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Human Services Workers are Essential Workers: It’s Time for the City to Treat Us That Way


workers food hungry

Workers at Project Hospitality move meals (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


Like health care workers, first responders, grocery workers, delivery workers, and more, human services workers are essential workers during COVID-19 and beyond. We are always essential.

We serve the most vulnerable where they are and according to what they need. We help seniors get meals and medications delivered and staff residential facilities, homeless shelters, and food banks.

We provide home care to at-risk communities, keeping them from overwhelming hospitals. We help people navigate the unemployment system, sign up for public benefits, and fight back against predatory landlords. We provide services to address the rise in domestic violence and child abuse, and assist those impacted by the justice system.

We help families navigate remote learning and staff Regional Enrichment Centers for the children of frontline workers and homeless children. We are mainly women, people of color, and immigrants serving our neighbors in communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, and for whom recovery will be a long and arduous road.

More than anywhere else in the nation, New York State and City contract out their human services work to us because they recognize that government cannot provide services to the vast diversity of New York’s population on its own. The work continues even as conditions have deteriorated.

We have not received hazard pay although we are required to keep our programs open, are underpaid and have gone years without cost of living adjustments. We lack adequate Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). Many of our staff have gotten COVID-19, some have died.

We are working without adequate support from government. The City has threatened to reduce funding to many of our programs, which are more critical now than ever. This has already triggered layoffs, contributed to widespread job insecurity, and hurt the communities already marginalized and isolated before the pandemic began.

Throughout the crisis, the City has not successfully communicated its emergency response strategies to the human services sector nor has it sought to bring the sector to the table as real partners and active problem-solvers to jointly determine its plans, thereby compromising and in some cases, delaying the provision of needed resources to hard-hit neighborhoods. The City is also proposing policies that while well-intentioned, will be unfunded mandates for human services organizations.

We demand that the City of New York ensure now and through recovery:

-All human services workers receive pay reflective of our commitment and essential services to New York City. This includes hazard pay (incentive pay) and annual cost of living adjustments that have to be funded by the City.

-Human services organizations be recognized as essential to the city’s rehabilitation and receive assurance that all of our City contracts and City Council discretionary funding will renew in Fiscal Year 2021 (which begins this July 1) so that we can continue our work.

-Human services organizations receive maximum contractual flexibility in FY21 to meet the evolving and emerging needs of the communities we serve.

-A FY21 City budget that prioritizes human services that support the neighborhoods and populations most significantly impacted by COVID-19.

We are risking our own health and our families’ health to serve others through COVID-19. When New York begins to recover, we will be the ones helping the hardest hit New Yorkers put their lives back together. Without adequate support from the City, human services workers will not be able to carry out this work, and tragedies resulting from COVID-19 will continue to worsen.

Signed,
Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC)
Greenwich House
Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation (NMIC)
Stanley Isaacs Neighborhood Center
Womankind

