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Exercising Mental Fitness as We Move Forward with Our Covid Recovery


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New York City (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


In Southern California, three generations of a family gathered their separate households under one roof to weather the pandemic -- and liked it so much they decided to make it permanent. On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, students organized to buy groceries and essentials for the housebound. And as the virus surged, a nationwide Brides’ magazine survey of engaged couples showed that 82% found the pandemic only made them keener to wed.

COVID-19, this nation’s deadliest pandemic, has taken the lives of over 700,000 Americans and about 4.5 million people worldwide. Everyone has been through some struggle – illness, grief over unimaginable loss, or the miasma of uncertainty about jobs, education, and daily routines. Amid tragedy and challenges, though, people have shown remarkable kindness. They have also forged new bonds, gained fresh insights into what it means to be there for others, and re-examined life priorities. 

A Pew research survey of what it called the pandemic’s silver linings and struggles showed the clarity that came from being thrown together or living apart from loved ones and friends, and losing the underpinnings of everyday life, from office work to entertainment. The renowned economist Paul Krugman has even theorized that workers are quitting jobs at record rates in part because the pandemic has made them rethink their lives. 

As we negotiate re-entry into work, school, socializing, and public spaces, plenty of us are dusting off that saying attributed to Winston Churchill: never let a good crisis go to waste. As an advocate for mental wellbeing, I do indeed believe that we can use these difficult days to foster personal growth and improve mental fitness.

By mental fitness I mean not just getting by or holding on. Rather, I define mental fitness as actively taking steps to achieve and maintain a state of wellbeing. Wellbeing means being more intentional: naming what we think, feel, and believe, and managing our emotions and behavior. We will all have ups and downs, but the more mentally fit we are, the more likely we are to weather a major life crisis or even a global pandemic.

Our level of mental fitness indicates whether we are able to draw on coping strategies that do not involve substance misuse, withdrawal, or hurting ourselves or others. The same way we work on toning our arms and legs and increasing our strength, we can learn exercises and practice skills that help us maintain mental fitness.   

Here in New York City, in mid-August we launched Mental Health for All, the first-ever comprehensive website and public education campaign to connect New Yorkers to mental health resources. This fall, we set out to make certain that our more than 300,000 city employees know that their city is here for them as we muster through this landscape of booster shots, break-through cases, and return to full-time in the office. 

There are many apps and online tools to manage health and wellbeing, including this app library assembled by our city that can be used by anyone. It includes “Happify,” which uses evidence-based, game-like tools.

What are some steps anyone can take? Establish daily wellness practices: exercise, connect with friends, journal, practice yoga or meditation. 

If you have a family, sticking to a routine and regularly scheduled “family meetings” to discuss problems and feelings can go a long way. Ascertain what you can control when a crisis strikes. Ask your children (and yourself) what you are feeling, why you feel that way, and what can you do to manage the feeling in a healthy way. 

Children, especially, ask questions that are profound in their simplicity: why did grandma die? How do I know that covid will not get me? What do I do when I feel afraid or angry?

As a big proponent of social emotional learning (SEL), I urge parents to practice SEL skills at home. SEL is a proven educational approach used in schools nationwide, including New York City. Students learn to identify their emotions, manage feelings, build relationships, and resolve conflicts. Those skills improve behavior and academic success and can be used in every area of life. 

We can model SEL skills for our children and other young people. It can be as simple as saying, “I am feeling sad today, so I plan to listen to some of my favorite music and then go for a run.”  

While I encourage everyone to reach out for professional help when problems are overwhelming or they cannot function, let us remember that we need not wait until we need help to focus on our mental health. Good mental health is always important. 

This pandemic has no clear ending, but we do not have to put our lives on hold. We have the power to get our hearts and minds in better shape and keep on growing.

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Chirlane McCray is the First Lady of New York City. On Twitter @NYCFirstLady.

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Latino Vote '21: A Closer Look at the 2021 Democratic Primary


Gotham Gazette New York City Latinos and the 2021 Democratic Primary: A Closer Look

Voting (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Four years ago I participated in a forum on the theme of Latino politics and voting participation in New York hosted by the Rev. Ray Rivera of the Latino Pastoral Action Center in the Bronx. The forum was based largely on two columns I had recently written here at Gotham Gazette — “Latinos and the 2017 New York City Elections” and “The Future of Latino Politics in New York City.”

I was the new kid on the block, the “new” Latino political analyst thrust on this panel with two legendary figures: the late Angelo Falcon, the first Puerto Rican political analyst to grace our city, and Juan Cartagena, another pivotal leader and the past head of the renowned LatinoJustice.

I came armed with the most up-to-date political data and the analytical tools gained from years of employing political targeting methods. I came gleeful about the future of Latino politics in New York: Latinos could no longer be taken for granted or ignored. The moment we had predicted decades earlier, of increased Latino electoral participation and increased power, was right around the corner. The sleeping giant had finally awakened.

Falcon, a seasoned observer who had studied Latino voting patterns and trends since I was in elementary school, gently and diplomatically put me in my place. “I am not as optimistic about the future of Latino politics as my colleague Eli,” he said.

Falcon was right.

Looking back at this most recent primary in New York City, the consequential June 2021 elections, armed with more data and perspective, it’s true that:

The primary attracted the second highest Latino voter turnout rate in any primary in New York City.

This was the largest overall Latino voter turnout in a municipal election.

Latinos were a pivotal voting bloc for Eric Adams’ primary victory, with, for example, the Brooklyn borough president garnering close to 50% of the vote in the highest Latino election districts in the Bronx despite the very crowded and competitive field of candidates.

But that’s where the good ends and Falcon’s past skepticism comes in. My projection that Latinos would make up close to a quarter of the Democratic primary electorate fell well short. True, Latinos compose a quarter of all registered Democratic voters (a total of 3,444,859 Democrats) in New York City, but Latinos were only 15% of the roughly 935,294 Democratic voters in that June primary.

In the June 2020 and September 2018 primaries, Latinos made up a little over 20% of the Democratic electorate. These were potential signs of an awakened Latino electorate. But my hopes for this potential came crashing down this year.

