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Opinion

How Health Care, Tech, and the New Federal Infrastructure Law Must Connect


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Getting health help through infrastructure (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


President Biden and Congress took a significant step in shoring up access to health care by enacting the infrastructure bill.

The COVID-19 crisis shined a spotlight on broadband inequity and its impact on access to health-care services. While our country leapt forward on digital health, some of the neighborhoods and families who need it most were left out.

In July 2020, EmblemHealth surveyed New Yorkers and found nearly one-third of Black-led and almost one-quarter of low-income households had inadequate access to the internet, compared to just 18% of the general population. Low-income and Black households were also less likely to have more than one digital device at home, further limiting their ability to use telehealth. 

Policy discussions celebrate the milestone that serious health conditions, including hypertension, diabetes, and high-blood pressure, can now be monitored from home by using apps that connect directly to your doctor. But that often requires individuals to have good internet connections and robust data plans. Many families rotate through phones, have limited data plans, or have no phones altogether. The digital divide is a deficit, and reducing health care disparities requires expanding broadband access.

The new infrastructure law will help close these gaps. It commits $65 billion in federal funding to increase broadband access in underserved areas, including a $30 per month voucher for low-income families to use toward an internet service plan of their choice. This assistance will unlock access to digital health, telehealth, and at-home health monitoring.

These changes will make a difference for American families, including many in New York City. It’s also a wakeup call to the policy community, which has embraced the promise and potential of digital health, not to lose sight of people without access or with limited access. Passage and enactment of this legislation will have tangible results. Now the challenge is for all of us working in the system to unlock this potential for the people we serve.

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Karen Ignagni serves as President and CEO of the EmblemHealth family of companies.

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De Blasio Leaves Adams a City Budget Mess


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Mayor de Blasio at a budget briefing (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography)


Some of us in government are old enough to remember when Mayor Bill de Blasio took office almost eight years ago, fulminating to any reporter in earshot about how his predecessor, Michael Bloomberg, left him with expired labor contracts that presented the city with an “unprecedented” fiscal challenge.

“The future should not have been mortgaged in this way. But it was by the previous administration and we will have to grapple with it,” he told The Observer at the time.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. 

When he takes office less than a month from now, incoming Mayor Eric Adams will have to deal with the financial mess de Blasio is leaving behind. Only, it’s a lot bigger. 

After years of treating the city’s budget the way rock bands treat hotel rooms, Mayor de Blasio will be handing his successor a city in far worse financial shape than the one he took the helm of in 2014. Like de Blasio before him, Adams will also have to negotiate expired municipal labor contracts in short order – but this time, with a depleted labor reserve, a projected total of $8 billion in deficits in the next three fiscal years, and nearly $4 billion in annual debt service. And he will have to grapple with all this amid a global pandemic that is fueling hysteria and uncertainty, skyrocketing inflation, and a dragging economic recession.

Even under the best circumstances, it would be extremely difficult for the Adams administration to correct eight years of mayoral monetary malfeasance, in which an already bloated budget grew by 36%, or three times the rate of inflation. Nor will he be able to lessen the city’s long-term pension obligations, which are much larger now due a workforce that has grown by more than 35,000 during the de Blasio administration. 

But there is one thing Mayor Adams can do almost immediately to put this city on a more sound fiscal footing: shore up the city’s cash reserves.

This is not a new idea, of course, but it was not entirely possible under the terms of the New York State Financial Emergency Act (FEA), passed in late 1975 after New York City came just hours from bankruptcy. The FEA imposed strict accounting rules on the city, including requiring an annually balanced budget. So for decades, whenever the city has had a budget surplus, the best we could do was stash some money in the Retiree Health Benefits Fund and roll over the rest to “pre-pay” future debt. But none of this could be used to plug current budget gaps.

This restriction was finally removed by state law in 2020, which earlier this year led to the creation of the Revenue Stabilization Fund, a real unrestricted rainy day fund. The Revenue Stabilization Fund would have been the perfect place to park at least some of the $22 billion the city received in federal aid this year, particularly about $6 billion that had no strings attached, to help pay for future budget gaps and as a down payment for labor contracts. Instead, the mayor squandered this once-in-a-generation cash infusion on costly recurring programs, like mental health services and rental vouchers.

The city’s rainy day fund now sits at $1 billion, or less than 1% of the $100 billion-plus operating budget. The nation’s second largest city, Los Angeles, has an unrestricted cash reserve of 17%. Dallas has a reserve of 25%. Phoenix and San Antonio have cash reserves of more than 28% each. 

Our city’s cash reserves are not only woefully inadequate to meet future fiscal challenges, but they also cost us significantly more in annual debt payments. To achieve the highest level of creditworthiness — AAA — rating agencies require municipalities to have a minimum 15% budget reserve. New York City has AA, AA2, and AA- ratings from, respectively, Standard & Poor's, Moody's, and Fitch — the big three rating agencies. That is several tiers lower than AAA. Just like a personal credit score, a lower municipal credit rating means the city has to pay higher interest rates on loans, and when you borrow tens of billions of dollars for capital projects, like New York City does, just one percentage point translates into tens of millions more in payments.