Additional Signatories
82nd Street Academics
Abbott House
Academy of Medical & Public Health Services
ACMH, Inc.
Ali Forney Center
Apex for Youth
Apicha Community Health Center
Arab-American Family Support Center
Asian American Federation
Asian Americans for Equality
Bangladeshi American Community Development and Youth Services
Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation
Bergen Beach Youth Organization
Big Brothers Big Sisters of NYC
Birch Family Services
Boys' Club of New York
BRC
Broadway Housing Communities
Bronx House
BronxWorks
Brooklyn Community Services
CASES
Casita Maria
Catholic Charities
Center for Court Innovation
Center for Employment Opportunites
Center for Family Life
Center for the Integration and Advancement of New Americans, Inc. (CIANA)
Child Care Center Of New York City
Child Center of New York
Chinatown Manpower Project
Chinese Methodist Center Corporation
Chinese Progressive Association
Citymeals on Wheels
Coalition for Asian American Children and Families (CACF)
Coalition for Hispanic Family Serviced
Coalition for Homeless Youth
Commonpoint Queens
Community Consultation Center/Henry Street Settlement
Community League of the Heights Inc
Community Options
Comunilife, Inc.
Concern for Independent Living, Inc.
Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation
Day One
Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM)
Dominican Women's Development Center
Educational Alliance
Elmcor Youth & Adult Activities
Emerald Isle Immigration Center
Encore Community Services
Fern Zagor Consulting LLC
Fifth Avenue Committee
Florence E. Smith Senior Services
Fox House
Girl Vow
Girls for Gender Equity
Goddard Riverside
Goodwill Industries of Greater NY and Northern NJ, Inc.
Graham Windham
Grand St. Settlement
Green City Force
Hamilton-Madison House
HANAC Inc.
Harlem Dowling-West Side Center
Hartley House, INC
Head Start Sponsoring Board of NYC
Heights and Hills
Henry Street Settlement
Her Justice
Homecrest Community Services Inc.
Hot Bread Kitchen
Housing and Services, Inc.
Hudson Guild
I Have A Dream - NY Foundation
ICL
India Home, Inc.
Indochina Sino-American Community Center
Jacob A Riis Neighborhood Settlement
Japanese American Social Services, Inc
JASA
JCC Staten Island
JCCA
JCHHOMES
Jewel Human Services Inc.
Jewish Community Center of Staten Island
Kingsbridge Heights Community Center, Inc.
Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York, Inc.
La Colmena
Laal NYC
Lantern Community Services
Lenox Hill Neighborhood House
Life Dome adult Services
Literacy Assistance Center
Little Flower Children and Family Services of NY
Lower East Side Family Union
Lutheran Social Service of NY
Manhattan Youth
Maranatha Human Services. Org
Mekong NYC
Mercy Home for Children, Inc.
MercyFirst
Millennium Development
MinKwon Center for Community Action
Mixteca Organization, Inc.
MMCC
Morningside Retirement and Health Services
Mosholu Montefiore Community Center
Muslim Community Network
NAACP New York State Conference
National Association of Social Workers-NYC Chapter
Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter
New Settlement Apartments
New York Center for Interpersonal Development, Inc.
New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault
New York City Anti-Violence Project
New York Memory Center
Nonprofit Finance Fund
Nonprofit New York
Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW)
NYC Employment and Training Coalition
NYU Nursing
Ocean Bay Community Development Corporation
Odyssey House, Inc.
Opportunities for a Better Tomorrow
Option Center/ Goddard Riverside Community Center
Osborne Association
Outreach Development Corporation
PA'LANTE Harlem
Partnership for After School Education
Partnership with Children
People's Theatre Project
Per Scholas
Phipps Neighborhoods
Polonians Organized to Minister to Our Community, Inc.
Presbyterian Senior Services (PSS)
Project Hospitality
Providence House, Inc
Queens Community House
R.A.I.N. Inc.
Recreation Rooms and Settlement
Red Hook Initiative
Restore NYC
RiseBoro Community Partnership
RSS Riverdale Senior Services
RYAN Health
Safe Horizon
SAGE
SAIL, Inc.
Sakhi for South Asian Women
Sampreshan Inc
Sapna NYC, Inc.
SCAN-Harbor, Inc.
SCO Family of Services
Selfhelp Community Services, Inc.
Services Now for Adult Persons, Inc. (SNAP)
Sheltering Arms
Sisters of Charity Housing Development Corporation
SNAP-Ed
Social Builder USA
South Asian Council for Social Services
South Asian Youth Action
Southeast Bronx Neighborhood Centers, Inc.
Spanish Speaking Elderly Council-Raices, Inc.
St Nicks Alliance
St. Francis Friends of the Poor
St. John's Residence for Boys
StreetWise Partners
Sunnyside Community Services
Supportive Housing Network of New York
The Advocacy Institute
The Brotherhood Sister Sol
The Center for Anti-Violence Education
The Child Center of NY
The Children's Village
The Committee for Hispanic Children and Families
The Door
The Fortune Society, Inc.
The HOPE Program
The Jewish Board of Family & Children's Services
The Korean American Family Service Center
The League Education and Treatment Center
The New York Foundling
The NYC LGBT Center
The Young Women's Christians Association of Queens
Tolentine Zeiser Community Life Center
Union Settlement
Unique People Services
United Chinese Association of Brooklyn
University Consultation & Treatment Center for Mental Hygiene Inc
University Settlement Society Of New York
UnLocal, Inc.
Urban Pathways
Veterans & Community Housing Coalition
Violence Intervention Program
Volunteers of America-Greater New York, Inc.
Washington Heights Community Services, Inc.
West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing (WSFSSH)
Women For Afghan Women
Women In Need (WIN)
Workforce Professionals Training Institute
YM & YWHA of Washington Heights and Inwood
Youth Action Programs and Homes, Inc.

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Keep Subways Closed Overnight to Expedite System Modernization


gov tours cars

Governor Cuomo discusses subways during coronavirus (photo: governor's office)


The MTA’s recent institution of overnight closure of the subways has attracted a tremendous amount of attention and criticism from advocates for homeless people and many transit advocates. MTA Chair Pat Foye has sought to reassure critics by emphasizing that it is a temporary measure that will end when the pandemic emergency is over. The closure seems to be an attempt to assure transit workers that the MTA is taking their safety seriously and the public that the trains are safe and will not become de facto homeless shelters. But it can be turned into a long-long term initiative with important benefits.

Instead of bemoaning the loss of a symbol of the ‘city that never sleeps,’ public transit supporters should be welcoming the closure policy and giving serious thought and discussion to whether to make it permanent, at least in some form.

The subway system urgently needs more regular maintenance and capital improvements, especially the installation of computer based train control (CBTC). CBTC will allow trains to safely run more closely together, enabling more frequent service and hence, less crowding. The L and the 7 lines are the only ones now equipped with CBTC, while work on the E, F, M, and R lines is in progress. Faster installation would require that lines go out of service so the tunnels can be accessed for longer windows of time than is possible during 24/7 service. That is one of the reasons MTA estimates for system-wide completion of CBTC have run into multiple decades.