More troubling is the fact that only 17% of the 864,511 registered Democratic Latino voters in New York City went to the polls this past June. The Bronx has the highest number of Latino Democratic voters with 283,573 but had the lowest turnout rate, 14%, among Latinos in all the boroughs.

Meanwhile, 20% of Manhattan Latinos went to the polls, the highest among Latinos in all boroughs, and 17% of Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island Latinos went to the polls.

Though this incoming City Council class will have the highest number of Latino representatives at 14 of the 51-seat legislative body, Latinos could have potentially won at least two more seats (in districts 25 and 32) had more Latinos voted. Could a higher turnout among Latinos also have kept a Latino helming Borough Hall in the Bronx, the only borough in the city that is majority Latino? Perhaps.

The biggest hindrance for Latino political representation and power in New York City are Latinos themselves.

What can Latino political and community leaders do about this? Let’s begin by taking opportunities like the annual November SOMOS conference in Puerto Rico to strategize how to mobilize Latino voters across the city.

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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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The Big, Bold Idea of Smaller Class Sizes


Gotham Gazette The Big, Bold Idea of Smaller Class Sizes

Students (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


This week, the City Council heard debate about a bill that would require the New York City Department of Education to cap how many people it can squeeze into our classrooms. The purpose is to ensure better ventilation and reduce the possibility of viral spread — a health safeguard in the era of COVID-19.

The end result would be fewer students in each classroom — a reduction in class size that New York City students, families, and educators have been promised for years.

The DOE doesn’t want to do it. Officials spent the first three hours of the City Council hearing explaining why New York City can’t possibly make this happen.

Brooklyn Council Member Mark Treyger, chair of the education committee and a former high school teacher, noted that the DOE is capable of doing big things — like creating pre-K and 3-K grades — when it wants to.

“Why are we not applying the same big thinking, bold ideas, ambitious energy, towards the issue of class size reduction?” Treyger asked.

Good question!

I have been a teacher in the South Bronx for 18 years. I speak from experience when I say my students receive better instruction when classes are smaller.

Teaching is a profession that requires more than just a quick data touchpoint for success.  Understanding your students is more than the answer on a multiple-choice test.  

I can think of a time when one of my students came in and clearly wasn't his normal self. It was a small class, so after I finished teaching, it was much easier to take a moment to speak with him one-on-one. It was in that exchange that he shared what was happening to his family, and I was able to get them the individualized support they needed to make sure they had enough food on the table and a safe place to sleep. When that was done, the child could better focus on what was going on in class.  

If there had been just one or two more students in the room, I cannot guarantee I would have had the ability to have that conversation. In the end, having a smaller class that year helped more than just my students' academics — it helped a family get the services it needed. This is just one example of how smaller classes allow for individualized attention.

New York City classes are larger than the classes in surrounding communities. According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the average class size for an elementary school classroom is just 20 students. Yet New York City Department of Education lawyers would cram 28 students in a kindergarten classroom, and up to 32 in grades 1-5.

Middle school and high school classes are more overcrowded. The statewide average for middle school is just 17, while in New York City, our classrooms are packed with up to 33 students. In high schools, statewide the average is 22, while the DOE lawyers would have our students in classes of 34.

And the DOE lawyers and some politicians have proposed even larger class sizes going forward, sometimes claiming there could be as many as 400 students in the same online class using technology.

So why do the districts that are outperforming city schools invest in smaller class sizes? Well, if you have 45-minute periods five days a week with 30 students in the class, you do the math. Fewer students means more individualized attention.

Research across the country has shown that the number of students in a class impacts the quality of education a student receives. Smaller class sizes directly correlate with increased student performance and everyone can have a better school experience.

What DOE officials don’t seem to understand is that our students are more than just test scores and data points. They are more than just an expenditure to be reduced. They are humans who deserve a quality education.  

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has been the driving force behind reducing class sizes and increasing all students' access to a quality education. In 1964, the union forwent raises in order to get contractual class-size caps. These caps were designed to give each and every student in the New York City public schools the foundation for success. It was an agreement between the city and the UFT with the well-being of students at its heart. Before these class-size caps were in place, classes could balloon to more than 40 children with one teacher.

But we need more. We need the City Council’s proposed legislation, especially in a time when the health and safety of our city’s children rely on the ability to socially distance in a classroom.

This legislation would raise the minimum per person classroom space to 35-square-feet per student from the current 20-square-feet for grades 1–12. Pre-K and kindergarten classes already have a 35-square-foot standard.

Under the new guidelines, the maximum number of students in a 500-square-foot classroom would be 14; in a 750-square-foot room, the total would be 21, bringing the city in line with the levels of safe staffing that the rest of New York State has already recognized.

The DOE would have three school years to implement these changes. The Independent Budget Office estimated that 58% of the city’s schools could implement the change immediately. In other schools, it would obviously take time and an investment in building or leasing additional space. Other tools can also be used.

 As Council Member Treyger stressed: the DOE can take on big jobs when it has to.

We need the City Council to pass this legislation. We have waited many years for a series of mayors and schools chancellors to make good on the promise of smaller class sizes. We cannot wait for an administration with a moral compass to do the right thing.

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Bill Woodruff has been teaching in the South Bronx for 18 years. In addition, he serves as the District 7 Representative for the United Federation of Teachers and is a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Rewriting the History of 2020 Crime


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NYPD Commissioner Shea & Mayor de Blasio (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


We’re seeing history rewritten before our eyes, the heartbreaking death toll of 2020 turned into another political talking point. This time, it’s not COVID-19 fatalities, but the grotesque murders and other violent crimes that impacted so many last year. But while those crimes are all too painfully real, the narrative around this once-in-a-lifetime crime spike is completely fake, and it’s an insult to the memory of those we lost.

Even before this alarmism took center stage at the New York City mayoral debate, we saw it on the front page. When the FBI released its 2020 crime statistics, a cavalcade of alarmist commentators took to the air, peddling police propaganda to explain the murder spike. It’s true that there is a real spike: unprecedented gun sales and record socio-economic instability from COVID-19 pushed murder rates in nearly every city and town up, way up.

