Gov. Hochul (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of the Governor)
For arcane and entrenched reasons, clemency, the vast constitutional power of the Governor to commute a person’s prison sentence, is typically granted at the end of the year in a nod toward the spirit of the holidays. As a result, the prayers of the thousands of people in New York prisons who have pending clemency applications rose to a fever pitch once the calendar turned to December. Here was an opportunity for New York’s new Governor, Kathy Hochul, to distinguish herself from her predecessor, who carved out for himself a miserly record when it came to clemency.
On December 24, the Governor issued her long-awaited first clemency announcement. She had commuted the sentence of just one person. If one of her articulated goals is to set herself apart from Andrew Cuomo, she did indeed take a step in that direction – last December, he commuted the sentences of seven people.
For the fortunate one, Roger Cole, clemency was well-deserved and past due. He had originally been sentenced to 125 years to life for several drug sales, a sentence that pre-dates the reforms to New York’s notoriously harsh Rockefeller drug laws. However, his case is but one example of people in New York State serving unconscionable sentences.
Rather than turn the page and wait to see what New York’s Governor will do next December, it is critical to interrogate why the Governor chose to ignore the pleas of so many people who, without clemency, are destined to die behind bars. In commuting Mr. Cole’s sentence, the Governor mentioned remorse and rehabilitation. Was he really the only person in New York’s 50 prisons who showed remorse and exemplified rehabilitation?
Why then is the Governor, like so many other Governors, unwilling to meaningfully exercise her clemency power? The usually-cited explanation is the oft-mentioned and misreported case of Willie Horton that pundits believe helped sink Michael Dukakis’ presidential campaign. The theory is that Governors fear granting clemency in case anyone they release goes on to commit a serious crime.
It is surely narrow-minded to create clemency policy around one sensationalized incident, but, in any case, that fear of recidivism is unfounded. Most people seeking clemency have been incarcerated for decades and have aged out of any legitimate concern about future serious crime. Just look at the 41 people who had their sentences commuted by former Governor Cuomo. Not one has been rearrested. Rather, they are contributing to their families and society in myriad ways.
Beyond the potential of a releasee doing future harm, the larger political concern is that granting clemency will set an elected official up as being “soft on crime.” Politicians inevitably also ask – what is in it for me; what will I gain by granting clemency? Such crass political calculations can always trump humanity, decency, and a modicum of courage.
The truth is that there is not much for elected officials to worry about when it comes to granting clemency. Cuomo’s clemency grants were met with a combination of radio silence and community support. Even regarding some high-profile cases, the backlash, such as it was, quickly faded.
Furthermore, gubernatorial inaction around clemency comes at a high cost. Obviously, people inside prisons are crushed, but so, too, are their children and their parents who need their emotional, physical, and financial support, especially during a pandemic.
When clemency is granted, it reverberates. Several people who received clemency have recounted how rapidly the news spread throughout the prison and caused people who had resigned themselves to dying inside to re-emerge from their cells and re-engage with others and programs.
The opposite happens when no one is deemed worthy of clemency. Family members report receiving emails saying, ‘I give up, What’s the point?’ as people inside resign themselves to life in an 8x10 cell regardless of who they have become, how much their family needs them, and what they have to offer on the outside.
So, what now? Governor Hochul’s press release refers to the creation of a clemency Advisory Panel. While that idea has surface appeal since it seems to reflect at least some acknowledgement that something must be done, the question is whether such a panel is necessary.
The clemency power is already there in the explicit text of the New York State Constitution. There are knowledgeable and experienced staffers inside the Governor’s office who are very familiar with clemency and thoroughly vet every application. While an Advisory Panel might give the Governor some political cover when she announces grants of clemency, the fear is that it will be a way station or a roadblock on the already well-worn path to clemency.
On the other hand, the Governor also committed to clemency on a rolling basis rather than just one time of the year. That news should be celebrated – after all, there is no time like the present.
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Steven Zeidman is a professor of law at CUNY School of Law. He is on Twitter @SteveZeidman.
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Help in the subways (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
As he takes over New York City government, one fact new Mayor Eric Adams seems to know is that it is not OK to allow homeless people living on the streets and in the subway system to vegetate and sleep in filthy conditions. Many people in these situations obviously have serious mental health and physical health issues in dire need of attention.
Several steps must be taken as quickly as possible, to help these individuals and to make the city a safer, cleaner, more livable place for all.
The current standard for when someone can be committed for psychiatric treatment is that the person is a threat to themselves or others. But this has been interpreted too strictly, and there are both tools currently at our disposal, such as better use of Kendra’s Law by the city and judiciary to mandate treatment, and an amendment to the civil commitment law.
For the latter, a commonsense approach has been proposed by Dr. Loree Sutton, a former army psychiatrist who served as Commissioner of the New York City Department of Veteran Affairs. She has suggested that the civil commitment law be amended so that seriously mentally ill people can access inpatient services before exhibiting an immediate danger to themselves or others. Of course we also must stop the elimination of psychiatric beds and reverse course to substantially increase the number of those beds given the many thousands that have been removed in recent decades.