That is crazy. Despite being the biggest transit system in North America, we still rely primarily on WWII-era fixed-block signals, which are safe but limit the system's capacity on the majority of its lines.

Of course, the lack of subway service at any time of day is a serious problem for those who depend on it to get to work, school, and other important activities. But the problem is less acute now. In pre-pandemic times, of the more than 5 million subway riders each weekday, only 150,000 daily riders (less than 2%), used the trains between midnight and 5 a.m.

The MTA has expanded bus service for the approximately 11,000 essential workers who need public transportation overnight during the pandemic. This effort can be ramped up and improved when the city reopens and more riders return. Indeed, it is expected that it will be quite a while until the prior levels of ridership return so there will be time for the level of alternative overnight bus service to fully ramp up.

The Regional Plan Association, one of the leading supporters of the metropolitan area’s public transit systems, argued for overnight subway closure in its Fourth Regional Plan, released in 2017:

Only a handful of cities aside from New York run 24/7 service and in most of these cities it’s not the entire system, just one or two lines. If New York City decides to use overnight closures to accelerate modernization efforts they would be taking advantage of the fact that only 1.5 percent of weekday riders use the system between 12:30 am and 5 am. However, the MTA must provide robust alternative service for these riders, many of whom depend on subways to get to and from work and other late night activities. For these riders, the MTA should offer frequent high-speed bus service. This may even provide superior service for most riders given that late night service subway service is already infrequent and unreliable, and that buses could run frequently on largely uncongested streets overnight.

Closures to improve construction productivity were recommended, albeit in a less emphatic way, in the report of Governor Cuomo’s Metropolitan Transportation Sustainability Advisory Workgroup, released at the end of 2018. Andy Byford’s Fast Forward Plan provided for some temporary weekend and line segment closures to install CBCT and do high-priority maintenance. That plan, however, estimated it would take 10 years to install fully computerized signal control on all lines.

As pandemic restrictions ease, there is a real concern that many will shy away from public transportation and resort to driving cars to get into and around New York City. To attract riders back, subway cars and stations need to be clean, with public health measures in place to make riders feel safe. This is no small task, to be sure. But it will also encourage riders to return if they know that service has improved, that there are more trains and hence, less overcrowding, that trains do not go out of service because of “signal problems” or for other maintenance reasons. 

Keeping the system closed for four hours overnight, even if for only a few lines at a time, while CBTC and other capital and repair projects are completed will dramatically improve service without impacting the vast majority of riders, and will have relatively little impact on fare revenue.

In response to a question after his talk before the Association for a Better New York (ABNY) two weeks ago, Chair Foye acknowledged that the temporary overnight closures present an opportunity to make more rapid progress on repairs and system enhancements. He and the governor should go further and open a serious conversation about the relative costs and benefits of reverting to all night service versus keeping the system closed in those overnight hours and/or closing certain lines to get all the needed work done. There are probably operating cost savings that could be achieved through long-term closures as well as service benefits. 

This could be one of the few chances to make lemons out of lemonade from a terrible catastrophe; we just need to abandon the 24/7 orthodoxy and think seriously about how to dramatically and quickly improve subway service. New Yorkers can still be part of a thriving 24-hour city while the subway is being cleaned, modernized, and enhanced for a few hours each night.

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Carol Kellermann was president of Citizens Budget Commission from 2008 through 2018.

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To Avert Massive Housing Crisis, We Need a Government Solution for Property Owners and Renters; Here’s a Roadmap


massive crisis bx

There's a looming housing crisis we must avoid (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


The anxiety and concern driving the “cancel rent” movement is real and justified, but giving rent relief to those who don’t need it makes no sense. Something must be done for struggling renters, but those requesting relief should be asked to provide financial information backing up their request and those that need it should receive it.

However, canceling rent without subsidizing the lost rental income to property owners will only make matters worse. Without rental income, eventually property owners will be unable to pay the millions of Americans they employ, including essential workers who clean and maintain the places millions more live, work, and shop. They also may be unable to pay utilities, maintenance costs, and most importantly, property taxes, which fund many of the municipal and social programs upon which we all depend.

Property owners are not the enemy, they are an essential part of the solution. Bankrupting tens of thousands of property owners and sending many properties onto the foreclosure rolls will cripple the ability of property owners to support a solution, exacerbate housing insecurity for tenants, and saddle government, at least for a time, with properties they have no capacity to manage.

The only viable solutions are those that keep tenants in their homes and businesses, and landlords managing properties. Government must make sure both happen. Ignoring the problem or worse, offering a partial solution and pretending the problem is solved will only result in less revenue for the government and massive displacement for millions of Americans at a time when we can all least afford it.

