.7155), which offers practical solutions to these issues, and could save thousands of lives in our three New York City animal shelters, but is stalled in the State Assembly. While shelters around the country were emptied out by a flood of adoptions during the most difficult period of the pandemic, New York City shelters continued to kill homeless animals. Although money has been allocated by the city for critically needed shelters in the Bronx and Queens, as well as funding for desperately needed renovations in the Manhattan and Brooklyn shelters, these things have yet to happen.
Eric Adams was one of the few candidates who did respond to an animal issues questionnaire, circulated by NYCLASS, however his responses were not made public. And while some responses regarding the sale of fur, live animal markets, and a ban on horse-drawn carriages may not be entirely satisfactory to animal advocates, Adams has indicated that he is “open to further discussion” and said he will bring stakeholders together. Adams has a long history of positive actions on behalf of animals both as a State Senator and as Brooklyn Borough President. They include opposition to wild animals in circuses; opposition to the slaughter of geese; encouraging people to eat more plant-based food; and support of the Foie Gras ban. He has also advocated for pet adoptions, supported feral cat initiatives, and pet-friendly programs in housing and homeless shelters.
Sliwa, on the other hand, presents himself as an animal welfare candidate, but did not respond to the same NYCLASS questionnaire submitted in great detail by Adams. He has never gone into specifics about how he would make New York City “no kill,” a challenging paradigm, at best. He has no history of supporting other animal issues such as bans on carriage horses, puppy mill dogs and cats sold in pet shops, the sale of fur, circuses, rodeos, etc. New Yorkers want to know that any candidate seeking the highest office in our city cares about these issues that matter to us.
There cannot be silence from candidates when it comes to the carriage horse issue, which is still dire. Since 2020, two carriage horses have collapsed in Central Park. One was forced to get up and continue to work. The other died. Politicians continue to look the other way but most New Yorkers care about animals and need a compassionate and savvy mayor to lead the way.
There is a new proposal by the Compassionate & Responsible Tourism group that would substitute electric, battery-operated carriages for horse-drawn carriages, saving jobs and finding homes for the horses, in addition to giving a shot in the arm to the tourism industry, which has suffered greatly this past year.
This is not about reliving past campaigns, but instead offers a practical solution to resolving the carriage horse issue. Electric, horseless carriages currently exist in a number of cities around the world, including Berlin and Cologne, Germany; Dubai, UAE; and Guadalajara, Mexico, where they have been a success since 2017 when they were introduced. This proposal is worthy of serious consideration by the next City Council and mayoral administration. It’s a win-win for all.
As a long-time animal activist advocating for animal issues for over 30 years, I know that even though change is slow, it is inevitable. Animal Rights is the emerging social justice movement of the 21st century, as consciousness about animal sentience and the impact of animal agriculture on global climate change are raised, and justice and compassion take precedence over cruelty, indifference, and greed.
Anyone running for the second most important job in the United States -- Mayor of New York City -- must pay close attention to animal rights. Being a compassionate, visionary leader means caring for animals, and for those who care deeply about animals and vote!
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Zelda Penzel is President of People for the End of Animal Cruelty and Exploitation, or PEACE.
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Construction workers (photo: governor's office)
I’m an employment attorney at Make the Road New York, a community-based organization that helps low-wage and immigrant workers fight workplace abuses. Among the hundreds of low-wage workers our team serves each year, construction workers make up the single largest group. We hear daily from construction workers cheated of their wages by subcontractors who refuse to pay overtime or disappear when a project is winding down, a problem that’s especially prevalent on the non-union and residential sites where many immigrant workers are employed, and frustratingly hard to combat under our current labor laws.
That’s why we urge Governor Cuomo to sign legislation that recently passed the State Legislature (A3350/S2766) that would help construction workers and countless other workers protect their rights and fight the pervasive pay abuses that plague New York’s construction industry.