Additionally, health services must be improved within shelters and once again we need to increase the number of drop-in centers that allow people to get off the street quickly and receive food, clothing, showers, medical care, and speak to a social worker. A nurse at a drop-in can quickly diagnose an urgent medical problem and call for an ambulance. We now have only three of these centers in Manhattan.
It is estimated that there are 1,600 homeless people living in the subway system. Numerous attempts to convince this population to seek help and shelter elsewhere have been only moderately successful. It is time to think outside the box and set up makeshift drop-in centers in some of the larger and more frequently used subway stations such as Grand Central, Times Square, 34th Street Penn Station, Union Square, Atlantic Avenue, and others — it may also make sense to set some of these up at certain end-of-line stops.
It would not take too much time or money to rope off little-used parts of these cavernous stations and set up chairs and tables, food and water stations, and distribute clean clothing. These centers should also be staffed by nurses who could examine and treat to some degree homeless individuals, possibly including the provision of life-saving covid vaccines.
This doesn’t mean we should not continue to try to move homeless individuals into Safe Haven shelters or supportive housing but this could be a first step in getting them to access the system. Besides establishing these subway drop-in centers, we have a perfect opportunity to increase the number of above-ground locations with many commercial spaces being left empty for the past year, especially in hard-hit areas such as midtown and Hell's Kitchen.
Our new mayor should immediately start taking steps to reduce street and subway homelessness by establishing these centers, doing a great deal for people who are ill and struggling and for the whole city.
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Robert Mascali is a former Deputy Commissioner at the NYC Department of Homeless Services and a Vice President for Supportive Housing at Women in Need.
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Mayor Eric Adams (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
Voters have thrust Eric Adams upon history. He has taken office as the city faces one of its greatest crises—a resurging covid pandemic as a result of the highly-contagious Omicron variant—along with the usual city troubles of crime, homelessness, and mental illness, among others.
Yet, Adams is hardly the first mayor to be sworn in during a crisis. What historical lessons exist for Mayor Adams?
Mayor Michael Bloomberg was sworn into office four months after September 11, 2001, as the city also faced an economic crisis and the uncertainty of a world engulfed in the reality of terrorism and war. New York City had to sharpen its defense against external, global threats in addition to the usual street crime while ensuring that its economy did not fully crumble and keeping people from fleeing the city.
Mayor Bloomberg tackled these crises with resolve. He quickly assembled a team with government and private sector experience. To deal with the economic crisis, he initiated building projects throughout the boroughs that brought in needed jobs and showed the world that the city was resilient. Understanding the necessity of improved technology, Bloomberg sought the expansion of the technology sector, which also brought in jobs. Seeing the need to streamline government services, Bloomberg merged some city departments and agencies, and introduced the 311 system. And understanding the threats to safety, he appointed as police commissioner Ray Kelly, who had first served in the role under Mayor David Dinkins, to lead on public safety and launch an NYPD counter-terrorism unit.
Within the first two years of his mayoralty, New York City not only balanced its budget (required by law after the economic crisis of the ’70s) but reported budget surpluses. Crime also continued to trend downward.
Granted, Bloomberg’s tenure included very real and troubling controversy, like the awful stop-and-frisk program. Yet his leadership of the city amid the crisis of his ascent was a model.
In 1978, Mayor Ed Koch likewise inherited a city in crisis. Koch stepped into his City Hall position facing one of the biggest financial crises since the Great Depression. Upon taking office, he realized that his predecessor, Abe Beame, had underestimated the vast budget deficit the city faced. The city was in the hole for $240 million, $130 million more than Beame had mentioned. Undeterred by the crisis, Koch set about learning the intricacies of the city’s complicated budget, using his budget director, Jim Brigham, as a personal tutor.
Like Bloomberg, Koch organized a team of senior administration officials, in this case to develop a financial plan that would restore the city’s fiscal health. Historian Jonathan Soffer in his book on the Koch era explains that the team worked arduously to move the city forward, essentially “working two jobs,” meeting in a building with little heat, and working well into the night crunching numbers and brainstorming together. The result was a four-year financial plan that, through difficult cuts and strategic spending, balanced the books within a few years.
Of course, we know all too well the wounds Koch inflicted on himself, wounds that led to his defeat to David Dinkins in 1989. But Koch’s leadership at the start of his tenure helped the city turn the corner.
John Lindsay’s mayoralty started with a transit strike that paralyzed the city for 12 days, a situation that grew out of issues pre-dating Lindsay’s official start. In fact, as mayor-elect, Lindsay spent much of December in talks with outgoing mayor Robert Wagner, the infamous Transit Workers Union chief, Mike Quill, and others. The situation was so dire, requiring round-the-clock attention, that Lindsay and top aides slept in cots in City Hall on his very night as mayor.
Though negotiations did not go as expected, and though the final agreement closely reflected Quill’s original ask, Lindsay took control of the public narrative early on, giving New Yorkers the perception he was in control of a dire situation. One poll taken after the strike indicated that 75% of New Yorkers approved of Lindsay’s handling of the situation, perhaps proving that Lindsay’s direct contact through the press and speeches had had the desired impact on public opinion.