But that’s where many commentators go off the rail. It wasn’t just conservative voices like The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board channeling fringe theories that blame the crime increase on Black Lives Matter protesters, but those baseless claims were even published in the The New York Times. In Vox, headlines ran claiming “Murders are spiking. Police should be part of the solution,” while the Washington Post opinion section rejoined, “What’s to blame for the murder spike? Certainly anti-police fervor didn’t help.” 

But if you’re hoping for concrete evidence, something proving that the once-in-a-generation revolt against police murders was perversely responsible for a crime spike, you’d be left wanting. There’s nothing, and even though every freshman stats student knows that “correlation doesn’t prove causation,” that simply because events happen at the same time, they aren’t necessarily connected, that’s what the entire argument comes down to.

But the pseudoscience gets even worse. A panoply of police pundits, editorial boards, and city officials have promoted police disinformation, including equally baseless attacks on basic civil rights protections like bail reform. It is not an exaggeration to label this truly disinformation, and it can be deadly. These baseless bail claims have led to a reactionary rejection of pre-trial release for thousands of Americans, forcing thousands to endure appalling and unsanitary conditions in the middle of a pandemic, effectively sentencing some to death for a minor infraction and the ultimate American comorbidity: poverty.

But while we may only recently have received the 2020 data from the FBI, we already have data from individual cities like New York. And here the takeaway is clear: the crime wave crested and receded. Murders were down in August nearly 10% from a year before, and shootings more than 30% lower. But the broader picture is even better.

According to the NYPD, “the number of overall index crimes reported in the city through the end of August is the lowest tally for the first eight months of any calendar year since the start of the modern CompStat era nearly three decades ago.” The Oakland and Chicago Police Departments have both reported a 7% decline in overall crime between 2020 and 2021. The Hartford Police Department reports a 14% decline in overall crime during the same time period. The numbers remain higher than in 2019, as does the lingering impact of the pandemic, but the downward trajectory is clear.

One cannot look at crime data without acknowledging that it is not objective, it is not foolproof, and it certainly isn’t apolitical. Officers and police leadership wield tremendous power to shape our official crime data, and the political narrative that flows from it. Some types of crime, such as homicide, are harder to manipulate, but others can be readily reclassified. With a few edits, a felony burglary is reclassified as misdemeanor trespassing. Simple assault can be classified as armed robbery. And so on.

Whatever the reality of pandemic era policing, we know that the truth may not always show up on paper. But all too often we take FBI data as gospel, as objective, the true federal measure of crime in America. It’s nothing of the sort. And NYPD data can be even more of a political cudgel, with facts selectively collected and reported to support the NYPD’s narrative of the day.

By amassing crime reports from thousands of police agencies across the country, with almost no quality control for what those jurisdictions report, the FBI is able to compile what statisticians would technically call a giant mess. Of course, that data can be valuable, along with records at the state and local levels, but it’s also profoundly flawed. More importantly, the police departments that often offer the initial interpretation of what those statistics mean are truly ill-equipped experts for the tasks. Not only do they have an irresolvable conflict of interest on how crime data is reported, but they frequently don’t have the sociological tools needed to meaningfully address the true drivers of crime. 

Since crime data is our main measure of whether the police are doing a “good job,” every officer, precinct commander, and commissioner has incentives to massage the metrics by which they are measured. It’s a tension so well known that it even became a major plot line of the seminal policing show The Wire, as police leaders faced pressure to “Juke The Stats” and change the crime rates reported in their neighborhoods.

Even worse, many departments have zero credibility on this public policy debate. We heard throughout the pandemic that civil rights protections like bail reform were responsible for rising crime, for example when New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea wrote a New York Times opinion piece entitled “New York’s New Bail Laws Harm Public Safety,” only to see the claim evaporate when arrest data was examined, and the public could see just how rarely serious crimes were committed by those awaiting trial. Shea recently had to acknowledge his lies at a state legislative hearing.

Last year’s murder rate disrupted years of work; the generational change needed to dismantle mass incarceration. But now that the worst of the crisis is behind us, we can’t let the history of this moment be rewritten. We can’t let the police narrative take center stage. And we can’t treat it as an open question just what drove the recent murder spike. To be as blunt as possible: It was the pandemic, stupid.

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Albert Fox Cahn is the founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a New York–based civil rights and privacy group, and a visiting fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project. Nina Loshkajian is a D.A.T.A. Law Fellow at S.T.O.P. and a graduate of New York University School of Law. On Twitter @FoxCahn and @ninaloshkajian.

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The Micromobility Revolution Can Work For Everyone; Here’s How


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E-Scooters (photo: NYC DOT)


There’s a revolution going on in the streets of American cities. And it’s driving lots of people crazy.

From coast to coast, in cities large and small, we’re seeing an explosion of new types of electric-powered vehicles. There are e-bikes, of course, including cargo bikes. But there are also electric scooters, electric mopeds, electric skateboards, even electric unicycles. All of these micromobility devices — so called because they are smaller than the humans riding them — represent an exciting new frontier in urban transportation. There are more new vehicles coming to the streets near you very soon, including a variety of electric cargo-delivery bikes and even small, low-speed autonomous vehicles that could be used as taxis or for deliveries. 

Clean, quiet, and lightweight, these innovations provide individual users and businesses with the flexibility and freedom of a personal vehicle without subjecting everybody else to the noise and fumes of internal combustion engines. They will be instrumental in meeting the carbon-reduction goals we will all need to embrace in coming years. They also put a lot less wear and tear on our streets and combine easily with public transit, gracefully solving the “last mile problem” that persists in communities around the country.

The only issue is that we don’t really have anywhere for them to go.

E-scooters, e-skateboards, and the like shouldn’t be on sidewalks, where they inconvenience and endanger pedestrians. They also shouldn’t be jockeying for position with trucks, buses, SUVs, and cars in conventional traffic lanes, where their operators are at risk of injury or even death. The obvious place for them to operate is bike lanes — except that the bike lanes we have are too narrow, too unprotected, and too fragmented to make a real transportation network. People who ride traditional bikes are understandably skeptical and nervous about sharing the scant resources they have with vehicles that have electric motors and can travel at higher speeds.