There is no good reason New York, a city with the financial might of a small country, should not be able to set aside at least 20% of its budget in savings. There is no good reason we should pay higher interest on our debt than San Jose or Dallas, cities with one-tenth our GDP. There is simply no good reason we should face a budget shortfall when we spend more than 47 states and 170 countries. 

Of the many bad decisions this mayor has made, mortgaging our future for his political projects was one of the most damaging. Let us hope Mayor Adams does not follow in the footsteps of his profligate predecessor and that he not only believes this city is worth saving, but worth having more savings.

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City Council Member Joseph Borelli represents parts of Staten Island and is the Council’s Minority Leader. On Twitter @JoeBorelliNYC.

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Taking Mental Health Care in New York City to the Next Level


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Mental health first responders via B-HEARD


Last week, the New York City Council voted to amend the City Charter to establish the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health as a permanent part of our city government. The vote comes at a critical time – as New Yorkers continue to feel the long-lasting mental health consequences of the pandemic.

The vote is also the culmination of years of work. In the wake of decades of state and federal neglect that left too many people without the mental healthcare they need, New York City became the first major American city to support mental health services through local tax levy funds. As a result, today New York City is delivering more mental health services, in more places and in more ways than ever before. These services are essential and effective.  

Built on the strong foundation of ThriveNYC, our office coordinates a much-needed, all-government approach to mental health, and works with 13 city government agencies and over 200 community-based organizations to close gaps in mental health care through innovation. Our programs are not intended to replace the behavioral health-care system, but to enhance and supplement it with a laser focus on reaching people who would otherwise go without care. 

The results are clear. Older adults with depression and anxiety are getting better thanks to clinicians we brought to senior centers. Victims of crime feel safer because of advocates we placed in every police precinct. New Yorkers with serious mental illness are staying engaged in care and securing permanent housing through mobile treatment teams the city created to fill in where state funding fell short. Since 2016, New Yorkers have reached out to our mental health helpline – 1-888-NYC-WELL – more than 1.5 million times for help, with calls soaring during the pandemic. Ninety-three percent were satisfied their needs were met. 

In the face of a nationwide social worker shortage, we have demonstrated new ways to deliver needed mental health support without trained clinicians. Right now, the new Academy for Community Behavioral Health, run by CUNY School of Professional Studies in partnership with our office and the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity, is offering free courses and certification programs for social service providers and city government employees. The training will help them provide basic mental health support to the people they serve. 

In Harlem, we are pioneering the city’s first health-centered, non-police response to 911 mental health emergencies. Early results show more people accepting help, fewer hospitalizations, and more community-based care. This is the next frontier of mental health emergency response reform, but it’s not the full story.

We also worked with the city Health Department to expand health-only mobile crisis teams that can be deployed through NYC Well, not 911. Now, from 8am to 8pm every day, these teams can arrive within two hours to help people in an urgent crisis – up from 2014 average wait times of longer than a day.  

Recently we launched a new approach to prevent the next emergency, working with FDNY Emergency Medical Services and the Health Department to reach out to the 300 or so people who call 911 for mental health issues more than three times each month. With a proactive connection to needed services, we hope to prevent the next moment of crisis, and reduce the use of emergency resources.   

We are also expanding mobile treatment teams and member-run Clubhouses across the city – with the goal of better serving more people with serious mental illness. As of this month, we are bringing new mental health services to every domestic violence shelter in the city, creating new treatment hubs for youth and young adults – especially those who have run away or experienced homelessness, and adding more clinicians to senior centers in communities of color.  

There is so much more to do, especially as New York City continues to recover from the pandemic – which created significant mental health challenges and exacerbated long-standing inequities. It is time for the citywide conversation on mental health to focus on the future – we must be talking about how to bring more mental health support to people who need it most. An equity lens must guide every strategy going forward: we have greatly expanded connections to mental health care, but still not everyone has access to the care they need. 

The next mayoral administration faces major challenges. Promoting mental health for all New Yorkers must be one of the highest priorities. Thanks to the leadership of Mayor de Blasio, First Lady Chirlane McCray, and the New York City Council – leaders in the future will also have more tools to tackle these challenges than ever before, including and especially the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health.

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Susan Herman is Director of Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health. On Twitter @MentalHealthNYC.

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Key Considerations as the MTA Restarts Brooklyn Bus Network Redesign


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Boarding the bus in Brooklyn (photo: MTA/Patrick Cashin)


The MTA announced this past summer that the borough network redesign studies that were halted by covid will resume this fall. A Brooklyn bus network redesign is long overdue, but it must be performed in the correct manner. We have no indication that such is the case.

The intent is to design routes “from a blank slate,” which is unrealistic. Existing route segments should be realigned and service gaps filled. Is the study’s purpose to reduce operating costs resulting from the 40% bus passenger decline since covid or to make destinations more accessible and shorten passenger trip times? 