All three of these mayors handled their crises in similar ways: with sound management skills, by dealing with major challenges head on, by surrounding themselves with a competent team, and by communicating consistently and honestly with city residents. These are traits that Mayor Adams would be wise to follow. Certainly in this, his first week, the mayor seems to be showing that he is in control and ready to lead New York City forward through this challenging time.
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Eli Valentin is an adjunct lecturer at Union Theological Seminary. He writes regular columns for Gotham Gazette, largely focused on Latino politics in New York City, and is a frequent guest political analyst at Univision NY. On Twitter @EliValentinNY.
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Students back at school (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)
The pandemic has exacerbated the mental health risks faced by students in our public schools. Last spring, in an effort to monitor students' social-emotional health, the de Blasio administration awarded an $18 million contract to Aperture Education, a South Carolina-based “social enterprise” founded in 2017, to assess students’ social and emotional learning (SEL) at at all grade levels. As a public high school student, I am concerned that the tool being used, which was originally designed for elementary and middle school students, will not be able to accurately measure social-emotional skills and needs in a high school environment.
“The trauma of the pandemic has been acutely felt by our youngest New Yorkers,” said Mayor de Blasio at a December 2020 press conference (announcing “a mental health plan to support students”), “we will give our kids the emotional support they need to succeed in a safe and supportive environment.” Then-Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza said at the same event, “Students are only able to succeed academically when their social and emotional needs are being met…we know we’ll use these tools and resources to provide our school communities with the ability to confront and address trauma while fostering a safe, supportive environment for all students.”
The tool, known as the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA), consists of a 43-question form that a teacher fills out for each student. Questions aim to assess a student’s SEL competencies in eight areas: self-awareness, optimistic thinking, self-management, goal-directed behavior, social awareness, relationship skills, personal responsibility, and decision-making. Teachers are asked to note how often over the last month they have observed students engaging in particular behaviors: “how often did the youth complement or congratulate somebody?” or “teach someone how to do something?” or “accept another choice when his/her first choice was not available?” or “respond to another person’s feelings?” In response, the teacher must choose “never,” “rarely,” “sometimes,” “often,” or “almost always.”
These questions are based on scenarios that would be unlikely in many high school settings in which classroom activities are almost entirely focused on academic material rather than social development. I can assure you that in my calculus class there are very few occasions when one might exhibit the kinds of behaviors described in this tool. Also, unlike teachers in lower grades, high school teachers typically only see their students for one class period a day. When I showed one of my teachers the questions, he laughed and wondered how he would ever fill out the form. He also said he would be reluctant to put “never” for the majority of answers (even if he had not observed the behavior) out of fear that a string of “nevers” would raise red flags unnecessarily.
The screener was rolled out very quickly and with very little explanation in late October, and according to the agreement reached between the UFT and the DOE, the screenings were completed by December 4th. Parents immediately expressed concerns about how the collected information would be used and whether it would be kept private. But families should also be concerned that this tool is only a slightly adapted version of one created for younger children. The original version of this assessment was developed in 2008 for use in K-8 grades, and there is little available research on the effectiveness of the versions adapted for the high school level.
The research most often cited to confirm the DESSA’s effectiveness is a 2018 paper by Paul A. LeBuffe, Valerie B. Shapiro, and Jenifer L. Robitaille. The authors expressly admit that while the “DESSA is currently appropriate for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, the lack of a high school version has been a barrier.” Even though the “high school edition” has since been developed, it is not clear that it is age-appropriate.
New York City Department of Education officials have pointed to the positive research and reviews, but what they have not addressed is the fact that all of these reviews are based on the version for younger students. My research turned up several other studies of the screener's effectiveness but all were evaluations of the K-8 version.
Also concerning is the fact that the most cited study was not an independent evaluation. All three of the authors of the 2018 paper were involved in the creation of the DESSA tool and are in some way associated with Aperture Education: LeBuffe is Vice President of Research and Development, Robitalle is a senior research associate, and Shapiro has been sponsored by Aperture to speak at events.
If New York City is to properly address the mental health concerns of students, there should be more information and transparency about how this tool will be used to help those in high school. These screeners, which were paid for with federal covid relief dollars, cost taxpayers a lot of money, and it is not clear what the benefit will be. If so many of the screener questions do not apply to a high school setting, schools will not be able to gauge and address social and emotional strengths and challenges of the city's high school students.
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Benjamin Fishbein is a senior at the Bronx High School of Science.
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Kids and teachers safe in school (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if we had a mayor who thought school safety was important. Bill de Blasio didn’t, or he wouldn’t have placed the ridiculous plan we’ve had since September into effect. Eric Adams doesn’t, or he wouldn’t have rubber-stamped the ‘doubling’ of the anemic de Blasio plan.
Here’s the problem. You can say we’re testing 10%, 20%, or whatever percentage you choose for covid, but it’s not a real figure unless you’re talking about everyone. Right now, we are planning to PCR test only 20% of those students who have opted in to be tested. De Blasio, anxious to keep covid stats low in any manner possible, had students opt in rather than out of testing. Not only that, but out of that pool, we’re only going to test the students who step up on any given day.