There’s an opportunity here, however, for cities and vehicle manufacturers to partner in creating new facilities that would accommodate a host of small, nimble vehicles, both innovative and traditional. Let’s call them New Mobility Lanes.

New Mobility Lanes would be expanded and enhanced versions of existing bike lanes, designed to accommodate multiple types of relatively slow (10 to 15 miles per hour), lightweight vehicles, including conventional bicycles. Such lanes would be 10 or 11 feet wide, ample to permit safe passing, and protected by physical barriers from incursions by prohibited vehicles. They should extend throughout the city in a robust network that takes users where they want and need to go. 

In order for these new lanes to be safe and pleasant for a wide range of users, the types of vehicles that can enter should be regulated. Cities could require limits on heights, weights, and widths; safety features to reduce the risk of collisions with cyclists and pedestrians; and automated data feeds that would monitor and fine illegal maneuvers. Most importantly, so that e-vehicles mix well with conventional bikes, local authorities could mandate speed regulators to ensure that vehicles with electric motors never go faster than, say, 10 to 15 miles per hour. (That limit might frustrate individual users, but any faster would be unsafe in this context, and the resulting order would pay off for everyone in the end.) Geofencing could prevent e-vehicles from driving on the sidewalk. Cities could also determine how much noise such vehicles could make, and require them to be zero-emission. 

By expanding the capacity of what have been simply “bike lanes” up until now and building out  comprehensive networks of New Mobility Lanes, cities could enlist new constituencies in advocating for their implementation. Drivers understand that trucks are a significant aspect of congestion, so the prospect of moving cargo into small vehicles in a separate lane may appeal to them. Although e-scooters are too new to offer really good data, there is evidence from other cities that they replace car and taxi trips more than they replace cycling trips, suggesting they may draw in yet more users for the new lanes. And the prospect of enclosed, powered, slow-speed vehicles in those lanes could expand their appeal to include many who would never consider themselves cyclists.

In fact, the biggest value of New Mobility Lanes might actually be that they would create a template for the new class of autonomous vehicles that is already coming into being. If AVs are designed to operate on regular streets, cities will have little control over them. But building a widespread network of low-speed lanes with strict specifications on what kind of vehicles can use them would incentivize AV manufacturers to conform to those standards. The result would be mobility innovations that are designed for steady, slow movement rather than speeding and stopping — human-friendly vehicles built to move with the city, not against it.

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Rohit T. Aggarwala is senior urban tech fellow at Cornell Tech’s Urban Tech Hub. On Twitter @Rit_Aggarwala.

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My Struggle with Breast Cancer Made Me a Better Candidate


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Lynn Schulman, right, the author (photo: Schulman 2021)


Last October, I got scary news. It was during an annual screening (and ironically, during Breast Cancer Awareness Month). At first, I was told there was a suspicious spot and it was probably nothing.

But subsequent tests and procedures revealed that the spot was actually a small, malignant tumor.

I was stunned.

But still, I wasn’t about to let a diagnosis derail my dream of serving my community as an elected official. As any woman will tell you, our success often means keeping our health concerns private — to suffer in silence — so that men do not think we aren’t up for whatever job we pursue. 

Breast cancer merged my professional work with my personal life. For decades, I fought to bring health care equity and access to all New Yorkers. That’s been true from my time as an AIDS activist to my recent position on the City Council staff where I have focused on health policy.

And now, as a City Council candidate, health care has been the central focus of my campaign. 

I had successful surgery and subsequent radiation treatment, and kept working and campaigning. I am now happy to share that I’m cancer free and just passed my six-month check-up with flying colors.

All things considered, I was lucky because I had health insurance. I was able to get an annual screening and access to treatment from great health-care professionals at every level.

During the COVID-19 era, many women were not as fortunate, pushed to the side as the pandemic overtook our public health resources.

Mammograms were down around 84-90% at the height of the pandemic. Then, when women eventually were able to get their screenings as services were restored, several found out the bill was exorbitant instead of free as it is supposed to be under the Affordable Care Act. 

Additionally, during my many medical visits, other breast cancer patients shared that their surgeries were considered elective — meaning they were delayed because of covid protocols.  As a result, these poor women were given medications to keep their tumors at bay until their surgeries became more accessible.

Like many women with my type of breast cancer diagnosis, I have to take an aromatase inhibitor, a pill the size of a pin, every day for the next five years, to prevent the cancer from returning. The medication has several side effects, some short-term and some long-term.  

For me, they are tolerable. But for a lot of women, the side effects are severe, and many of them choose to risk the possibility of getting cancer rather than alter their quality of life. Not having more treatment options is another deficiency of our health-care system, where money is invested in research that is lucrative, not necessarily life-affirming.

We can’t be caught again in a position where women’s health takes a back seat. That means transforming the citywide health system that makes my experience the one that every woman should expect and have the right to. We need a health-care system that provides equal treatment, especially for women, regardless of who they are or where they live.

Fortunately, the next New York City Council is well-positioned to tackle these issues. In January, the first majority-female Council in history will be sworn in. 

It will be incumbent on all of the women Council members to lead and to leverage the unique opportunity we will have as a majority to advance the trajectory of women’s health care — and for our male colleagues to join us. Our health is part and parcel with our city’s ability to thrive. 

COVID-19 revealed the serious racial and economic inequities in our city’s health-care system and how isolating the system can be, especially during a pandemic. Our goal must be to make sure each of our city’s neighborhoods have the appropriate health-care and mental health facilities. 

So while battling breast cancer wasn’t part of my plan, it was another stark reminder of the constant struggles many women face and what city government should be doing to make our lives better. Life here is already difficult, access to quality health care shouldn’t be an added burden.

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Lynn Schulman is the Democratic nominee for the New York City Council in Queens’ District 29. On Twitter @Schulman2021.