The study is not objective. The MTA begins with the assumption that the major problem is buses are too slow and one solution is to eliminate bus stops so that all local bus routes in effect become Limiteds. They propose providing more bus lanes or busways, without considering the impacts on traffic. Slow buses are not the problem. The problem is people's trips need to be faster with better and more reliable service and requiring fewer connections.

The MTA never solicited problems and possible solutions from Community Boards. Instead, they held lightly-attended and ill-publicized workshops merely informing the public what they are trying to accomplish. Opinions from the public were solicited on post-it notes. Does the MTA even care what you think? 

Surveys were performed and quotes for the Brooklyn Existing Conditions Report were carefully selected that fit into the scenario of how the MTA wants to proceed. People also were stopped on the street where they were informed of the MTA’s goals for the study like having the buses go faster. The public was led to responses that would support the measures being proposed like more bus lanes and fewer bus stops. 

This report sets the stage for wider spacing between bus routes, increased walking to bus stops and bus routes, fewer express bus routes (because they cost too much to operate) and straighter routes requiring additional transfers, although many (45%) riders surveyed preferred using only one bus even if it took longer. 

These measures, the MTA believes, will encourage bus travel. They are wrong. Bus travel will be discouraged and patronage will further erode if more stops are removed and there is less route coverage. The MTA asks riders to choose between bus frequency and route coverage, implying they cannot afford to provide both. The question is absurd. An adequate system needs both frequency and coverage. It's like asking a prisoner who has not eaten in three days if he wants food or water. 

The MTA correctly states some bus routes are still based on 1920 trolley routes. And some bus routes are still based on 1930s bus routes. For example, the southern portion of the B43 is based on the need to directly serve Ebbets Field from Williamsburg, when today it would make more sense to better serve Kings County Hospital. The B16 doesn’t run straight on 13th Avenue because when the bus route started in the early 1930s, there was no 13th Avenue Bridge crossing the Sea Beach tracks. The bus had to be diverted to Ft. Hamilton Parkway. 

 b16 does not serve maimonides medical center

The B16 doesn't serve Maimonides Medical Center

Also, at that time Maimonides Medical Center was a small local Hospital called Israel Zion Hospital and did not merit a bus route along the length of Ft. Hamilton Parkway. So today the B16 serves double duty serving both 13th Avenue and Ft. Hamilton Parkway, when two separate routes would make more sense providing more direct travel. 

The major purpose of the Brooklyn redesign study should be to alter outdated routes such as these so they provide more direct travel, reducing the need to transfer and therefore reducing travel time. That would encourage ridership. 

Downtown Brooklyn has and will see more development than any other part of Brooklyn. Yet, the Existing Conditions Report states that due to the numerous subway lines operating there, its bus service needs to be trimmed and resources allocated elsewhere. That would result in additional bus transfers and travel times, rather than the opposite. There isn’t even any mention if there is capacity on the subways to absorb additional bus riders. If the subway was a better alternative, those bus riders would be using the subway today. 

If the MTA follows through on its recommendations for the Bronx and Queens, Brooklyn will also likely see over half its local bus stops eliminated, resulting in longer walks to and from a bus route. This will result in longer trip times for passengers with minuscule savings in bus running times. That is because if a bus stop is lightly used, the stop is often skipped anyway. If it’s heavily used but eliminated, then the boarding times at adjacent stops will be increased and the only time saved are the seconds for acceleration and deceleration.

Extra walking is also very inconvenient during inclement weather and especially for those with mobility challenges. Massive bus stop elimination would discourage ridership. Why take a bus at all if your trip will still require you to walk a mile? You are better off taking an Uber or just walking the entire way. Over 2,000 people have signed the petition opposing massive bus stop elimination. 

The study also needs to determine how to eliminate double fares, especially for short trips requiring multiple vehicles. Why should a person have to take two long bus rides to save a fare when two short bus rides and a subway might be quicker? Unlimited travel within two hours should be allowed regardless of the number of mass transit vehicles required. 

The MTA is too concerned with losing revenue by allowing round trips on one fare, which would actually encourage ridership, recouping monies lost by allowing riders to combine errands for one fare. The vast majority of riders require more than two hours to make a round trip and would still have to pay twice to make a round trip. The MTA and its predecessors also did not allow many bus-to-bus transfers or bus-subway transfers for over 50 years, using the same excuse that too much revenue would be lost. It is time to take a new approach regarding fares. 

Fare increases burden double-fare riders twice as much and route revisions requiring additional double fares are not fair. Former Limited B46 riders in Williamsburg had to switch to the slower local when SBS was introduced if they already required a transfer or else pay a double fare to use SBS. Fare-capping would help but is not a solution, even if it were done on a daily basis. It only has been proposed on a weekly or monthly basis. As more workers work fewer than five days a week at an office, weekly and monthly capping becomes less advantageous.

You also can’t take an SBS and change to a local or vice versa if you already transfer, without paying an extra fare. The MTA eliminated a long-standing policy of route modifications not requiring extra fares many years ago and now adds a third transfer only when a community protests. They also do not publicize these three-legged transfers to prevent new riders from using them.