If I don’t believe in vaccines, if I don’t believe in science, or if I don’t believe in COVID-19, forget about me, let alone my kid. If I don’t believe one minute of any class should be missed, ever, I’m not giving permission for my kid to be tested, and I’m not getting tested either (and I may very well send my sick child into school). If I don’t feel like walking downstairs where they’re getting tested, I’m out too. How many teenagers feel they’re unlikely to have serious symptoms, so can’t and won’t be bothered to get tested? (After all, teens know everything, as any parent or teacher of one can attest.)
So what are we really getting 20% of? It’s hard to say, but what we haven’t got is a representative sample. As a high school teacher in an overcrowded Queens school, I will be part of the 20%, because I think my safety and that of others is more important than anything else our school has to offer. People like me, though, take every precaution in trying to protect ourselves and others. We wear quality masks, always, when we’re indoors outside of our homes. We did this even when laws and places of business didn’t require it. We got vaccinated (and boosted) when eligible. And we test regularly. To keep everyone safe.
If Mayor Adams or Governor Kathy Hochul were serious about protecting over a million people who go to New York City schools each day — and everyone else those people then come into close contact with — they wouldn’t endorse this charade. They’d say we’re testing at least 20% of everyone in each school, every week. They’d say if you don’t want to take the test, stay home. Would it be inconvenient for parents to have their kids home? Would it be inconvenient for me not to receive a paycheck? You bet it would.
There are serious consequences for shirking public safety. If I don’t feel like keeping my students safe, the state has every right to get rid of me and find someone who will. And if I don’t feel like my kid should be part of that effort, then my kid ought not to be in school with others who will take part in protecting one another. We already do this by requiring a suite of vaccines for students to attend schools.
It’s particularly egregious that we haven’t enacted such a testing program in pre-K and 3-K, where kids are not even eligible to be vaccinated. How can we not make an extra effort to identify young students with covid, particularly given pediatric cases and hospitalizations have jumped significantly?
Representative PCR testing, in fact, is the very least we would do if we were serious about keeping people safe. If we wanted to do the very best we could for our kids and one another, we’d require vaccination of absolutely everyone who attends our schools. We already require multiple vaccinations. Why not this one too?
How did public health become a political hot potato? It’s ridiculous beyond belief that we’re still arguing about whether or not eligible people should be vaccinated. It’s time for Eric Adams and Kathy Hochul to show leadership and stand up to people who’d risk the health of our population so as to indulge outlandish conspiracy theories.
You don’t need to be the Oracle of Delphi to predict the cost of negligence. Covid has been exploding for weeks, and it’s on us to reverse that pattern rather than encourage it. My wife, in Spanish, sometimes says, “Common sense is the least common of all the senses.”
Nowhere is that better personified than in the short-sighted, self-congratulatory, borderline meaningless gestures of our new mayor and governor. They must correct these dangerous policies now.
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Arthur Goldstein is an ESL teacher at Francis Lewis High School, and a UFT executive committee member. On Twitter @TeacherArthurG.
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New Yorkers with a lot to say (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
Gotham Gazette publishes a wide range of guest op-ed columns by a diverse set of voices. Below are the 20 most-read op-eds published by Gotham Gazette in 2021. Please note that the opinions expressed in the guest columns are those of the authors alone and not of Gotham Gazette, any of its staff, affiliates, or partners. [Find the latest in the Opinion section here.]
1. Expanding State Extended Unemployment Benefits Could Protect 395,000 New Yorkers, But the Legislature Must Act Now - by Will Raderman
2. Community Health Groups Must Be Part of New York City’s COVID-19 Reckoning - by Miosotis Munoz
3. The Major Problems with New York City’s School Reopening Plan - by Leonie Haimson
4. Exercising Mental Fitness as We Move Forward with Our Covid Recovery - by Chirlane McCray
5. New York’s Congressional Redistricting Could Be Tipping Point in Midterm Battle for the House - by Jim Brennan
6. Ending New York’s Love Affair with Life Sentences - by Anthony Dixon
7. Unable to Move De Blasio, Carranza Leaves a Still Deeply Divided School System - by Gail Robinson
8. Covid Vaccination and the New York City Recovery - by Jim Brennan
9. Bill De Blasio Has Been A Good Mayor, Actually - by Joel Wertheimer
10. The Next Mayor Can End New York City’s Rat Problem; Here’s How - by Michael A. Lewis
11. Mayoral Candidates Flunk First Budget Test - by Carol Kellermann
12. Everything is Connected: New York City’s Climate Crisis Demands a New Way of Thinking - by Donovan Finn
13. The Truth About Neighborhood Rezonings, Housing, and Demographic Change - by Sandy Hornick
14. De Blasio Leaves Adams a City Budget Mess - by Joseph Borelli
15. When Jewish Votes Don’t Count - by Rabbi Yaacov Behrman
16. No Equity or Excellence as Mayor and DOE Chancellor Abandon Overcrowded Schools - by Arthur Goldstein
17. The Next Mayor Our City Needs - by Henry Garrido
18. 6 Years After DOE Yeshiva Complaint, City Yet to Take Action as Kids Suffer - by Yonah Kohn
19. Apocalypse Now: Can Eric Adams End the Helicopter Onslaught? - by Julia Vitullo-Martin
20. Don’t Let Kathryn Garcia Get Hillary’d - by Kaivan Shroff
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Celebrating LGBTQ-friendly senior housing (photo: SAGE)
Today, too many older New Yorkers remain invisible. Older people in New York City are often cast aside, despite their incredible civic, economic, and political contributions to our communities and the fact that the 60-and-over population is growing five times faster than the under-18 population.