What we’ve heard from our clients is, unfortunately, completely in-line with research on the prevalence of wage theft in low-wage jobs. A landmark study of wage theft in the U.S. found high violation rates among workers in the construction industry. Of the surveyed workers, 10.5% suffered a minimum wage violation. These rates were even higher in the residential construction industry, in which many of our members are employed: the residential sector, 12.7% of workers suffered a minimum wage violation in their previous week of work; 70.5% of workers who worked over 40 hours were denied the required overtime pay; 72.2% were not paid for “off-the-clock work” performed before and/or after their regularly scheduled shift; and 54.9% were denied meal breaks to which they were entitled. The study found that pay violations were even higher for workers paid in cash and paid by the day or week rather than the hour, as many of our clients are.
Compounding the high incidence of these wage violations, construction employers frequently try to escape accountability for their practices through abusive subcontracting schemes.
General contractors often contract with low-road subcontractors, retaining control over the worksite, wages, and working conditions while shifting only superficial employment duties over to their subcontractors. General contractors still call the shots and reap the benefits of the workers’ labor, but obscure their role in setting labor standards and deny legal responsibility for any violations.
Our system encourages these abuses. Subcontractors competing to win contracts engage in a race to the bottom by illegally depressing worker wages. Under the current employment law scheme, general contractors have little incentive to vet or monitor their employment practices. All too often, these subcontractors are not even legitimate businesses, but rather fly-by-night operations, labor brokers, or even just a worker who was told one day by their employer that they would now be responsible for handing out cash wages to their coworkers. Some subcontractors disappear overnight, leaving workers without their wages or any meaningful remedy.
Even when we are able to prove our construction worker clients’ claims, we often can’t find the employer by the time we bring the claim.
Attempting to hold a general construction contractor liable for wage violations that occur under their watch is an uphill battle under current law. In theory, we can prove that a general contractor is legally responsible even where one or more subcontractors were intermediaries. In practice, Department of Labor investigators, judges, and other decision-makers are extremely reluctant to hold general construction contractors legally liable for violations.
We need a new bright-line rule that recognizes the economic reality of subcontracting arrangements in the construction industry and gives workers a meaningful chance of recovering their wages. The bill passed by both the Assembly and Senate would do just that.
By making general contractors liable for any wage theft civil violations committed by any subcontractor on their job sites, the proposed law would give workers a much greater chance of recovering stolen wages, while also removing incentives for general contractors to use these abusive subcontracting schemes in the first place.
This reform is especially critical for low-wage immigrant workers employed on smaller projects with lower unionization rates. They are much less likely to have the resources to fight the abuses, and the most in need of this crucial law. It’s time to close this loophole and protect these vulnerable workers. The governor should sign this legislation into law today.
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Sarah Leberstein is the Supervising Workplace Justice Attorney at Make the Road New York. On Twitter: @MakeTheRoadNY.
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Housing in the Bronx (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayor's Office)
In response to George Floyd’s killing and demands to reimagine community safety, Governor Cuomo ordered all local governments to create plans to reform and reinvent their police forces. In response, the New York City Council adopted a “Police Reform and Reinvention Collaborative Plan.” The plan lays out concrete ways that the city can stop the cycle of poverty and incarceration -- and ways to create safety without relying solely on police.
A key part of the city’s plan: passing legislation to prohibit housing discrimination based on arrest or conviction record.
This shows that the City Council has a strong understanding of the connection between homelessness and public safety. This connection is one that survivors of violence know all too well. And yet, with the rise in the ease of online background checks, more and more people are excluded from housing because of their record. This exclusion -- masked as protecting public “safety” -- actually makes people less safe; there is no world in which making people homeless makes any of us safer.
Many may ask: but what about people convicted of violent crimes? To answer this, we have to understand that violence is more than an isolated act between two or more people. Violence is systemic and it is structural. The structural violence of racism, the violence of hunger, and the violence of poverty drive more violence. And categorically denying a group of people a basic need like housing drives violence.
Survivors want to know that they will not be victims again, and that others will not be harmed the way they were. According to a survey by the Alliance for Safety and Justice, survivors prefer the government spend more money on prevention over policing and prison. And one of the best ways to prevent people from causing harm is through preventative methods -- like quality, affordable housing.