An “improved” routing network should not require many (30% or more) to walk further and take extra buses (possibly paying extra fares) with longer trip times so that the MTA can operate fewer routes with buses saving running time to reduce operating costs. I developed an improved Brooklyn Bus Network that can be found here. In my plan, the local bus network is restructured with the major objective of increasing ridership by making the system more user-friendly. 

It accomplishes this objective by making most trips possible using only one or two buses or combination of bus and subway. Service gaps are filled; routes are generally longer, straighter, and more direct, but with most buses traveling shorter distances to better increase reliability and better fit service to demand. Airport access and interborough travel are also improved. Implementation is accomplished in phases with a small investment in increased operating costs to generate greater revenue. A cost-neutral approach is wrong for a borough that has been growing significantly since 2009 in both population and businesses. 

We now have a real opportunity to improve Brooklyn bus service. Let’s not waste it.

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Allan Rosen is a retired and former director of MTA NYCT Bus Planning with three decades experience in transportation and a Masters Degree in Urban Planning. On Twitter @BrooklynBus.

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How Link5G will Address New York City’s Digital Equity Emergency


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Rendering of proposed Link5G


The digital divide has been one of the many disparities laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic. Countless New Yorkers have been forced to work and learn remotely, yet shifting to online platforms is very challenging for the 1.5 million New Yorkers — mainly low-income people of color — who lack access to both broadband and cellular internet.

This is our digital equity emergency, and the Urban League is very focused on bringing attention to this critical issue. In March, the National Urban League released the Lewis Latimer Plan for Digital Equity and Inclusion, which highlighted the growing costs of digital exclusion.

The plan focused on four key goals, including the expanded deployment of networks everywhere and using those networks to improve how we deliver essential services. New York City has been working on innovative policy programs to increase network deployments, including through the Internet Master Plan, which will hopefully lead to increased broadband access. Another key piece to the digital equity puzzle is the LinkNYC program.

You may know the Link kiosks for their free high speed Wi-Fi, interactive tablets, charging ports, and advertising. However, not enough of these kiosks have been deployed to the communities that need them most, as Links today are concentrated mostly in Manhattan. We now have an opportunity to fix that by extending and improving on this great service through Link5G.

Think of students like those at the Careers in Sports High School in the Bronx that we serve with important programming. Throughout the pandemic, they were forced into remote learning. While New York City schools provided tablets, students often didn’t have the benefit of home broadband service and connections through the devices can be choppy. Attending classes and doing homework should not be filled with digital hurdles and disruptions.

LinkNYC’s free Wi-Fi was one lifeline in neighborhoods fortunate enough to have one. The deployment of new and improved Link5G structures will begin in neighborhoods left behind from the original LinkNYC deployment, ensuring their access to 5G mobile broadband in addition to the benefit of free Wi-Fi. It will also bring new fiber-optic cable into those communities which can be used to provide home and small businesses with connectivity. These structures aren’t a luxury in our communities — they are a necessity.

5G is the next generation mobile network technology that will provide much faster speeds to mobile devices. Experts say 5G will revolutionize mobile networks and can even be used to provide broadband to the home. That is, of course, if you can find a reliable signal in your neighborhood. Thanks to contract requirements put in place by our city government, the new Link5G program will prioritize the equitable deployment of networks in the communities that need them the most.

The new Link5G design is currently being considered by the city’s Public Design Commission. I urge the PDC to approve the design of this critical technology infrastructure that our communities need immediately. Our students, our small businesses, and our most vulnerable residents simply cannot survive and thrive in an increasingly digital world without them. This is a unique opportunity to begin addressing our city’s digital equity emergency.

The Public Design Commission’s mission is to advocate for innovative, sustainable, and equitable design of public spaces, with a goal of improving the public realm and therefore related services for all New Yorkers throughout the five boroughs. Providing an opportunity for 5G in the neighborhoods most impacted by lack of access over time may prove to be the most equitable design of all.

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Arva Rice is the President and CEO of the New York Urban League. On Twitter @arvarice.

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Let’s Spread the Word About Student Loan Forgiveness


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Council Member Helen Rosenthal, the author (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


A few years ago, a staff member in my office who owed over $40,000 in student loans came to the realization that she might qualify for eventual loan forgiveness because she worked in local government. Neither her employer, the City Council, or her lender had informed her that working in public service made her eligible for debt relief.

My staff person is just one of the estimated 1 million New Yorkers who owe student loans. Student loan debt in the United States has reached surreal levels. Borrowers across the country now collectively owe an estimated $1.57 trillion, and this debt is a key reason why so many Americans cannot achieve financial stability.

To add insult to injury, millions of American workers are actually eligible for student debt relief but have not received it. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, up to a quarter of the U.S. workforce is in public service (employed by the government or a non-profit organization) and may be eligible for existing student loan debt forgiveness programs.

There are a number of reasons why Americans working in public service are not able to successfully obtain student loan forgiveness. Much of it has to do with how the forgiveness programs are structured. But another central reason is lack of awareness. This can and must be addressed immediately.