Governmental proclamations that provide for a temporary hold on evictions solve only half the problem. These solutions are at best short-lived and certainly short-sighted, not to mention confusing for the public. Ninety-day temporary eviction relief has led to a widespread misunderstanding that rent relief, or rent forgiveness, was also offered for 90 days. In part because of this, rent collections have dropped, even among people who can afford to pay. In turn, owners’ ability to meet their own financial obligations has already reached a crisis point for many, but especially small-scale property owners.

Instead of this one-sided approach, government should sponsor comprehensive programs for tenants and property owners, authorizing both to enter into payment plans.

Under this scenario, tenants would be permitted to pay off their missed rent over the next year and property owners would in turn receive real estate tax deferral in the amount of the deferred rent payments. Property owners would then repay taxes to the government on a monthly basis once rental income begins to be repaid. Working together, such a plan could keep tenants sheltered, while keeping property owners and the city ultimately whole.

For those who can pay full rent, they should. Tenants who can still pay, even those who are unemployed due to COVID-19, should be obligated to pay at least 30 percent of all income they are receiving, including unemployment benefits, interest and dividends, or of savings in excess of two years of rent, to fulfill their rent obligations.

In either case, property owners in buildings with 10 or more units should also offer tenants the ability to pay rent by credit card and cover the tenant’s cost of the associated credit card fees for those unemployed due to COVID-19.

Finally, to help ensure that these admittedly complicated and novel approaches are effectively implemented, the city should immediately create a stakeholders task force allowing property owners, labor, lenders, utilities, tenant advocates, and city government to come together to prevent a housing crisis on a scale we have never encountered.

Measures that put the full burden of providing housing on either property owners or those without means will work for no one. Government must be part of a comprehensive solution instead of addressing only half of the problem.

***
Francis Greenburger is Chair and CEO of Time Equities, Inc.

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New York’s Next Step Toward More Justice and Better Democracy


parollee restor oped

Questioning which New Yorkers can go to the polls (photo: Gotham Gazette)


Practicing social distancing is by no means easy, but the guidelines are simple: maintain six feet of distance from others, avoid crowded environments, public bathrooms, and shared dining facilities, and to blow off steam, go outside. Stick to the guidelines, health officials assure us, and we can all help protect each other, especially the vulnerable. 

But many of the most vulnerable people during the COVID-19 crisis are those whom most of us will never see and for whom social distancing is simply impossible: people behind bars. Prisons were not designed to prioritize personal space; moreover, many have faced overcrowding for years. At least 462 incarcerated people in New York state have tested positive for the novel coronavirus and 1,204 prison staff have as well. According to the Marshall Project, the number of undiagnosed infections in prisons is likely much higher. Tragically, at least 373 incarcerated people have died across the country from COVID-19 related illness. 

Yet even after facing those conditions while paying their debt to society, many of those who complete their sentences and reenter the public will have no voice in our collective future. That’s because New York, unlike 19 other states and Washington, D.C., denies people on parole for felony convictions the right to vote. It’s time to fix this with new legislation.

To be clear, thanks to Governor Cuomo’s issuance of voting rights pardons since 2018, most people on parole can currently vote. The governor’s staff began conducting a monthly review of everyone recently released on parole and the governor uses his pardon power to individually restore voting rights to each person living in the community and successfully completing the terms of their parole.

But the process is more cumbersome than it needs to be, both for the people rightfully having their voting rights restored and for the government. Moreover, voting rights shouldn’t depend on the discretion of one person. The governor has used his pardon power justly, to welcome people living in our communities into our democracy. But a future governor could depart from that practice—we’ve seen it happen in other states.

That’s why we are among the state senators co-sponsoring Senate Bill 1931. This legislation would make rights restoration automatic upon release from prison and provide those released an opportunity to register to vote right away.

We prioritized democracy reform at the beginning of this legislative session because we’ve heard loud and clear from our constituents that it is what they want. We need to make it the law that people on parole can vote, not just the policy of the governor. These are our neighbors. They work and pay taxes, and they should have a say in choosing those who levy them. They send their children to public schools, and they should be able to decide who oversees those schools.

State after state has acknowledged this obvious truth in recent years. In 2019 alone, Colorado, Nevada, and New Jersey passed laws restoring the right to vote to everyone living in the community, with New Jersey’s governor signing that state’s law this past December.

There is no good reason we shouldn’t do the same, and formally codify the governor’s policy here in New York. The criminal justice system has determined that each person on parole has served their time and is ready to return to their community. We all have an interest in welcoming them back with open arms and encouraging healthy reintegration. Until we change the law and make clear that their voting rights are not something bestowed upon them by the generosity of the governor, we send exactly the wrong message: that their voices don’t matter and they don’t have a real stake in what happens in their communities.

In fact, the history of New York’s criminal disenfranchisement laws makes clear that they were never aimed at accomplishing some good policy goal. They date back to a 19th century attempt to evade the mandate of the Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—to deny black men the right to vote.