As a survivor, Brooklyn State Senator Julia Salazar tweeted her support for eliminating obstacles to housing for people with conviction records, saying “I’ve survived sexual assault...The man who assaulted me (and others) was hardly held accountable, years afterward...And still: What good would it do to make him homeless?”
The Fair Chance for Housing campaign -- a coalition of advocates, legal services professionals, human service providers, and people who have experienced housing discrimination -- is calling on the New York City Council to put its action where its words are. There is already pending legislation -- Intro. 2047, sponsored by Council Member Stephen Levin and 23 co-sponsors -- that would immediately bar housing discrimination against people with convictions. So why wait?
The structural inequities that led to widespread protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder have not gone away. Black and Latino people are more likely to be swept up in the criminal justice system and are more likely to face homelessness.
Making people homeless as a result of a conviction does not make anyone safer. In fact, it perpetuates the structural causes of violence.
Safety is built in community, accountability, and repair. Safety is built in the security that housing provides. It is a fundamental and basic economic need -- it can’t possibly be ignored if we hope to create a society in which survivors' needs are met, homelessness is eradicated, people with convictions are able to rebuild their lives, and safe communities are fostered.
The New York City Council must acknowledge the ways in which it continues to perpetuate harm and do better. Passing Intro. 2047 is one way to start.
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Aliya Brown is the Senior Communications Manager and Kira Shepherd is the Vice President of Organizing and Policy at Common Justice. Alison Wilkey is the Director of Public Policy at the John Jay College Institute for Justice and Opportunity. On Twitter @alisonwilkey & @JusticeAndOpp & @Common_Justice & @FairHousing_NYC.
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New Yorkers
As most New Yorkers adjust to enjoy newly vaccinated and unmasked social lives, many of the city’s most medically vulnerable – homeless individuals who through painstaking work by many advocates were able to secure safe, secure hotel rooms for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic – remain in unnecessary peril. At City Hall’s whim, they are being sent back en masse to congregate living facilities that, with the rise of the much more transmissible Delta variant, may become hotbeds of viral transmission even among the fully vaccinated (see the example of the Yankees pitching staff).
Knowingly forcing congregation (even if vaccinated) is not recommended for the general public and should not be applied for those seeking shelter. Health workers now call for the immediate halt of such actions happening this week, alarmed by the immediate danger this poses to individuals in the shelter system.
Ask any health-care professional across the city and you will hear that we entered the pandemic in March 2020 struggling to address an acute housing crisis. COVID-19 made things exponentially worse, and the mobilization of resources for homeless individuals by the City was slow, inadequate, and confusing, prompting concern and questions by April 2020. Eventually, by dint of forceful advocacy, vital resources – namely hotel beds – did come for many. Hotels have been used by the City throughout its history and in recent pre-pandemic times (which is to say this is not a new idea or radical strategy).
Absent from much public discussion is that these hotels will be paid for by FEMA funding through this September. Of historic note, mobilization of the hotel shelter system at the start of the pandemic was slow, and grassroots organizations were forced to step up and use donor funding to help save lives when the City lagged, through crowdfunding campaigns such as “The Homeless Can't Stay Home” and other non-profits.
The effect of these hotel placements has been profound. We heard from our patients who were newly placed how having the hotel room offered a haven from sleep-deprived nights, an ability to lay flat to sleep, a safe place to stay during the day, access to hygienic facilities, and most importantly some ease from the stress of worrying about coronavirus exposure in the alternative: a congregate shelter.
Throughout the past year-and-a-half, we and other health-care providers have borne witness to many slow responses that harmed our patients — from early lack of testing capacity to continued absence of transparent processes for collaborative strategic planning across public and private health-care providers — as well as policies that actively caused harm despite numerous warnings by public health officials, such as the nightly subway shutdown and frequent street sweeps (all of which were against CDC guidance and had little measurable effect on citywide COVID-19 transmission rates).