This week the New York City Council is voting on my legislation that will ensure that all city government employees are automatically informed they may be eligible for public service loan forgiveness -- under either a federal or state program.

My legislation also requires the city’s Office of Labor Policy & Standards (OLPS) to conduct an outreach and education campaign about student loan forgiveness within New York City’s massive non-profit sector. Non-profit employers will be strongly encouraged to share this information with the more than 600,000 workers who are an essential part of our social safety net.

My bill is a simple step forward to close an information gap, but the impact could be quite far-reaching. The legislation will help to ensure that every one of the city government’s 330,000 employees (along with over half-a-million non-profit employees) knows they may be able to eventually cancel their student debt. That awareness will encourage more of them to pursue this option and not delay action.

The timing of this bill is critical. President Biden is taking steps now to make the federal public service loan forgiveness program much more accessible to Americans working in government or non-profits. The Biden Administration is simplifying the loan forgiveness process, and retroactively relaxing particular rules and requirements. For example, only certain types of student loans have previously qualified for eventual forgiveness. The federal Department of Education is expanding the types of loans that qualify -- and making that expansion retroactive.

The changes could assist roughly 550,000 borrowers, including my staff member. Over the course of several years she made thousands of dollars of payments on her student loans. Forgiveness is supposed to be achieved after 10 years of consistent payments. Because she did not understand which loans qualify for forgiveness, her years of past payment will not help her -- but now that may change. Public awareness about loan forgiveness has never been more important.

We all know that student loan debt is essentially crushing millions of Americans. The debt that so many Americans, New Yorkers included, are carrying prohibits them from building long-term careers in public service, because their salaries simply cannot sustain the loan payments. We need our best and brightest working in service of our city. In order to recruit and keep them, alerting them of available financial relief is the least we can do.

To be clear, I support the growing movement across our country to cancel a large portion of student loan debt entirely. My legislation is a step toward ensuring that all those who have devoted their lives to serving others can build a brighter financial future.

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City Council Member Helen Rosenthal represents parts of Manhattan. On Twitter @HelenRosenthal.

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Eric Adams’ Choice: A Deputy Mayor for Justice


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Mayor-elect Eric Adams outside the 71st Precinct (photo: Erica Sherman/Brooklyn BP's Office)


The last time that New York City had a deputy mayor for public safety, New York City was in crisis. In 1990, murders topped out at over 2,200 – seven times the city’s low in 2018.

Mayor David Dinkins directed his new appointee, Judge Milton Mollen, to “confront the crime that degrades the life of our city” and address agency “finger-pointing.” Mollen brought deep experience in the law and government operations, having served as a judge and the chair of NYCHA, among other accomplishments. 

All signs point to Mayor-elect Eric Adams selecting the first deputy mayor for public safety in a generation. This is a smart move.

Of course, a lot has changed since the 1990s: New York City has long been the safest large city in the nation and, in recent years, has continued to drive down crime while also reducing the number of people in jail. One of the central lessons we have learned is that, important as they are, police cannot create enduring safety by themselves. Among many examples from reliable research: a job can stop a bullet, with summer youth employment reducing both deaths and arrests; well-lit streets can reduce violent crime by a third; and supportive housing can interrupt the cycles of jail, shelter, and hospital that afflict many New Yorkers.

And, on the other side, misuse of force can erode trust, leading to fewer people coming forward as witnesses or convicting on the evidence. We learned this bitter lesson when police stops in the city reached almost 700,000 per year, aggravating cynicism, particularly in communities of color.

The past two pandemic years have further demonstrated the need for a deputy mayor who balances the role of civic services and force in producing safety. As civic connections withered, New York City, along with every big city in the nation, experienced the sharpest single year rise in homicides in its history. Cops withdrew from the streets and residents, whose cooperation rate had never cracked the 50% mark in the best years, also stepped back. By the end of 2020, only one in five shootings were being solved

Finger-pointing by the mayor and the police commissioner aggravated the crisis as they sought culprits in bail reform, court delay, and jail releases, each of which were serially debunked. When anecdotes are treated as “data,” finding solutions is hard.

Adams has rightly pointed to prevention and intervention as critical to safety. Pressure testing every dollar – whether spent on patrol or summer jobs – to ensure New Yorkers are getting the most safety and fairness for their money is key.

What is needed to effectively navigate this complex role of deputy mayor for public safety? 

In the first place, the new deputy mayor must be a person of unquestioned integrity. This is true of any person who will hold New Yorkers' trust. But it is particularly true in this moment when the legitimacy of law enforcement has taken some hard knocks. 

The deputy mayor’s integrity and stature will also be essential to convene effectively the many players who comprise the justice “system,” most of whom – district attorneys, defenders, and courts – are independent of the city’s authority.  A transparent and regular sharing of data will also go a long way to winning trust and finding solutions. And understanding all aspects of the justice system’s operations, not just the police, will be crucial to address the many crises from the management of the jails to the confounding continuation of case delays in the courts.