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How New York City Ended Mass Incarceration for 30 Days and Could Do It Again


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Mayor de Blasio on Rikers Island (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Just over a year ago, the city of New York did something special, a monumental achievement not seen since the end of World War II. In May of 2020, for the first time since 1946, the average daily population (ADP) of city jails dropped below 4,000.

A combination that included the plan toward a reduced-capacity borough-based jail system, significant bail reform taking accused people’s ability to pay into account, and transitional housing facilities like the ones we at Exodus set up in empty hotels across the boroughs to process people as they were released from city jails, came together to achieve what Mayor Bill de Blasio had just two years earlier said was “noble” but untenable.

This was great news for New Yorkers. Unfortunately, just a month later the population at Rikers Island began creeping up again and now, a year later, swelled to 5,574 people as of October 5.

This is not, like some media and organizations say, due to rising crime - it’s a directly traceable result of a shift away from the policies that made closing Rikers a possibility, back to the policies that in one year have brought Rikers Island to the humanitarian crisis it currently is. After backlash to bail reform by conservative politicians and media, some of the reform measures were rolled back in June 2020 and judges and district attorneys began again detaining people pre-trial indefinitely on Rikers Island. As people and organizations from some communities expressed displeasure at the idea of a correctional facility possibly being built near their neighborhood, the borough-based plan for closing Rikers Island experienced its own backlash. And transitional communities like ours at Exodus continued working with the people who’ve been released while struggling to get the city to commit to issuing vouchers to make it possible for our people to secure permanent housing.

This is all to say, we need to stop, rest, and reassess. New York City was able to significantly reduce the jail population through making serious investments in expanding supervised release, housing, and other alternatives to incarceration that protected vulnerable New Yorkers at the peak of the COVID-19 crisis. With the current crisis in city jails claiming the lives of 14 of our neighbors this year alone, we must renew and increase our investments in these critical programs and the providers who care for our communities. 

Two absolute necessities to reclaim our communities are: to have a robust investment in alternatives to detention (ATD’s) and to shift the Department of Correction’s investment toward more programs inside the city correctional facilities, which are sorely needed after 18 months of not being allowed on Rikers Island because of the pandemic.

ATDs provide a higher level of services to people to stabilize their lives and ensure they show up to their court date while diverting them from pretrial detention. Examples of this include Fountain House, which provides services, employment, and educational programs to people living with Serious Mental Illness (SMI). Fountain House reports to have a less than 5% recidivism rate for participants with a history of incarceration and justice involvement.

Over 80% of the women on Rikers Island have a Brad H. designation, meaning they have mental health diagnoses requiring the city to provide special discharge planning services to them. There are still so many women on Rikers Island that we have the resources to provide for outside of jails (or the state prisons where they may be moved temporarily).

Judges must actively start moving to release these people and allow our communities to support this. Exodus recently opened its seventh hotel, located in Downtown Brooklyn, to provide housing for justice-involved New Yorkers, supporting both city and state reentry efforts. The primary goal of community-based hotel housing like ours is to prepare people to transition into permanent housing, challenge discriminatory housing policies, and support impacted communities. We are doing our part in this community task.

Current city Correction Commissioner Vincent Schiraldi has, since assuming the role this summer, made a priority of bringing back educational, vocational, and therapeutic programming to Rikers, fast-tracking the process of obtaining and renewing IDs and working with organizations and coalitions that had a presence there before the pandemic. In the past two months, Exodus staff have been able to navigate services on Rikers Island to ensure people we work with who are being presented for court have access to care packages including essential items they have been denied for much of the past year, such as toilet paper, masks, and hand sanitizer.

We found the way, for those 30 days in April 2020, toward closing Rikers and a post-Rikers way of doing justice and healing communities. Since then we’ve lost our way, and our neighbors are dying in a penal colony that most of us agree should be part of our dark history, not our present. Here are some urgent actions the city must take if we are to find our way back:

Continue to support the Commission on Community Reinvestment established by Local Law 193, and adhere to their recommendations, including baselining in the city budget funding to convene and support the commission through 2027. The Commission on Community Reinvestment was established as a part of the Close Rikers plan but experienced delays because of COVID-19. As of August 2021, the commission had hosted its first town hall and established four subcommittees, led by directly impacted advocates & service providers.

Reduce the DOC workforce to free up to $1 billion per year for community investment to prevent incarceration. This would also allow the Mayor’s Office to shift the administration of services and programming for people in custody away from DOC’s authority to community service providers.

Take steps to proactively meet mental health needs, including stable housing, to prevent people from interacting with the criminal justice system. And support them with permanent housing solutions.

People incarcerated on Rikers Island are our mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, cousins, and neighbors. They are our community. And, as a society, we can and must do much better for our loved ones. We can decarcerate to under 4,000 people again and go even further.

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Kandra Clark is Vice President of Policy and Strategy at Exodus Transitional Community. She oversees Exodus’s policy and advocacy efforts, including supporting the closure of Rikers Island and the transformation of our justice system. On Twitter @KandraClark17 & @etcnyorg.

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Covid Vaccination and the New York City Recovery


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New York's recovery is happening (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


New York City was the epicenter of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic as it began in the United States. It recorded its first death from the disease on March 1, 2020. The city’s economy also suffered a massive setback during the lockdown in the early months of the pandemic.

A full job recovery is still several years away and the major problems that predated covid and persisted through it — poverty, homelessness, affordable housing, unemployment and under-employment — are still with us in the city and across the nation. Nonetheless, the drive to vaccinate the residents of the city is showing substantial success. If this achievement continues, the city’s ability to control the harm from this deadly disease will give the local economy a real chance to recover and, along with it, a chance for the city to get on top of its many problems, especially compared to many other jurisdictions in this country.

NYC Vaccination Program Outpaces the Nation
The facts are that the residents of New York City are making major progress on getting vaccinated against COVID-19; better progress, in fact, than the rest of the nation. The city’s Department of Health covid vaccine tracker reports that 84.7% of the city’s adults have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine and 77.3% are fully vaccinated as of October 18. By contrast, the CDC is reporting as of that same date, 78.9% of U.S. adults had gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, and 68.4% were fully vaccinated. New York City is doing especially well vaccinating adolescents. Mayor de Blasio stated on October 1 that nearly 75% of 12- to 17-year-olds had gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, substantially better than the national rate of 58% as of October 12 (my calculation using the CDC website data). The city’s decision to use schools as vaccine sites undoubtedly contributed to this success.