Calls to return our patients to congregate living environments must at least acknowledge the fact that there is inadequate data regarding the protection offered by partial or full vaccination rates against new variants, particularly the more transmissible Delta strain, to pass scientific judgment about whether it is safe to do so. Although a judge ruled earlier this month to temporarily halt these transfers and ensure reasonable accommodations for those living with disabilities as protected by law, transfers are now resuming again. As health-care professionals, we say that every human being needs a reasonable accommodation to safely isolate themselves and their families in the midst of what is increasingly recognized as a not-yet-finished pandemic. Shelter in the temporary form of hotel rooms has meant health, safety, peace of mind, and much-needed rest for this critical population of our patients in their most trying hour. With case rates once again rising, Mayor de Blasio’s decision to return people to congregate shelters is therefore, in our view, misguided, premature, and potentially dangerous.
And while we speak of temporary transfers to and from congregate settings, we know that the ultimate goal should be safe and affordable housing for all New Yorkers. The current acute crisis of displacement should not detract from the achievable ideal of securing more permanent housing under a new city administration.
At this historic moment, we urge the mayor to accelerate emergency implementation of the recently passed law (Intro. 146) that raises CityFHEPS voucher amounts. Once it takes effect, it will make thousands more apartments within reach to New Yorkers experiencing homelessness. Moving individuals from hotels directly into affordable permanent housing is possible even during a pandemic via several mechanisms — we have seen it happen to some of our more fortunate patients.
After the trauma of COVID-19, signs of citywide recovery have given us many reasons for hope in the face of adversity; our care and support for the historically outsized population of our fellow city residents who are experiencing homelessness could and should be one shining example of that care.
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Nathaniel Hupert, MD MPH FACP, is a physician on the internal medicine service at Lower Manhattan Hospital and is co-director of the Cornell Institute for Disease and Disaster Preparedness. Amanda Ramsdell, MD, is an Internal Medicine Physician at New York Presbyterian in New York City and Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. On Twitter @ARamsdell3.
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Construction workers (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
From the first day of its introduction, the Biden infrastructure plan has been cast as a critical tool to transform our nation’s economy after the upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
This bipartisan deal aims to pump $1.2 trillion over the course of eight years into repairing and building new roads, bridges, broadband, and electric vehicle infrastructure, creating millions of new, good-paying jobs that will accelerate the covid recovery.
With the influx of billions of dollars into the state, New York’s construction industry has a unique opportunity to address its longstanding labor shortage – an undertaking that will require the reskilling of thousands of workers in order to succeed.
The industry lost over 60,000 jobs in New York alone over the past year, a 20.8% decrease, according to New York Department of Labor data. When jobsites closed and production halted during the COVID-19 pandemic — albeit temporarily — thousands of workers were sidelined, and many did not return even after work was allowed to resume with strict public health protocols in place.
But the reality is that a labor shortage existed even prior to the COVID-19 crisis and has only been exacerbated over the past year. Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) estimates that companies will need to hire 430,000 more workers than they employed in 2020. That far-reaching hiring effort will be critical to the long-term success of the economic recovery, as an analysis by ABC revealed that for every $1 billion in extra construction spending, an average of 5,700 jobs is generated.
As the state is almost fully reopened and returning to some semblance of normal, the construction industry must redouble its efforts to create a pipeline of skilled workers who can fill the many job openings that are popping up almost daily. That means reaching out to those who might have taken a break from the industry, as well as recruiting new workers from groups that are under-represented in construction – including people of color and women.
Once we have attracted these workers into the industry, it is critical that we provide them with the skills they need to succeed in building sustainable and lucrative careers. The federal infrastructure plan does not actually include direct funding for skills training. Which makes it all the more important that New York invests at the state level to ensure we are able to capitalize on the opportunities and jobs coming our way.
Training programs benefit workplaces and job-seekers alike. They provide new workers with confidence as they enter an industry and help existing workers build their resumes and take their careers to the next level. For employers, these programs provide a well-trained and knowledgeable workforce, maximizing worker effectiveness and minimizing jobsite delays.
Building Skills New York has focused on tackling the labor shortage head-on by partnering with local community colleges to help individuals gain the skill sets and certifications required to both enter and advance in the construction industry.
Just this month, Bronx Community College and Building Skills launched the Construction Career Accelerator (CCA) Program, which was made possible by a grant from the state Labor Department. The program aims to help participants already placed on construction jobsites across the five boroughs gain the necessary skills to advance their careers, as well as to meet the industry’s need for experienced workers.