These days the law is still discriminatory, but it also serves to sow confusion and waste government resources. Because the governor has to use his pardon power to restore voting rights, the process is needlessly complicated. Each month, the state corrections department sends the governor a list of everyone released and on parole the previous month. The governor’s staff then individually confirms each person’s eligibility before issuing a voting rights pardon. His staff then continuously monitors the parole status of each of the 30,000 people with a pardon to ensure they remain eligible.

This isn’t just a lot of work, it means that it is still impossible to give a simple, straightforward answer about whether people on parole can vote. Since the restoration process is not automatic, there is a four- to six-week gap between when someone is released from prison and when they have their rights restored. That means people cannot be told they have the right to vote on their way out. And we’ve heard that even people who do have a pardon have faced skepticism or misinformation when they try to register.

The bill we are co-sponsoring would clear up the confusion. It would set thousands of New Yorkers immediately on the path to reengaging in a positive way in their communities, something that has only become more important in the age of COVID-19. We urge our colleagues in the Legislature to join us in passing this bill, continuing New York’s journey to becoming a national leader in democracy.

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State Senators Zellnor Myrie and Leroy Comrie represent parts of Brooklyn and Queens, respectively. On Twitter @SenatorMyrie & @LeroyComrie.

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As Coronavirus Overwhelms Funeral Homes, New York Must Act to Allow Alternatives to Traditional Burials


coronavirus homes

(photo: betterplaceforests via Instragram)


Across New York City, communities of color have been disproportionately hurt by COVID-19. Along with my colleagues in the New York State Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic, and Asian Legislative Caucus (NYSBPRHA), I have heard from countless New Yorkers the numerous real and painful struggles they are dealing with as a result of the pandemic. Many are frontline and essential workers who continue to do their jobs day after day, risking their lives in order to help others. Per one recent report by the New York City Comptroller, 53% of health-care workers are immigrants and 70% of health-care workers are people of color. 

For communities who have given and lost so much already, what has been most painful is the inability to say goodbye to their loved ones. Hospitals are closed to visitors to control the outbreak, phone calls are almost impossible for critically ill patients, and funerals and memorial services have frequently been cancelled or delayed indefinitely.

As cremations have more than doubled in some parts of the country, many places are putting a cap on how many funerals and burials they can do. Meanwhile, those who have lost their jobs are forced to make tough decisions on whether or not to purchase a casket and a burial plot or feed their families. As families continue to grapple with these decisions, more and more people are dying every day, leaving hospitals with hundreds of bodies and funeral directors working overtime. 

To address these issues, we need to open our state up to new ways of memorializing our loved ones. 

To that end, I recently began working with Better Place Forests, which preserves forests and provides a more affordable, more sustainable alternative for people who choose cremation, enabling families to choose a final resting place beneath a tree while abiding by best regional practices that benefit local economies and the environment. 

To help the grieving families of first responders, Better Place recently launched the Memorial Trees for Heroes initiative to honor those who have bravely taken on risk in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic to help others. As the national average cost of a traditional burial is $8,755, according to the National Funeral Directors Association, this program will be an incredible help for the families of frontline workers who have passed away from COVID-19.

All health-care workers, caregivers in nursing homes and hospices, first responders, public transit workers, delivery workers, and others who have not had the luxury of working from home, but rather had to work to keep our communities running deserve access to programs like this one.

But right now, programs like the Memorial Trees for Heroes initiative that could provide comfort to grieving families have trouble operating in the state due to a one-size-fits-all approach that prevents cost-effective options for New Yorkers. I, along with my colleagues in the NYSBPRHA, believe the state must act now to provide more options and assistance to the thousands of COVID-19 victims’ families. Doctors, nurses and other essential frontline workers who sacrificed their life to help others deserve to have a beautiful final resting place where their loved ones can honor their memory. We must ensure the values these fallen heroes stood for in life and in death live on to serve as a testament to the greatness of this city and our communities.

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Assemblymember Tremaine S. Wright represents parts of Brooklyn and is Chair of the New York State Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislative Caucus. On Twitter @tremaine4ny.

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Lessons from Two Plagues


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(photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


My career in public health and health care is bookended by plagues. I graduated from college in the 1980s and moved to the West Coast. It was a time of freedom and fun and I was living what felt then like an “adult” life; I had a job, my own apartment, a car, a dog, a boyfriend. Life was good.

But something dark and sad was hovering around me at the same time. The HIV/AIDS pandemic was in full effect. By 1990, more than 120,000 Americans had died of the mysterious disease. I knew people who were sick or dead. I had to get involved. 

I started volunteering with the Northwest AIDS Foundation doing outreach and education. It was the first time I’d heard of the field of public health. I didn’t really know what it was, but the smart people and leaders around me had studied it. I’d always been interested in politics and it seemed like the place where politics intersected with medicine, so I was hooked. Off to grad school I went and I’ve been working to improve health care ever since.