Interpreting New York City’s vaccination results is complicated because of under-reporting of vaccination rates by ethnicity, as well as the fact that the city is using older Census data. I have included a note on New York City vaccination data at the end of this article to discuss this concern.

The City’s Economic Recovery from Covid is Weaker Than the Nation’s
New York City needs as much public health and safety as the vaccines can give its residents because the city’s economic recovery is very weak compared to the nation as a whole. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows the contrast — see employment recovery from the depths of the pandemic in April 2020 for New York City and the nation:

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The data above show the city lost 927,000 jobs, 20% of its payroll employment, between February and April 2020. By August 2021, it had recovered 454,000 jobs, nearly half of those lost. The nation lost more than 21 million jobs in those first two months of the pandemic’s hold, over 15%, but recovered 17 million jobs, nearly 77%, by August 2021. Jobs dependent on social gathering, like in schools, and the economy’s weak links, like tourism, leisure and hospitality, the arts, recreation, and entertainment, need public health and safety. Policies at all governmental levels and in the private sector, to promote vaccinations will ultimately drive the economic recovery in New York City and elsewhere.

Tourism, Leisure, and Hospitality
A report on the impact of COVID-19 on New York City tourism by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli indicated this sector lost about 90,000 jobs in 2020. The sector has picked up in 2021 and President Biden’s authorization for vaccinated foreigners to resume travel to the United States begins November 8. Leisure and hospitality employment as a whole dropped over 300,000 — two-thirds of the total — from February to April 2020 and has still only recovered about half those jobs. International travel should stimulate the city’s economy and has significant secondary economic impacts on sectors like retail because international visitors spend plenty of money.

Vaccine Mandates
Vaccination mandates are foundational for the city’s economy. In July 2021 the city initiated a mandate for all its 300,000+ employees that they get vaccinated or get tested weekly, and then followed up with a full mandate for its school system employees to get vaccinated. Courts have so far upheld the city’s school employee vaccine mandate and the de Blasio administration reported that as of October 4, 95% of school system employees have received at least one dose of the vaccine.

The mandates are intended to stabilize and sustain in-school learning and assure parents of their children’s safety. As parents return to the labor market over time, employment in the city as a whole should gain.

On October 20, the city broadened the vaccine mandate to all its employees, beyond schools and its own health care workers, effective November 1. About 160,000 employees are newly covered; the de Blasio administration stated that about 70% of those newly covered have already received at least one vaccine dose. The unvaccinated employees can get $500 if they receive a vaccine at a city-run site by October 29. About 70% of the Police Department and 60% of the Fire and Sanitation Departments have at least one dose already. Based on the experience of the school system, it’s likely that an overwhelming portion of the remaining employees will comply.

The city has mandated proof of vaccination for many indoor locations, including restaurants, theaters, museums, concerts, gyms, and others. Mayor de Blasio said that vaccinations had risen 45% since the various mandates began being issued in July, through the end of September. The vaccine mandates are coinciding with the re-opening of Broadway and the cultural sector.

New York State has also mandated vaccinations for health care employees and is extending the mandate to many care facilities. Federal courts have restrained the State (for the time being) from enforcing the mandate in health care for persons receiving religious exemptions. As of September 27, about 92% of health care employees across the state were vaccinated. The state’s court system has also mandated vaccinations.

The Office Sector and Remote Work
There were 1.6 million office workers in New York City in 2019, according to a report on the impact of COVID-19 for this sector of the economy issued by the State Comptroller in September. This sector only lost 6% of its employment in 2020. The financial industry held most of its employment and contributed extensively to the tax base during the pandemic because most high-paying jobs continued. Remote working enabled much of the office-based workforce to continue their activity. In fact, by September 2021 only about 30% of office work had returned in person on a regular basis. A survey of major employers in this analysis reported on both remote work and vaccination policies:

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The survey shows that remote work or hybrid remote and in-person work will continue for many major employers. Although many employers are not imposing vaccine mandates, the federal government’s mandate, not yet in effect, will ultimately affect many tens of thousands of office workers. The widespread vaccination rates in the city and its suburbs indicate many office workers will already be vaccinated upon their return and that many office spaces will have very high portions of their workers vaccinated and enjoy safe returns. 

A Resilient City
The city is fortunate that such a major portion of the resident population has enough common sense to embrace getting vaccinated, despite the protests of a tiny minority. This common sense, in combination with the immense effort to distribute and administer the vaccines, may yield an extraordinary percentage of the population fully vaccinated sometime in 2022. The city’s residents and leaders may demonstrate yet again the resiliency that will enable it to match the recoveries from the Fiscal Crisis, 9/11, and the Great Recession.

An Important Note on NYC Vaccination Data
The city Department of Health (DOH) is continuously reporting covid vaccination data on its website, and there is certainly major progress in getting a very large majority of the city’s population vaccinated. As can be seen from the table below, taken from the website updated as of the morning of October 12, 84.1% of the adult population has received at least one dose of the vaccine, and 76.5% is fully vaccinated:

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One concern I have is that the percentage of the population vaccinated may be overestimated, but not by a large amount. DOH reports it is using a U.S. Census 2019 population estimate for the city, which is 8.336 million. The U.S. Census population data for 2020 released in August 2021 showed 8.804 million, almost 500,000 more persons than the number being used by DOH.

DOH also reports that move-out and move-in data from the Post Office are not being used. These data indicate that the pandemic affected out-migration from the city in 2020, although some of that may have been temporary. Applying a ratio that adds the nearly 500,000 persons from the 2020 Census to the rates brings first doses and fully vaccinated down about four percentage points each, for one dose to 80% of adults and fully-vaccinated to 72.5%; still better than national rates, which as of October 12 were 78.4% for adults with one dose and 67.9% fully-vaccinated.