This is especially true for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) elders, who make a strong presence in New York. Of the estimated 800,000 LGBTQ adults in the State, nearly one-third (28%) are over the age of 50.
Sadly, many are often disconnected to critical services, such as LGBTQ-affirming health services and affordable housing, to safely age in communities.
Fortunately, New York City is now experiencing a moment of political transformation. With the Mayor Eric Adams administration ready to take the helm, and a historically diverse City Council on deck, now is the opportunity to reimagine our city.
To start, the city will need to promote equity and dismantle discrimination based on race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and other biases to create a New York where we can all thrive as we age.
It’s also time to address the growing disparities in health, economic security, caregiving, and social connections impacting all older adults, including the LGBTQ+ community, and implement policies, initiatives, and programs that protect and support New Yorkers of all ages.
But we must do more than the bare minimum to ensure older New Yorkers, especially LGBTQ+ elders, age successfully.
For decades, the city has fallen short of providing human service providers with the adequate funding to meet the growing demands for aging services and ensure all older people can continue to thrive in their communities. To truly support older New Yorkers, the city must finally fully fund services that address the root of disparities and social determinants of health impacting older adults, including the LGBTQ+ community. That’s what the #JustPay movement is seeking.
In addition, LGBTQ+ older people have thinner support networks, which is supported by AARP Foundation research that found half of LGBTQ adults aged 45 and older are lonely, and intersecting identities only exacerbate the prevalence of loneliness. This creates a growing demand for LGBTQ+ affirming community-based services and culturally-competent care in understanding the challenges of LGBTQ+ elders.
These services include LGBTQ-affirming housing developments, access to affordable healthcare services, programs that support individuals living with HIV/AIDS and other community-based services such as Older Adult Centers and Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities.
The incoming administration must also take steps to ensure all older people have access to safe, accessible housing.
With rising rent prices, over half of older New Yorkers are rent-burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on rent. Today, nearly one-third of LGBTQ+ older people live at or below 200% of the federal poverty level, compared to a quarter of non-LGBTQ+ people as shown in the recent SAGE and AARP New York report, “Disrupting Disparities: Solutions for LGBTQ+ New Yorkers Age 50+.”
In response, New York City must double down on its efforts to expand the stock of affordable senior housing by funding and developing new affordable housing developments, including those with culturally-competent services and LGBT+ affirming housing.
Further, older people and LGBTQ+ New Yorkers in particular will remain invisible until New York City enhances its efforts to collect, analyze, and report LGBTQ+ and age-inclusive data. The lack of data puts policymakers in unknown territory as they craft policies that have the potential to significantly affect the lives and wellbeing of older and LGBTQ+ people.
The city must aggregate and report on what exists, then look to find ways to add data collection on the needs of LGBTQ+ and older New Yorkers into existing agency assessments citywide.
Older New Yorkers built our city. They are the trailblazers of the LGBTQ+ movement who stood at the Stonewall Inn and refused to be invisible.
It is past time for the city to stand with them.
As we look ahead to the incoming administration, SAGE and our partners at LiveOn NY are ready to work with the city to uplift these pioneers and create a better New York City for everyone — regardless of who they are or who they love.
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Lynn Faria is Executive Vice President at SAGE and Allison Nickerson is Executive Director at LiveOn NY. On Twitter @sageusa & @ANickerson25 of @liveonny.
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Helping children through a pandemic (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
The Surgeon General’s rare public advisory made official what we as social workers have known for 22 months – that the pandemic has accelerated a mental health crisis for children. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) have also issued a bold declaration of a national emergency in children’s mental health.
Those of us who work with students in schools are now well into our second year on the frontlines, where the most vulnerable communities—already experiencing enormous challenges by 2020—disproportionately lost loved ones, income, and security.
Covid’s devastating threat to children’s long-term resilience and wellness is clear: more than 120,000 children under the age of 18 in the United States, 65% of them children of color, have lost a primary caregiver to COVID-19, according to the National Institutes of Health. We see this heartbreak on the ground, provoked and exacerbated by economic insecurity and systemic racism.
Securing our children’s future will take a long-term campaign on many fronts. I agree with the AAP, AACAP, and CHA that funding effective in-school mental health care is a key strategy.
It will also require that those social workers have critical insights into the stressors affecting everyone in the school ecosystem. Children are not alone in their pain. Teachers and academic staff have had their share of anxiety and loss throughout the pandemic, worsened by recent news of weapons and violence near schools. As we see widespread understaffing in schools, we need to acknowledge this stress amid the additional pressures of children returning to school full-time.