Thirty years later, we find ourselves in the midst of another pandemic with echoes of the HIV/AIDS crisis:

Fear. The early days of HIV/AIDS were terrifying. Did you already have it? Would you get it? Would you die? What caused it? Today, every sneeze or cough, many from seasonal allergies, causes worry. It’s scary to touch anything — even hug our own families — or go to the supermarket. 

No vaccine. In 1984, the Health and Human Services Secretary announced the discovery of the virus that causes AIDS and predicted a vaccine would be available by 1986. Experts are similarly forecasting it will be a year or two until we have an effective COVID-19 vaccine. It’s 2020, and there is still no vaccine for HIV.

Stigma. Would things have been different in the U.S. had HIV/AIDS not mainly affected gay men, people of color, and IV-drug users in the early days? Without question, discrimination and hate played a big role in the slow response to that pandemic. COVID-19 has prompted a resurgence of racism and xenophobia, especially against Asian-Americans. Early on, AIDS was called the “gay cancer.” President Trump often calls COVID-19 the “Chinese virus.” 

Government failures. The government has blood on its hands for both AIDS and COVID-19 deaths. The first federal government report on AIDS came out in 1981. It infamously took four years and 12,000 American deaths before President Reagan even uttered the word “AIDS.” The federal government’s response to COVID-19 has been slow and inept. The list of failures includes a lack of testing capacity; inadequate protective equipment and ventilator supplies; failures to contact trace and isolate exposed people; and mixed and confusing public messaging. 

Other similarities, however, give me hope. Then and now, we’ve witnessed acts of bravery and courage. People are putting their own lives on the line to save others. Scientists, doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers have demanded answers and fought for resources. They’ve provided care when they could and comfort when that was all that was possible. 

Medicine and science have advanced. HIV/AIDS is no longer an automatic death sentence. We don’t have a cure or a vaccine, but we have treatments that can make AIDS a manageable chronic disease and even prevent transmission. Obstacles to accessing and affording those medications remain, but at least the treatments exist. And today, some of the smartest minds are working on vaccines and treatments for COVID-19.

AIDS forced marginalized people to unify and fight for their lives. As a result, we saw greater visibility, acceptance, and enhanced rights for LGBT people. The race and class differences so glaringly on display with COVID-19 should force us to again confront structural inequities and repair them. 

I see hope and humanity in the many Americans showing genuine empathy and caring for others in the community: sewing and donating masks to protect essential workers, delivering groceries to elderly neighbors, supporting local businesses, and more.

Our inadequate response to the HIV/AIDS crisis is a shameful stain on our nation’s history. But we got through the peak of the AIDS crisis — not unscathed or unchanged, but we got through it. We’ll get through this, too.

Already, COVID-19 has killed more than 22,000 people in New York and more than 328,000 around the globe. As with the HIV/AIDS pandemic, things will get worse before they get better. It’s hard to know when and how our current crisis will end and what the future will look like. But we do know what safely getting to a new normal will require: widespread testing, capacity for effective contact tracing, and action that’s guided by facts and science.

 As COVID-19 continues to plague us, we can and we must do better. As the old AIDS rallying cry went, “silence equals death, action equals life.”

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David Sandman is President and CEO of the New York State Health Foundation. On Twitter @DavidSandman1 & @nys_health.

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No to Austerity, Yes to Efficiency and Fairness: Getting Our Budget Priorities Straight for a Strong Post-COVID New York


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Major budget questions loom as coronavirus takes its toll (photo: Edwin J. Torres/ Mayor's Office)


As we work to show COVID the door, tough budget decisions are ahead. Governments at every level are grappling with the unprecedented toll this pandemic has had on the economy. 

COVID has laid bare structural inequities too stark to ignore. While some work comfortably from home, others put themselves in danger on the front lines. While some flee to the Hamptons, others pass the virus between family members in cramped New York City apartments.

These choices become even more stark when we take a cold, hard look at post-coronavirus state and municipal budgets. New York State is facing a $10-$15 billion budget deficit. New York City projects a $7.4 billion loss in tax revenue. 

Where should we go to fill the budget gaps? 

Our executives have given us hints of what they want to do. We are told that painful cuts are necessary, that sacrifices must be made.

Mayor de Blasio already took a scythe to just about every program with the prefix summer including the Summer Youth Employment Program, a program that provides summer jobs for at-risk teenagers. He has also cut services that affect our daily lives, like trash pickup days and electronics recycling.

Governor Cuomo pushed to cut health-care funding in this year’s budget, even as our public hospitals struggle to treat an influx of coronavirus patients, and we’re told to wait with baited breath for more cuts to come.

The mayor continually refuses to lessen property tax burdens on low- and middle-class homeowners and renters, many of whom are bearing the brunt of COVID’s pain, while the governor has refused to consider revenue raisers on ultra-millionaires, billionaires, and large corporations, many of whom are left unaffected by the virus’ scourge.

We believe these are misguided decisions. We reject the choice between austerity budgeting and a tax burden shouldered by low- and middle-income New Yorkers.

Instead, we need an honest assessment of how we can raise revenues by looking to those who can afford to pay their fair share.