Vaccination Rates by Race
DOH also provides demographic and borough breakdowns for vaccinations. However, it is acknowledged in notes on data that vaccinations by race may have omissions from non-reporting. Race/Ethnicity is self-reported, but a person may simply not state their race at the time of vaccination, and/or the health care provider submitting the information to the city may not report the person’s race. 

An October 12 DOH table for vaccination rates by race/ethnicity and by gender shows the following:

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The race/ethnicity vaccination rate data are not consistent with a population that is 84% vaccinated with one dose. The 2019 Census data used by DOH show New York City is 32% white, 24% Black, 28% Hispanic, 14% Asian, and 2% other. Applying the vaccination rates to these proportions brings the adult one dose vaccination rate to 67%, way below the city’s reported 84% number.

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I estimate one dose vaccination rates are more like 80% for whites and Hispanics, close to 70% for Blacks, and 90%+ for Asians.

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Jim Brennan was a member of the New York State Assembly for 32 years, where he chaired four committees. On Twitter @JimBrennanNY.

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Now or Never: The High Stakes of Federal Housing Funding


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Housing repairs (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


When President Biden and Congress first announced the details of the Build Back Better Act, they sent a loud and clear signal to housing advocates and stakeholders that help was finally on the way. The $330 billion investment into the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and $30 billion into the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program both represented the most significant plan in generations to address a worsening housing crisis.

Now, however, Washington is sending a different signal: housing is not important enough. In the latest round of negotiations, Congress is considering cutting the housing programs by more than two thirds, lowering the investment to just $100 billion. That will mean significantly less funding for rental assistance, public housing, and tools that will boost production of housing across the country – and, in that scenario, we all lose.

Let’s be clear: housing is not some arcane policy issue. It materially impacts the lives of every single American, and the reality is that far too many people simply do not have access to the safe, affordable home they deserve. If Congress doesn’t step up and protect the vital housing measures originally proposed, voters will notice.

After all, addressing a worsening housing crisis is the very foundation on which the rest of the social spending bill rests.

Children can’t perform their best at school when they must return to homeless shelters or to other crowded, unsafe living conditions. Families paying more than they can afford on rent are forced to forgo basic necessities every day. Individuals struggling with homelessness continue to interact with the criminal justice system at higher rates when they really need stable housing. Long lasting racial inequities in homeownership continue unabated because there is not enough opportunity. And aging housing stock continues to exacerbate climate crises because it is outdated, inefficient, and not prepared for the 21st century.

These are just some of the many downstream impacts of housing insecurity. And the Build Back Better Act is a rare opportunity to actually make a real difference.

The original proposal called for a historic investment in affordable housing, including $90 billion for rental assistance, $80 billion for public housing, $37 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund (HTF) to produce new low-income units, and $35 billion for HOME Investment Partnership to expand homeownership opportunities, and fixes to the LIHTC program to unlock millions in new private resources and double the production of affordable housing and significantly funded other vital HUD programs.

For New York, the results would be completely transformational. The expanded rental assistance program would increase the number of assisted households by 30%, serving 151,000 additional New Yorkers – 52,000 of whom would be children. Public housing funding could address mounting capital needs at NYCHA, eliminating the repair backlog by 100%, meaning we could finally address an embarrassing emergency in our public housing stock. And tweaks to LIHTC would produce 82,000 new units of affordable housing, ultimately creating 124,000 new jobs, $14 billion in business income, and $5 billion in new tax revenue.

This would help the City and State actually take significant steps towards ending homelessness, increase affordable rental and homeownership supply and address NYCHA’s capital needs. But deep cuts to this planned funding would simply maintain the unacceptable status quo: more than 90,000 people experiencing homelessness on a given night last year across the state, a deficit of almost 650,000 affordable and available rental units, and the majority of low-income households paying more than half their income in rent. City Hall and Albany will continue to make progress for housing on the margins without real help from Washington.

Changing American society for the better starts with addressing the real housing emergency facing far too many people. We got into this mess originally because Washington de-prioritized housing – and we cannot afford to do so again. If we do, it may be decades before we get another chance.

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Rachel Fee is the Executive Director of the New York Housing Conference. On Twitter @RachelFee4NY & @TheNYHC.

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25 Years of Growth and Impact at the NYC Department of Youth and Community Development


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DYCD (photo: @NYCYouth)


As New York City recovers from a historic year fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Youth and Community Development is marking a very special anniversary: 25 years as a City agency.

Our agency, DYCD, has seen its fair share of challenges over the last quarter-century but has always risen to the occasion. As the largest municipal funder of capacity-building geared toward a healthy network of nonprofits, our funded providers were critical in the city’s ability to weather and rebound from 9/11, Superstorm Sandy, and COVID-19.

We have centered the agency around a set of community outcomes and common strategies, and have realigned resources to support priorities in areas such as communications, data, partnerships, and professional development. As a result, we have made great strides in transforming DYCD from our respective “silos” to a unified mission—internally, we call it “Solos to Symphony.” That ultimately benefits the agency and the New Yorkers who depend on our funded programs.

DYCD has grown and changed over multiple administrations—from our creation in 1996 under Mayor Giuliani to a renewed focus on afterschool, literacy, and Cornerstone Community Centers at NYCHA complexes during the Bloomberg Administration.

Under Mayor de Blasio, COMPASS/SONYC afterschool was born, making afterschool available to every middle-schooler in the city. Earlier this year, the last of 813 beds for runaway and homeless youth aged 16-24 went online—more than triple the number in 2014. And the agency’s initial $77 million budget has reached a billion dollars for the first time ever this fiscal year, a nearly 1200% increase—most of it under this administration.

Since becoming DYCD commissioner in 2014, I have also focused on the adoption of “settlement house” principles within the agency so that we can better meet the needs of our network of community-based organizations and the New Yorkers they serve.