Finally, the new deputy mayor should be deeply rooted in the civic functions of government.  For good reason, Americans have chosen a civilian form of government to be the keystone of democracy and determined that those who are armed must always be subordinate to civilian power. Force – which can be so toxic even if sometimes necessary – must be carefully cabined and managed. And because the wise deployment of civic services – from housing to jobs to parks and more – is so core to safety, the new deputy mayor will need to have the knowledge and skill to coordinate with his or her fellow deputy mayors in whose dockets other services fall.

A different world from 1990 but the same opportunity to make a safer and more vibrant city awaits.

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Elizabeth Glazer is the founder of Vital City. A former federal prosecutor, she served as the New York Governor’s Deputy Secretary for Public Safety and the New York City Mayor’s criminal justice advisor.

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Key Steps the Adams Administration Should Take to Protect Unemployed New Yorkers Looking for Work


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New Yorkers seeking help (photo: Gerardo Romo/City Council)


When Mayor-elect Eric Adams takes the oath of office in January, he will need to do more than just manage the city’s economic recovery. He will have to ensure that the more than 8% of New Yorkers who are unemployed are able to participate in it. This means ensuring that job-seeking New Yorkers aren’t forced to take on debts they can ill afford just to apply for one in the first place.

Unfortunately, there are warning signs that predatory private actors are already putting many out-of-work New Yorkers in this precise position. 

For-profit colleges and trade schools have seen a surge in enrollment around the country – a troublesome trend given that many of these institutions often load up their students with debt and do comparatively little to improve their employment prospects in return. These institutions are a particular threat here in New York City since they often target working-class Black and Latino neighborhoods in the Bronx and Brooklyn. These neighborhoods not only have the highest rates of attendance at for-profit institutions. They also have the highest rates of students with loans in collection.

Another threat to New Yorkers trying to enter or reenter the job market comes from private employment agencies. A 2016 study by the Center for Popular Democracy and the Center for an Urban Future found that job-seekers sometimes paid private employment agencies in New York City up to a month’s salary for a job placement. Other agencies simply collect a fee and then send job-seekers to a job site where no employers are located. The same 2016 study found that these schemes are particularly common in immigrant communities such as Jackson Heights and Washington Heights.

The combination of for-profit colleges and profiteering employment agencies is a dangerous one-two punch for working-class New York families. Job-seekers are pulled further into debt when they try to retrain, and then are forced to sacrifice wages they can’t spare just to apply for a job they don’t yet have. 

Mayor-elect Adams can prevent these predatory practices from landing a knock-out blow when he takes office in January. An important first step will be appointing an energetic commissioner for the (clunkily named) Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP). This Department, the powers of which were expanded during the de Blasio administration, has sweeping authority to protect workers and consumers from “deceptive or unconscionable trade practices.”

These five words—and associated legal provisions—empower the DCWP to serve as the tip of the spear in any fight against profiteers preying on vulnerable New York City residents. The next commissioner of this department should commit to using that power to the fullest extent.

First, the commissioner should reinvigorate the department’s long-standing fight against exploitative for-profit colleges and trade schools. One of Mayor de Blasio’s longtime DCWP commissioners, Lorelei Salas, led a legal battle against these types of for-profit educational institutions—both exposing the extent of the problem and, where necessary, hauling these institutions into court. In addition to continuing this fight, the next DCWP commissioner should launch a task force to immediately identify and put a stop to any private colleges that have taken advantage of New Yorkers in the wake of the pandemic. 

Second, the department must get serious about putting an end to predatory private employment agencies. The next DCWP commissioner should not only commit to targeting employment agencies that take job-seekers’ money and provide little in return. He or she should also team up with other city agencies to promote Workforce1 Centers, which are public job-placement agencies, by ensuring that these centers are active in the same communities where predatory private employment agencies tend to operate. Likewise, the next commissioner should partner with unions in building an effective workforce-training pipeline that connects job-seekers with quality job placements.  

These simple steps are not only an economic imperative, but a moral one. Many of the communities that for-profit colleges and private employment agencies target are the very same communities that suffered most during the pandemic: working-class Black, Latino, and immigrant neighborhoods. The death toll was not only highest in these neighborhoods, but the economic devastation was particularly severe.

These communities deserve help, and that’s exactly what Mayor-elect Adams ran on. When selecting his Department of Consumer and Worker Protection commissioner, Mayor-elect Adams should make sure that they get some.

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Adam Hofman Bradlow previously worked on consumer protection issues in the U.S. Senate and is a 2018 graduate of Yale Law School. He is a Project Manager at Dalberg Advisors. On Twitter @abradlow.

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‘Less is More’ is Needed Now, Not in March


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Gov. Hochul signs the Less Is More Act (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of the Governor)


The state of New York took a moral step recently when Governor Hochul signed into law the Less Is More Act, which aims to soften the draconian parole laws that have disproportionately harmed people of color. Nearly 200 New Yorkers re-joined their families as soon as the bill became law, freeing them from Rikers Island amid escalating pandemic deaths in New York jails.

We can’t declare victory just yet. “Less Is More” doesn’t go fully into effect until March. For many people, a four-month wait is a matter of life or death. It needs to be put into effect immediately, and Governor Hochul should take the necessary steps to do so.