The very wealthiest New Yorkers will not face eviction or foreclosure, like so many other New Yorkers. They will not struggle to access unemployment benefits. They will wait out the storm in second homes.

As a matter of basic fairness, these individuals less impacted by COVID can and should contribute more.

We should also look at corporations that have profited specifically because of this pandemic. These large corporations can and should pay more to rebuild our economy when this is all over.

Passing austerity budgets that cut essential services will only doubly punish our frontline workers and those struggling to make ends meet during and after this pandemic. After all, our essential workers — EMS, police, firefighters, Parks Department employees, grocery store workers, transit workers, nurses, doctors, and so many others — are about 40% people of color; 75% of whom live in the so-called outer boroughs. One-third of our frontline workers are from low-income households.

An austerity approach will inevitably push our city deeper into recession and make it even harder to dig out of this financial hole.

In addition to revenue raisers on those who can afford it, we need substantial federal funds and can borrow up to 20% of the budget from the Federal Reserve’s COVID-19 emergency lending program.

Finally, we also must take a hard look at the waste in our budgets. The New York City budget has ballooned by $20 billion in the last six years alone. The state budget is certainly not immune to wasteful spending either. 

Instead of making cuts to hospitals, CUNY, and summer employment, we need to look at the programs with unproven impact, the spending that doesn’t go directly into communities.

For example, procurement contracts make up nearly 40% of the city budget’s recent growth. These contracts should be reviewed and scrapped or renegotiated as necessary. In 2018, the Independent Budget Office suggested that simply switching to open source software could save the city $30 million per year.

For every wasteful or unproven program we know about, there may be many more that we haven’t yet identified, in part for lack of looking close enough. These budgets need to be scrutinized and every revenue-raising option must be explored before we cut a single dollar to any program that working-class New Yorkers rely on. 

This pandemic has put us through the wringer in the most brutal way. All of us are reflecting on what kind of society we want to be when we emerge from this dark time. 

Our post-COVID government budgets will demonstrate our values. We stand for a New York City and State that cares for its people and lifts up those who need it most.

***
State Senator Andrew Gounardes and City Council Member Justin Brannan represent parts of Brooklyn. On Twitter @agounardes & @JustinBrannan.

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To Prepare for Future Crises and Recover from This One, Bring the Supply Chain Back to the United States


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Ventilators arriving in New York from China (photo: governor's office)


It’s been incredibly horrifying to watch scenes unfolding at New York City’s public hospitals as medical staff struggle to keep pace with the coronavirus pandemic. Although doctors and nurses—from Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn to Jacobi in the Bronx—have shown remarkable courage under fire, they are under siege from an invisible enemy that shows no mercy to those in its path.

The situation has been tough for my mother to bear. She’s a home health aide working on the frontlines to protect some of New York’s most vulnerable residents—the developmentally disabled. But she’s also a refugee who fled a civil war in Uganda more than three decades ago and gave birth to my younger sister and me at one of the city’s hardest hit public hospitals, Elmhurst.

As we grapple with our country’s coronavirus reckoning there are elements that are reminiscent of the war-torn Uganda she escaped. The uncertainty of when life will return to some sense of normalcy. The shadow of death that seems to lurk all around us. The mental anguish that has gripped America’s consciousness.

Yet, there is one element of this crisis that is deeply vexing: why were we so unprepared, why didn’t we have enough ventilators or personal protective equipment? When New York and other states turned to the federal government, President Trump’s response was effectively: you’re on your own. Besides the ineptitude of the president, the answers don’t only lie in Washington, but also in corporate boardrooms across America.

Over the past four decades, our country’s manufacturers have been blazing a trail across the world seeking places—mostly emerging economies—to produce their goods for much cheaper than they would in the United States. This intense focus on cheaper cost of goods and maximizing profits is a result of a shift in America’s corporate culture that sought to place the maximization of shareholder value above all other stakeholders—employees, customers, suppliers, communities, etc. As the labor arbitrage took place, corporate profits began to soar and much of the country’s manufacturing capacity began to disappear. It’s a correlation that’s difficult to ignore.

The end results weren’t only cheaper goods and lower costs, but a long list of supply chains that no longer existed in the United States—including personal protective equipment and ventilators, just to name a few. This dynamic has led to an erosion of well-paying middle-class jobs and threatens our national security. In 1940, 60% of New York City’s workforce was employed in manufacturing. Today, that number is 16%. We are now relying mostly on China to supply us with critical equipment to save American lives. 

This pandemic should not only serve as a call to action for policymakers in Washington to enhance the nation's public health infrastructure, but to also demand American corporations shift away from this myopic view of shareholder supremacy. This should begin with repatriating supply chains deemed critical to America’s national security. 