Settlement houses—44 of them under the umbrella organization United Neighborhood Houses—are deeply embedded in the communities they serve and uniquely positioned to provide the programs and services neighborhoods need the most. By taking lessons from the nonprofit sector’s ability to seamlessly develop holistic strategies from disparate programs and revenue streams, DYCD is more intentional than ever in streamlining processes and “connecting the dots,” making it easier for people who are seeking services to become aware of additional resources that may help them. This has been supported by the development of universal indicators and program applications, strategic planning, greater transparency and efficiency, and more effectively integrated programs.

Looking back at my tenure, I celebrate so many of our shared accomplishments, especially baselined funding for Beacon (the creation of Mayor Dinkins and then-Youth Services Commissioner Richard Murphy in 1991) and the Summer Youth Employment Program. Over the last 20 years, SYEP has become more user-friendly with debit cards, online applications, and direct deposit, and the program now “meets young people where they are” through more concentration on career goals and life skills.

I also am proud of technological innovations such as discoverDYCD, DYCD Connect, and integrated data systems, more focused mission and vision statements, and a redesign and expansion of the Community Needs Assessment to better inform how funding is distributed. 

It is bittersweet that I mark our agency’s silver anniversary in my final weeks as DYCD’s fifth commissioner. It has been my privilege of shepherding the agency through a period of unprecedented budget and programming growth. As we prepare to hand the reins over to a new administration, I am confident that DYCD has a solid foundation to move the agency into the next 25 years and beyond.

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Bill Chong, Commissioner, NYC Department of Youth and Community Development. On Twitter @NYCYouth.

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Leveraging Titans of Industry to Jump-Start NYC’s Engine of Social Mobility


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The mayor at Google (photo: Mayoral Photography Office)


In September, Google announced that it will expand its physical presence on the West side of Manhattan by purchasing St. John’s Terminal. The price tag? $2.1 billion. The new office space will open in 2023, and when it does Google will be one of the largest leaseholders in the city.

In 2023, approximately 46,000 undergraduate students will graduate from the City University of New York (CUNY) system, assuming current enrollment and graduation trends hold. Over 60% will come from families with annual incomes of less than $30,000. 

The CUNY system has been touted as an engine of economic mobility in New York City, but it’s critically neglected. New York needs to inject capital investment from large corporations, like Google, into the CUNY system if it is serious about economic growth and sustainability. To do this, the city should raise property taxes on the 50-plus New York City-based Fortune 500 companies and appropriate the money to the CUNY system. This investment should eventually eliminate the burden of tuition for all students.

Tuition dollars account for 40% of CUNY’s funding, the second-largest source behind state dollars. This means the burden of supplying gasoline for the “engine of economic mobility” falls significantly on students and their families. CUNY is a proven driver of social mobility, but this practice— underfunding one of the city’s best educational resources— is dampening the system’s potential impact. This can change, however. We only need to look toward St. John’s Terminal.

By raising property taxes on NYC Fortune 500 companies and investing that money in the CUNY system, the city will see a stronger path-to-college pipeline from underserved public high schools and increased economic development in low-income neighborhoods. The buck can’t stop there, however. These Fortune 500 companies must also invest in internship and mentorship programs with individual CUNY schools, which would benefit all involved as public-private partnerships.

Over 80% of CUNY graduates stay in New York City post-graduation, meaning money invested in CUNY is money invested in the future of New York City’s workforce. With the financial and institutional support of locally-based Fortune 500 companies, low-income communities will reap the benefits of generational economic development as more young people are able to attend college and attain higher-paying jobs as a result. Furthermore, creating these public-private partnerships would give corporations that call New York City home improved access to a diverse network of talented future professionals who can take their companies to the next level. 

Until the financial crisis of 1976, CUNY was free for city residents. Now, undergraduate tuition is $6,930 a year for full-time students at four-year colleges and $4,800 annually for full-time community college students. It’s not hard to see how, for a family with a household income of less than $30,000 a year, this is crippling. Eliminating CUNY tuition by taxing large corporations will both lessen the burden for struggling students and open the door of opportunity to students who might not have otherwise been able to afford college at all.

Students and their families aren’t the only ones who stand to gain from these partnerships. Requiring social investment in addition to compulsory financial investment in CUNY institutions will allow NYC-based companies to attract, develop, and tap diverse talent in its incipient stages. Not only that, but they can make good on their promises to recruit and hire more diverse talent in the coming decades. CUNY students are over 65% Black or Hispanic. Partnering CUNY institutions with industries that are predominately white will be one step on the path to desegregating some of the largest corporations in the country.

To be sure, some corporations are already investing in mentorship and internship programs in CUNY schools. In August of 2021, for example, the CUNY “Futures in Finance” program launched in collaboration with Bloomberg LP, Centerbridge and Goldman Sachs. This program aimed to “cultivate a vast pool of untapped talent and enable companies across the finance industry to engage students from first semester through graduation.” While this is surely the right idea, it is currently only available for students at three CUNY campuses and does not address students’ costs of tuition. Pairing an initiative like “Futures in Finance” with a capital injection and implementing it at scale would create the broadest and boldest pathway to development for New York City’s future workforce. 

Critics might argue that raising corporate taxes will deter organizations from coming to the city. Raising taxes on corporations, however, is one of the highest polling issues across party lines, supported nationally by nearly two-thirds of Americans. When Amazon announced in 2018 that it would build a new headquarters in Long Island City, Queens,  a broad coalition of opponents protested the fact that the corporation would receive over $3 billion in tax incentives and grants. The backlash ultimately led Amazon to pull out of the deal in February 2019. Now, as the city continues to recuperate from pandemic-related shocks, it’s more important than ever not only to avoid these kinds of missteps, but to ensure private businesses and public enterprises like CUNY experience equitable recoveries.

If private companies like Google can afford billions of dollars in office space, they can surely spare the change for deeper investment in their own backyard. By implementing a capital and social investment system at scale, more students will be able to attend college and businesses will have access to more fresh, diverse talent. Creating public-private partnerships and raising taxes on corporations will move the city closer to making the CUNY system the world-class engine of social mobility New York students deserve.

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Devynn Barnes is a graduate student at the New York University Wagner School of Public Service studying International Development Policy and Management. She has worked in both elementary and high schools in the Bronx.

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