We are particularly pleased to be able to launch this program in the Bronx, which was disproportionately impacted by the pandemic-induced economic fallout. During the height of the covid crisis in May 2020, the borough’s unemployment rate reached nearly 25% – the highest in the city. Providing additional job training opportunities for Bronx residents is especially meaningful at this critical moment in the city’s history.
Building Skills plans to launch additional programs later this summer and in the fall. The priority is to make these programs as accessible as possible, so every interested individual has a chance to pursue a career within this industry. The more we’re able to reskill workers the better chances we have at spurring economic growth.
With passage of the federal infrastructure bill imminent, the construction industry must be prepared to quickly capitalize on the once-in-a-lifetime opportunities it will present. That means investing in quality training programs now to assure we have a well-prepared workforce ready and able to tackle a wide range of projects for years to come.
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David Meade is Executive Director of Building Skills New York. Oswald Feliz is the New York City Council Member for District 15 in the Bronx. On Twitter @BuildSkillsNY & @OswaldFeliz.
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At work (photo: icdnyc.org)
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the U.S. unemployment rate for people with disabilities was 2.5 times higher than for those without. The pandemic has had a devastating effect on the employment and job prospects for people with disabilities, but New York’s business and nonprofit communities can play a vital role in the economic recovery of people with disabilities by reaching out for job candidates and by providing internships.
For people entering the job market for the first time or at a new level, internships are especially important. They provide individuals with disabilities an opportunity to show how skilled they are, and they provide the organization offering the internship a chance to see how valuable that person can be. But, more than that, they give the intern a chance to gain relevant work experience and a credential that can be parlayed into a permanent position.
Internships all but disappeared during the pandemic. Some businesses or nonprofit organizations that historically offered internships went out of business. Some closed temporarily or switched to remote working. Even those that remained open and operating on-site often could not permit additional people on the property due to COVID-19 protocols.
One important opportunity that emerged through the City of New York’s Department of Social Services (DSS) underscores the vital role of internships. In 2019, DSS launched its Partnership for Inclusive Internships program, an initiative designed to provide job opportunities and valuable work experience for people with disabilities. In 2020, while seeking to preserve the internship program amid the pandemic, DSS was interested in securing additional tech support for employees who were working remotely and had computer problems to be addressed. DSS, therefore, partnered with the Institute for Career Development (ICD) to simultaneously address this need and provide an opportunity to technology-trained interns.
For several months earlier this year, 12 recent graduates of ICD’s AbilITy Cisco Academy, the first fully-accessible computer networking certification program for New Yorkers with disabilities, served as DSS interns, providing help desk support to DSS staff, developing technical tickets for the IT department, and assisting in problem-solving alongside agency employees. The interns – who were paid but at no cost to city government – thus provided much-needed support to a city agency that has been a lifeline to more than 3 million New Yorkers throughout the pandemic, connecting individuals in need with vital benefits and services, such as food stamps/SNAP and cash assistance.
This example is especially relevant, as New York seeks to expand tech sector further. A recent study by ICD and New York Institute of Technology – “Opportunities for Pathways & Collaborations” – recommends steps to widen the pool of people with disabilities with tech skills.
But internships are vital across a wide range of industries and job categories, and need to be pursued broadly, as different industries recover economically at different paces.
The real estate community, for instance, can benefit from existing programs that provide training for building repair technicians and office technology support. These are vital roles, as property owners seek to entice tenants back to the office.
Human services functions across all industries may have greater challenges than ever, as they seek to re-establish office culture with workers in the office, at home, or in hybrid arrangements. Interns serving as human services assistants can be crucial in that context.
Care-providing industries, such as childcare, may be in more demand than ever. They can benefit from trained interns, too, as New Yorkers adjust to new work schedules and the resulting care-providing arrangements needed.
People with disabilities have a history of overcoming obstacles, and their perspectives and determination can benefit any organization. They value the chance to demonstrate their skills and appreciate those who offer that chance.