During last year’s on-and-off-again schedules, our team of social workers stayed close to the 30,000 students we serve in New York City schools in person or via tele-health. This helped us smooth their return to the classroom and cope with setbacks.
But a broader population of children did not have the benefit of preventive services to encourage emotional regulation and social-emotional skills development. So we are facing a herculean effort to ensure they adapt to the demands of in-person schooling.
A new McKinsey study shows that students in schools where 75% of children are Black or from financially-insecure families are falling further behind pre-pandemic math and reading than those in predominantly white and high-income schools. They are also almost twice as likely to be missing school days. The study points out how important it is for students to have caring adults in school to help them reconnect socially and focus on their academic goals.
Due to the pandemic, students in kindergarten-second grade had never experienced a full and typical school year; third-graders had not been in school since kindergarten. Many middle and high school students, now considered older children, never experienced healthy transitions from elementary and middle school where they would have learned conflict resolution and self-regulation. They are transitioning, often unsupported, from flexible online learning to standardized testing and strict deadlines.
Many children are struggling. This all places pressure on the adults in the room – teachers, principals, support staff, and social workers.
Our work is a progression towards a happier, more confident child. But given these pervasive needs, how do we structure a support system that is responsive to them and enables regular, predictable, and ongoing growth?
There are no easy solutions to create a healthy environment for everyone and build sustainable supports for children—but we do know that we need to step up to “help the helpers.” Some suggestions:
Provide supervision and training. The clinical supervisor is a critical frontline resource for a social worker and should not be stretched across too many sites. Our clinical supervisors observe day-to-day issues as a team member—not an outsider—and can make timely recommendations.
Conferences, workshops and trainings can revitalize skills and creativity – and should be promoted on an ongoing basis. Like regular meditation, their benefits are cumulative and powerful.
Broaden networks of peer support. Informal networks – among schools and nonprofits – can build community ties and offer collegial support. Providing a place to share vulnerability, they have a freeing effect on people who devote so much of their mental and emotional energy to others.
Make time for self-care. Social workers experience “vicarious trauma,” holding the stress of the children they serve and, often, as sounding boards for their colleagues. To provide a buffer, our organization prioritizes “self-care” paid time off.
As we mount one of the most important crusades of our lifetimes, let’s support the counselors whose expertise and advocacy will guide us.
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Angela Jefferson is Chief Program Officer, Partnership with Children. On Twitter @PWCNYC.
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The push for legal cannabis (photo: John McCarten/City Council)
This past year was remarkable for New York’s cannabis industry. After years of debate, the Legislature passed the Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act (MRTA), which legalizes and regulates recreational cannabis and will lay the foundation for a recreational program.
Recently, the Cannabis Control Board (CCB) began loosening restrictions on medical cannabis (including allowing patients to buy a 60-, rather than a 30-day supply, along with the purchase of whole flower), and finalized the cannabinoid hemp regulations. In the meantime, tens of thousands of entrepreneurs from all around the state, including the “legacy” (illicit) marketplace, are preparing applications for a coveted recreational license.
Over the next few years, New York’s nascent cannabis industry has a generational opportunity to create a new market out of whole cloth. There are those who push back, holding onto outdated notions of cannabis as a gateway drug and fears that legal cannabis will result in unsafe neighborhoods and loss of property value. Legal cannabis will be a game-changer. Here’s why:
A Boon for New York Agriculture
Farmland makes up about 20% of New York’s land, and we are the fourth largest producer of dairy in the nation, home to over 33,000 family farms. However, the economics of farming are changing, especially in high-cost states like New York, where family farms are disappearing at alarming rates.
A legal cannabis marketplace would be a blessing for agriculture, especially those family farms. Over the last decade, hundreds of farmers have embraced hemp cultivation and craft brewing, both of which have been a lifeline. Legal cannabis cultivation presents a unique opportunity for the farmers, which will allow this evolving industry to harness an existing New York asset.
Generating Thousands of Good Union Careers
New York’s adult-use cannabis industry is expected to generate 30,000-50,000 new jobs. Currently, 80% of the medical cannabis industry consists of unionized workers receiving family-sustaining wages and benefits, along with strong workplace protections, setting a standard for industry employment and creating a dedicated workforce.
New York is committed to ensuring quality careers and a pathway to unionization as the MRTA requires that cannabis employers enter Labor Peace Agreements (LPAs) with unions as a condition of licensure, thus limiting their ability to resist, challenge, or contest workers’ efforts to form a union.
With the inclusion of organized labor, the legal cannabis industry has an opportunity to further professionalize and create labor standards for an industry that has operated in the shadows for decades. Additionally, labor will serve a critical role, ensuring a robust pipeline of talent and local hiring that ensures equity, and acts to represent workers as stakeholders in the industry’s success.
Building Small Business
The MRTA is built around ensuring social equity, requiring that half of all licenses go to people from BIPOC communities, women, veterans, and distressed farmers. While corporate cannabis is already in New York, and will have a role in the industry, the MRTA prioritizes small businesses, and all signs point to the CCB maintaining that precedent. According to leaders from the NY Cannabis Growers & Processors Association, the state’s largest trade federation, “the goal is to create hundreds of millionaires, instead of a few billionaires.”