New York still has the worst parole system in the country with its use of incarceration for non-criminal technical parole violations -- like missing an appointment or even being early for a job, yes early. The state spent more than $680 million in 2019 to reincarcerate people on such violations.

This not only harms individual lives and families without improving public safety but also increases the state prison population. New York imprisons more people for non-criminal technical violations of parole than any state in the U.S. There are about 35,000 people in New York State under active parole supervision. Of those, more than 800 are incarcerated for technical violations.

Of course, the racial disparities are stark. Black people are incarcerated for technical violations at five times the rate of white people in New York state. In the city, that rate grows to 12 times. Latino people are nearly 30% more likely to be incarcerated for a technical parole violation than whites. Technical violations rob weeks, months, and even years from people’s lives, keeping them stuck in the prison system. Tragically, these violations also affect parolees’ loved ones and communities.

Covid remains an even deadlier threat to people in prisons and jails. We know the infection rate for people in prisons and jails is five times as high as the rate for the average American, and that at least 2,000 people have died of covid while detained. We also know the only viable option to blunt the spread of covid in prisons and jails is through decarceral measures.

Opponents will tell you that “Less Is More” is bad public policy that only gained popularity because of so-called one-party rule by Albany Democrats, which is also not rooted in fact. Many of the provisions in “Less Is More” come from other states that have already implemented similar reforms, reducing community supervision populations and curbing violations, while also increasing public safety. The reforms mimic successful ones in more conservative states including Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Utah. Additionally, “Less Is More” aligns with reform principles outlined by current and former community corrections officials from across the country

The Less Is More Act is supported by over 300 community, advocacy, and faith groups across the state, eight District Attorneys representing more than half of the state’s population, and law enforcement leaders from across New York, including the Albany and Erie County sheriffs. It has widespread support from victims’ rights groups like the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

Sending people to jail for non-criminal activity does not increase our public safety. With “Less Is More,” New York will be at the forefront of shifting parole from being overly punitive to being supportive. It is a matter of life and death for the communities of New York, and it makes sense for everyone.

Not only must we speed up the timeline to prevent needless incarceration as COVID-19 continues to spread in our jails and prisons given the Delta wave and the threat of the Omicron variant, but we must also protect the law from baseless attacks with questionable motives.

We need Governor Hochul to implement Less Is More today. Every day implementation is delayed is a day where peoples’ lives, health, and wellbeing hang in the balance.

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Ashish Prashar is the Global CMO at R/GA and a justice reform activist. He sits on the boards of Exodus Transitional Community, Getting Out and Staying Out, Just Leadership, Leap Confronting Conflict, and the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice. On Twitter @Ash_Prashar.

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Removing Obstacles to Gender-Affirming Care Will Help New York End the HIV Epidemic


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An affirmation of transgender rights (photo: Don Pollard/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul)


World AIDS Day is an opportunity to celebrate the progress we have made in the fight against HIV/AIDS, while recommitting ourselves to Ending the Epidemic once and for all. While we have come a long way since the 1980s, some communities have been left behind. Ending the Epidemic will require a sustained focus on populations placed at highest risk, particularly people of transgender experience.

Recent finding shows that transgender women are 49 times more likely to be living with HIV compared with the general population, and a CDC analysis confirmed that both transgender women and men are disproportionately affected by HIV.

For people of trans experience, navigating the health-care system can be a minefield. Trans people frequently face difficulty accessing healthcare due to discrimination and poor training on the part of medical providers, harassment in medical settings, and, when able to find a provider who will see them, often have to educate the person who is supposed to be giving them care about transgender health issues. This is particularly difficult when someone has just had a gender-affirming surgery requiring travel to another area, and then comes home with no one to take care of them. One of the most significant issues trans patients face is navigating health insurance.

Necessary gender-affirming surgeries, such as facial feminization surgery and breast augmentations, are categorized as “cosmetic” by many insurance companies and aren’t covered, despite lots of evidence showing they save transgender lives. And although New York is one of the few states that mandate Medicaid to cover transition-related care, many mainstream Medicaid plans have not developed the capacity to support transgender members in accessing gender-affirming procedures. 

When surgeries are covered by commercial insurance or mainstream Medicaid, patients often have issues finding an in-network surgeon who has experience and training in gender-affirming procedures. It can take months, or longer, to obtain an out-of-network exception so patients can see a surgeon who has training in the gender-affirming procedures they need. When they do find a surgeon, getting surgical coverage usually requires at least one appeal, adding weeks to an already fraught process.

For patients, this is a tremendous burden. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who knows what surgery they need, but has to fight for months to find a surgeon and get insurance approval—all while continuing to experience heightened anxiety, depression, and distress in a body that has the wrong parts. It’s easy to see why so many people of trans experience aren’t engaged in care.

Thankfully, New Yorkers on Medicaid have better options. Medicaid Special Needs Health Plans (SNPs) are serving a significant number of transgender members, and work closely with culturally-competent providers like Callen-Lorde to ensure the unique needs of the transgender community are met. These plans listen to experts and work with us and the patient to ensure that they get the care they need without avoidable delay. This includes covering gender-affirming surgeries, and having an expansive network of providers with experience caring for transgender patients. 