Research shows that companies that are inclusive of people with disabilities are more financially successful. What better opportunity than to improve a company’s financial success, while giving back to the community in ways that open entire careers for people with disabilities?
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Brent Gallenberger is Manager of Workforce Readiness at the Institute for Career Development in New York City. On Twitter @icd_nyc.
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Mayor de Blasio and kids (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photography Office)
I would have voted for Bill de Blasio a third time if I could. Strip away the car trips to the Park Slope Y and the misguided presidential run, and evaluate the objective facts about New York City before and after his eight years in office and his two terms were a success. De Blasio’s administration shows the value of liberal incrementalism, or as President Obama put it: better is good.
De Blasio ran on the idea that New York was a tale of two cities, with inequality at the root of its ills. To rectify that inequality, the two major promises of de Blasio’s 2013 campaign were his commitment to ending the Bloomberg administration’s stop-and-frisk policing program and providing universal pre-kindergarten to New York families. He delivered on those promises.
The Bloomberg administration’s racist, harmful, and unconstitutional policy of unfettered stop-and-frisk was ended almost immediately. As a civil rights attorney, I will be the first to tell you that the NYPD’s abuses and unnecessary contact with the police did not end with Mayor de Blasio’s election, nor with the end of the stop-and-frisk program, but the numbers do not lie: policing got better in New York City under Bill de Blasio on almost every score. Use of force complaints against the NYPD fell dramatically during his time in office. Similarly, the daily jail population in New York City fell, misdemeanor arrests fell, as did marijuana arrests. Those are real improvements that reduced contact between New Yorkers and the police, even as racial disparities in that contact and violence persisted.
Crime also continued its precipitous decline in New York City under de Blasio, even if you would not know it watching TV news or reading daily tabloids. In 2018, New York City set a record for the fewest homicides in its measured history. And that was not merely a reflection of national trends. During Mayor Bloomberg’s last term, New York City contributed 3.4% of the nation’s murders. Under de Blasio, that number was 2.25%. New York has not been immune to a spike in shootings and murders over the past year-plus, but did not increase faster than the national average, and homicides appear to be moving back towards their 2019 numbers in New York City. In de Blasio’s New York, while people are not free from police and interpersonal violence, they are safer from both than they were under Bloomberg.
Universal pre-K was also successfully implemented. The program is a massive progressive success that has gone relatively unremarked. It is a life-changing result for less well-off New Yorkers and a massive transfer to the least well-off, increasing women’s participation in the labor force and the likelihood children will attend college. The program is now universal 3-K, extending to three-year-olds, adding essentially two years to the public school system, and it will be the largest of its kind in the country. It is a testament to both the success of the program and to its benefit for people underrepresented in the media that such a success has gone so unnoticed.
Even some of his failures are relative successes compared to national trends. Housing costs in New York City have gone up less quickly than the national average under de Blasio, a first for New York City in decades. Vision Zero brought New York’s auto and pedestrian fatalities down even as traffic fatalities increased in much of the country. New York City students have gained on students throughout the country in reading during de Blasio’s administration even as they stagnated in math.
This is not to absolve de Blasio of his failures. The population living in New York City shelters grew substantially during the mayor’s tenure as housing costs continued to increase and affordable housing remained far too scarce. His response to Eric Garner’s death was completely unacceptable and his defense of the NYPD during last summer’s protests reflected the extent to which de Blasio largely stopped his police reform efforts after 2015. While expanded bike lanes and Citi Bike have been successes, he has not shown enough verve on protecting bike riders and improving bus service. He promised to end solitary confinement a year ago, and has dragged his feet.
But better is good, and we must ask, “compared to what?” His failures often reflected the structural factors that constrain all big city mayors. Ask activists what they think of the last few mayors of Chicago or Los Angeles or New York City itself, and you will hear near universal condemnation of their performance, particularly on policing. We cannot, on the one hand, note the power police unions have amassed, which research has shown leads to increased police violence, while at the same time ignore that power in evaluating our leaders. The right wing media and police union ecosystem in place in the city was able to bully New York legislators into rolling back bail reform before it had really started. That same ecosystem successfully pushed a narrative that de Blasio was failing on crime and policing even as crime plummeted in 2014 and 2015.