The cannabis industry is large and complicated, so while most New Yorkers may think about businesses that grow or sell the product, there will be hundreds of ancillary businesses in the sector. This will include testing, marketing and branding, packaging, technology, security, construction, maintenance, and legal services.
As an economic development tool, legalization immediately created an opportunity for tens of thousands of entrepreneurs to join the new industry. While these entrepreneurs represent a wide range of communities, many will come from the legacy market, hoping to legitimize their business and spur a chance to create generational wealth (including growers, processors, bakers, and delivery services).
Investing in New York Communities
In addition to its social equity provisions, the MRTA earmarks 40% of cannabis tax revenue to be repurposed as grants to non-profit organizations serving communities affected by the war on drugs. These grants will be used for job placement and skills training, mental health and substance abuse counseling, nutrition, and financial literacy. Additional tax revenue will fund a state-run incubator for small businesses and social equity applicants, including no-interest loans.
Localities will also have a chance to receive tax revenue from cannabis sales, provided they opt into retail dispensaries and/or on-premises consumption. Those municipalities with the foresight to opt in will soon have a new source of revenue, new jobs, and the economic output that comes with these opportunities.
Within this decade, New York has the potential to be the largest cannabis market, as sales could reach $750 million in 2023 (the first expected year), and $2.4 billion by 2026. Legal cannabis will be a game-changer for the economy and workforce, and generate opportunities for communities long left behind by prohibition. This is a once-in-a-generation moment for New York State and we must work together to get it right.
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Jordan Isenstadt is a Senior Vice President at Marino, a New York City-based public relations agency, where he leads a team focused on a burgeoning portfolio of cannabis-focused brands and serves as a member of the Town of North Hempstead Cannabis Task Force. Nikki Kateman is the Political & Communications Director of Local 338 RWDSU/UFCW, a labor union whose growing membership represents 80% of the workers in New York's cannabis industry who are employed across the supply chain from seed to sale, and serves as a member of the Town of North Hempstead Cannabis Task Force. On Twitter @MrIsenstadt of @marinopr and @nmkateman of @Local338.
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Eric Adams at a climate rally (photo: Office of Eric Adams)
Earlier this month, Senator Joe Manchin appeared to scuttle the Biden Administration’s Build Back Better bill, which promised to be America’s largest ever investment into clean energy. Just like that, local governments – which have been shouldering the climate leadership load for the last decade – could be losing their best chance to see active federal investment to avert the climate crisis now underway.
Luckily, cities like New York are already leading. This month, the City Council passed and Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a ban, with limited exceptions, on using fossil fuels in new buildings. Along with other actions, it makes a remarkable finale for the de Blasio Administration’s climate portfolio, which includes passing a world-leading climate and jobs law (aka Local Law 97), divesting $3 billion in city pension funds from fossil fuels and unleashing billions into clean energy, securing state approval for clean energy transmission into the city, enacting landmark environmental justice legislation, and investing billions into infrastructure and housing to make the city safer and more resilient.
As Mayor-elect Eric Adams prepares to take office, it’s important that New York City goes even further to continue transitioning away from fossil fuels while preparing for the ever-growing risks of storms, heat, and sea level rise that will continue to disproportionately impact our most marginalized communities. His administration now inherits world-leading policies and an incredibly talented climate team. But that won’t be enough.
Here are seven ways for the Adams administration to go even further and be the climate leader that the world needs.
1. Appoint a Deputy Mayor for Climate
The Mayor should improve climate governance by appointing a Deputy Mayor, with clear public accountability, to convene and lead a cabinet of agencies and offices that must work together to slash emissions, build resilience, secure environmental justice, and expand the dialogue with the communities and civic leaders who are critical to this work.
2. Expand Local Law 97 and Take Next Steps to Decarbonize the City
The Mayor should send a clear signal that he will enforce Local Law 97, which sets strict caps on the carbon pollution emitted by large buildings, providing certainty to building owners as they navigate the energy transition.
The city must also continue its efforts to secure clean energy transmission from hydropower, offshore wind, and solar. It needs to keep electrifying vehicles and expanding busways and protected bike lanes. And new actions will be needed, like electrifying our port facilities, rolling out citywide organics composting, and decarbonizing small buildings.
3. Promote Environmental Justice
It’s clear that historic choices and policies have meant that some communities, largely indicated by income and race, bear a disproportionate impact of pollution, flooding, heat, and other climate impacts. The Mayor should embrace the Environmental Justice for All report, now under development, to reverse this history, embed environmental justice into the city’s decision-making, and promote public health in our frontline communities.
4. Reduce Embodied Carbon
Many New Yorkers know that 70% of the city’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the city’s 1 million buildings. Less well known is the role that consumption (the products we buy, the foods we eat, or the way we build) plays in our global carbon impact.
The Mayor should direct his team to include these “Scope 3” emissions in its greenhouse gas inventory. And the city can take immediate steps to reduce these emissions, like adopting clean construction standards into the building code or upgrading procurement rules to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from purchased products and food.