As detailed in a recent report, Amida Care, New York State’s largest SNP, serves 2,100 transgender New Yorkers, accounting for 20% of their membership. Amida Care’s members have access to high-quality care that isn’t there for those with mainstream private or Medicaid insurance plans. The results speak volumes. Of Amida Care’s transgender members living with HIV, 94% have an undetectable viral load. Additionally, they are working to connect their HIV-negative transgender members with highly-effective HIV-prevention tools like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a pill that is proven to reduce the risk of getting HIV from sex by 99%. 

If we are to end the HIV epidemic, we need more health insurance plans to step up and do a better job serving their transgender members. We also need the state to support SNPs so they can continue to provide a high level of care to the transgender community. Medicaid in New York State sets reimbursement rates for different types of medical care. The current rates for gender-affirming procedures must be adjusted to attract qualified surgeons. As trans members are stabilized in care at plans like Amida Care, they are accessing the surgical procedures they need to keep living their lives. In order for providers to be fairly compensated for this critical emerging care specialty, Medicaid rates must keep up with the actual volume of services we provide.

Amida Care’s success is a testament to what is possible when you create an environment for patients that supports them in accessing gender-affirming care. It engages populations most deeply impacted by HIV in health care, and also ensures people are living in bodies they want to care for.

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Zil Goldstein, FNP-BC, AAHIVS is the associate medical director for TGNB Care at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center. On Twitter @CallenLorde.

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On School Admissions, New York City’s Next Step Must be Forward, Not Back


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Mayor de Blasio at an education announcement (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


Once again, New York City public school students and families are experiencing whiplash. Last year, the city took steps to improve equity, transparency, and accountability in high school admissions. Now, at the eleventh hour of the next admissions cycle, Mayor de Blasio announced he might back away from last year’s promise to eliminate geographic priorities for high schools.

We can’t have any geographic priorities reinstated — they prioritize school admission to students who live in certain areas, advantaging affluent families, systematically denying marginalized students from accessing well-resourced high schools, and reinforcing segregation. Such exclusionary policies foreclose access and opportunity to too many students.

New York City’s high school admissions cannot revert to pre-pandemic “business as usual,” morally or practically. A reversion to the pre-pandemic status quo would mean a reinstallment of several of the most egregious policies proven to fuel segregation in city schools. This tragic misstep would happen at a time when the global pandemic continues to disrupt our lives, having additionally laid bare the disproportionate and devastating impact of systemic racism on Black and brown students and communities. Instead of moving backward, New York City needs to prioritize equity and recovery in school admissions.

Our report, The Next Step, issued by a coalition of advocates, services providers, and experts, lays out recommendations to do just that. A central tenet of the report is that the city must adopt considered and deliberate equity measures to affirmatively desegregate schools: the elimination of exclusionary measures such as geographic priorities alone will not do the job.

For one, New York City needs to make good on its promise to reform admissions screens. Screens are another exclusionary policy, and more widespread in New York City than anywhere else, that public schools use to select students based on an array of admissions standards. Last year, the city pledged to pause middle school screens, which in just one year already made sought-after middle schools significantly more accessible. We call on Mayor de Blasio to make last year’s “pause” on middle school screens permanent.

High school screens need reform too. Pre-pandemic, high schools used screens like attendance, punctuality, grades, and state test scores (among other criteria such as tests and auditions) to judge whether eighth-graders could attend certain public schools. The pandemic forced the city to abandon many of these criteria, which research has shown to be unreliable, biased, and unfair. The city’s next step must be to implement policies that make the process of assigning students to high schools more equitable and just.

We recommend that the city require schools to opt in to screening and provide an educational justification for the use of any screens. For instance, using criteria like grades or attendance, which were not reliably collected during the height of the pandemic, would be patently unfair and unfounded. Any metrics the city approves must be reliable and transparent without systematically excluding historically marginalized students, such as those from low-income families, in temporary housing, or with disabilities, and English Language Learners.

More importantly, the city should mandate equitable admissions priorities for high schools citywide. Since the first “set-aside” program implemented in 2012, New York City schools have made strides with expanding the “Diversity in Admissions” initiative, which now includes over 160 programs. This voluntary effort increased “set asides” in admissions for children who are English Language Learners, in the child welfare system, in temporary housing, or from low-income families. While we applaud this step in the right direction, much more is needed. The city can use readily available socioeconomic and demographic indicators to level the playing field and provide marginalized students the priority they need to access appropriate high schools of their choice.

The city has the tools and data needed to elevate equity in high school admissions. It just needs the political will and moral fortitude to do so. 

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Nyah Berg is the Executive Director of NY Appleseed. Dora Galacatos is the Executive Director of Fordham Law School's Feerick Center for Social Justice. Laura B. Petty is the former Amanda Rose Laura Foundation Education Law Fellow, Fordham Law School's Feerick Center for Social Justice.

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