Similarly, the political ecosystems of all American cities favor well-off white voters. According to political scientists Jesse Rhodes, Brian Schaffner, and Raymond La Raja, the views of white voters are structurally overrepresented in local politics throughout the country, even in cities like New York that are majority non-white. De Blasio faced this constraint. He rarely maintained a positive approval rating among white voters in New York City. Today, even with his polling numbers highly negative, de Blasio maintains strong net approval among Black voters, a number that would likely surprise the well-off white Democrats who treat his two-terms as a failure. De Blasio’s refusal to center their political preferences, as Bloomberg and Giuliani had while trampling on the rights of Black and brown New Yorkers, has consistently led to high disapproval.
In 2017, when de Blasio ran for re-election, his approval was low all year, until he ran against a real-life opponent. And when push came to shove in 2017, de Blasio cruised to re-election, and his approval jumped significantly. That is a good lesson for all of us.
Bill de Blasio did not improve policing in New York as much as I had hoped when I voted for him in 2013, and I wish we had built even more housing over the last eight years so that prices would actually come down for once. But New York City has improved over his eight years. It is hard not to look around at mayors of New York and other big American cities — past and present — and conclude that, like the old saying about democracy itself, Bill de Blasio has been the worst, except for all the others.
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Joel Wertheimer is a civil rights attorney and political consultant living in Brooklyn. On Twitter @Wertwhile.
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The Mayor at an overdose prevention event (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)
I know what it’s like to be on the front lines of an infectious disease. I launched my career in harm reduction in the 1980s, at the height of the HIV epidemic. Just like with HIV, the fallout from COVID-19 is not limited to the lives we’ve lost to the infection itself—there are ripple effects that will be felt long after our city fully re-opens.
This time, it’s the twin tragedy of the dramatic rise in overdose deaths amid the pandemic due to the anxiety and isolation of life during lockdown. Despite years of efforts across our nation to address the opioid crisis, the pandemic illustrates how tenuous progress can be: overdose deaths increased by nearly 30% nationwide and by 21% in New York City in 2020, with many fatalities attributed to the synthetic opioid fentanyl.
To address this dire trend, we’ll need investments and partnerships between the government and nonprofit organizations on the ground to provide mental health and substance use disorder services. In the months and years ahead, people will need compassion and accessible care.
I currently work as a harm reduction counselor at Alliance for Positive Change, a nonprofit that supports New Yorkers with HIV/AIDS and other chronic health conditions, like substance use disorder. New Yorkers come to Alliance LES Harm Reduction Center for syringe exchange, medication-assisted treatment, and substance use disorder counseling.
When the pandemic struck our city, organizations like ours had to adapt quickly by shifting some of our programs to a virtual setting. For example, we’ve held our Narcan trainings weekly over Zoom, teaching hundreds of program participants, providers, and community members how to administer the drug to reverse opioid overdoses.
We have continued to offer our other services by appointment, but in this work, nothing is more important than our in-person community and open-door atmosphere—which is why we are so grateful that we can begin to return to regular operations. The lack of connection has been difficult for the people who rely on us, like “John,” a young man who had been attending support groups regularly, but who now expresses concern about setbacks on his recovery journey. It offers him some reassurance that no matter what, we will be there for him.
As hope begins to glimmer on the horizon and life starts to feel more “normal,” we cannot lose sight of the fact that the mental health impacts of the pandemic will linger. I’m glad to see that New York City is recognizing the great need for mental health support that lies ahead, and I hope the next mayoral administration will continue these efforts in 2022 and beyond.
In the short-term, investments in harm reduction interventions like Narcan and drug testing strips will help to reduce the risk of overdose deaths. In the long-term, the city should partner with deep-rooted, trusted community-based organizations who are doing important mental health work. Expanding mental health and harm reduction services to those who do not have access to as many resources will be critical to addressing this devastating trend. At Alliance, we connect with and serve some of the most vulnerable New Yorkers, and services like ours are needed more than ever.
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Floyd Mitchell is a harm reduction counselor at Alliance for Positive Change’s LES Harm Reduction Center.
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