5. Protect New Yorkers
As we continue to learn from extreme weather events, there is still much more to be done to protect New Yorkers from flooding, heat, and sea level rise. The Mayor should speed up investments into physical infrastructure like storm sewers and floodwalls or lighter-colored pavements, and nature-based solutions, like oyster reefs or bluebelts, across the five boroughs and continue baking resilience into our building and zoning codes.
6. Strengthen Long-Term Planning
The city’s planning efforts, built up over time by a variety of legislative mandates, are not always coordinated. The Mayor should release an updated strategic plan, due in April 2023, that lays out a new approach to the intersection of land use planning, capital budgeting, strategic planning, and the variety of other plans issued by the city. All of these can be better coordinated with community input to make all land use and capital budget decisions climate-smart.
7. Empower Local Partners for Global Action
As the home of the United Nations, Wall Street, media and cultural institutions, and a thriving set of civic leaders, universities, activists, and community-led organizations, New York City already has an out-sized influence in the world. The Mayor should further embrace these relationships and convene local and global partners to spur greater financial investment and cultural support for climate action.
The whole city, in fact the whole world, is rooting for the Adams Administration to succeed on climate because what happens in New York City matters everywhere. And regardless of what happens in Washington, there is no greater issue that matters to humanity than confronting our climate crisis and ending the age of fossil fuels. The world needs New York City to lead the way.
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Daniel Zarrilli, former NYC Chief Climate Policy Advisor, held a variety of senior climate policy, resilience, and sustainability appointments under Mayors Bloomberg and de Blasio. On Twitter @dzarrilli.
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Gov. Hochul signs legislation (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of the Governor)
Imagine being a young, impressionable teenager unable to vote or even drive a car. A teenager who can’t take a field trip, get a passport, or make health decisions without the guidance and consent of an adult; but if you made a terrible mistake, you were held accountable as if you were an adult.
Young people are more emotional, vulnerable, and impulsive than adults. Yet, prior to 2019, 16- and 17-year-old teenagers across New York State were automatically charged and sentenced for crimes as if they were adults.
One bad decision leading to one terrible mistake meant that your opportunities were considerably limited for the rest of your life, even after you accepted full responsibility and were held accountable.
Your pathways to education, employment, and housing were forever limited because your teenage actions led to an adult criminal conviction in the court system. Employers, educators, and landlords perpetually reduced you to the stigma associated with the charge for which you were convicted.
Judges have the discretionary authority to grant teenagers charged as adults a status known as “youthful offender” or YO. This status is meant to relieve the young person from the onus of having an adult criminal record haunt them for the rest of their lives. Their records are sealed, and they can move about the world without the stigma of a felony conviction.
Without this status, individuals would face lifelong consequences because their conviction is accessible to employers, landlords, and schools by way of background checks.
Sadly, in many instances, judges have chosen not to grant YO status, which has happened to far too many people in New York who were charged and sentenced as adults when they were young.
It happened to me when I was 17 years old.
Like too many Black and brown teenagers, I was raised in an over-policed, underserved community that lacked appropriate resources, was plagued by drugs, and provided limited role models and opportunities for young people.
I made poor decisions that held severe consequences. I was charged and ultimately convicted as an adult, serving 10 years in prison. I spent most of my adolescence in an adult correctional setting and was forced to grow up in one of the most dangerous and challenging places anyone can fathom.
After leaving prison in 2003, I was determined not to engage in the behaviors that led to my confinement. But as I returned to my community, I was confronted with systemic barriers. I remember filling out a job application to work in the stock room of a national retail chain. During my interview process, they asked so many questions about my conviction. Ultimately, they said I needed more experience and denied me the job. Eventually, I was relegated to back-breaking labor on a construction site with no benefits because that was my only option at the time.
This was just one obstacle. According to the Council of State Governments, in New York there are 1,052 collateral civil consequences: legal and regulatory restrictions that limit or prohibit people convicted of crimes from accessing certain occupations, licenses, funding, and more.
When young people sentenced as adults ultimately complete their prison sentences, they are subjected to a life sentence of lost opportunity.
Thankfully, New York State recently took a big step to supporting second chances. Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law new legislation (S.282/A.6769) providing individuals who were sentenced as adults when they were youths with a new pathway to remove their adult felony conviction. This new law allows people to reapply for consideration for youthful offender status, and it offers hope to those still suffering the consequences of an adult conviction for a decision they made as a teenager.
What does this mean for me?
I may be free—finally—of the limitations of a felony conviction record. I was released from prison at age 27. Now, more than 17 years later, I am eager to reapply for youthful offender status. I am so much more than the felony record which has labeled me for all these years.
I am proud of the work I have done both to help people avoid incarceration and to assist formerly incarcerated individuals with the process of reentry in New York City. I am filled with hope that this change will be transformative for people who made mistakes when they were young. May they have the opportunity to live better lives without barriers to success.
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Rob DeLeon is the Senior Vice President at The Fortune Society. On Twitter @RobDeLeon14 & @thefortunesoc.
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