Americans should make the equipment that will save their lives. This includes manufacturing PPE, pharmaceuticals, tests, and medical devices on our shores so that we are prepared for future disease outbreaks and crises that disrupt the world. The government must take the lead to invest in medical manufacturing to bolster our national supply to prevent future shortages on equipment. And as we move out past this crisis, we must look for ways to modernize our manufacturing industry to meet our country’s needs while moving us forward. Specifically, we need to focus on greening manufacturing—retrofitting former manufacturing plants to become more environmentally friendly, producing renewable energy infrastructure, and better training American workers would create jobs and address environmental hazards.  

Our government must do more to hold accountable American corporations that ship jobs overseas. American multinationals that will not repatriate should be taxed at significantly higher rates for shipping jobs outside our country. This revenue is sorely needed as we face this economic crisis. Also, corporations that seek bailout funds related to the pandemic must demonstrate that the majority of their workforce is American; otherwise they should be deemed ineligible. And as we move forward, EPA regulations must be strengthened to ensure manufacturing plants are not environmentally harming the surrounding communities.   

We have a long way toward recovery, but recovery has to start with a reflection on why our country was so woefully unprepared for this crisis. We must ensure that all Americans, and most importantly corporate America, contribute to the rebuilding of our nation.

***
Adem Bunkeddeko is a candidate for Congress in New York’s 9th District, covering parts of Brooklyn. On Twitter @adembunkeddeko.

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A CLEAR Path Forward on Emergency Preparedness


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Mayor de Blasio holds an emergency management briefing (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


I’m writing this from my living room. My three-month-old daughter is across the room, sleeping in her activity gym. My wife is watching television. This should be another normal day, but all of us, including you reading this, knows it's not. Our daughter has barely seen her grandparents since February. My wife hasn't seen the outside world in almost two months. Aside from a few stressful trips along empty streets to the grocery store, neither have I.

Nothing about this pandemic has been normal — not even our response. The COVID-19 outbreak rekindles the darkness of Hurricane Sandy. No one knew what to do or where to go. By the time the government acted, it was too late. No master plan existed to deal with prolonged school closures, hold an election after a disaster, and mobilize large-scale relief efforts. Tragically that is still true.

There was no plan in place before the first coronavirus case was confirmed in New York City. The Greatest City on Earth is letting its people down time and time again because we fail to prepare for the next inevitable disaster. 

The City of New York needs to do better, and I have a plan to make that happen. My first bill introduced to the New York City Council will be the New York Create and Learn Emergency Action Response Act. The NY CLEAR Act would create a five-level, color-coded alert system based on the post-9/11 federal system. New Yorkers should be able to know green means everything is smooth sailing; blue could indicate a closure or restriction due to standard winter storms; and red would mean the city is shut down in its current form. 

The NY CLEAR Act would live up to its name by being concise and easily understood. It would be a universal language so our diverse communities all understand the severity of a situation. No matter which of New York City’s more than 200 languages you speak, you’d know that green means everything is fine — the city is safe. New Yorkers would know it’s safe to enjoy a park, go to work, or get on a subway that’s as unreliable as normal.

Blue would indicate the city is monitoring an evolving situation. This code should be in place when we send more police officers to Penn Station and other crowded areas after a terror attack, as we did the night of the 2015 Paris shooting. It would give New Yorkers a sense that the city is aware of a threat and is working to address it. Internally, blue signals to the Office of Emergency Management it must collect data on the event to adapt the city’s standard response plan. 

Yellow means that threat is now inevitable. Hospital administrators would start implementing plans to increase supplies and staff. Alternate side parking rules would be suspended, while garbage pickups and mass transit service would be modified. Small businesses should take yellow as a warning that their hours might change or close completely. 

Orange would mean the emergency is already happening — such as when the number of positive COVID-19 cases spiked over 1,000. Schools, courts, and all non-essential offices would immediately close. If severe weather has caused us to go orange, evacuation centers are opened. 

Red tells New Yorkers that leaving their home is life-threatening. At this point, each agency’s specific emergency plan would go into place. Pre-identified roads will close to non-emergency vehicle traffic. City government should be ready to deliver food, protective equipment, and other life-saving materials door-to-door. 

Imagine the number of cases we could have prevented, the number of lives saved, if city government had a wholesale plan in place for when a crisis strikes. Instead, our collective anxiety was compounded by the government operating on the fly — obviously without a serious plan for this type of situation and without the people of New York knowing how or being prepared to respond. 

The NY CLEAR Act will make New Yorkers safer. Informational posters will be clearly displayed at every workplace alongside other key documents such as the Department of Labor’s “know your rights” sheet. Every New York City hotel room would provide a mandated pamphlet, so visitors can learn the emergency system quickly.The NY CLEAR Act should also be taught at an age-appropriate level in classrooms so young people will know how to adapt in the event of an emergency. 

It is critical every New Yorker knows how to prepare for an emergency, and how to respond when the time comes. They deserve for New York City to declare an emergency at the right time, and for agencies to be held accountable for their responses. The NY CLEAR Act will mandate a hearing any time the city goes to yellow or higher. When a service is suspended, or when certain plans are put into place, it should require the city to conduct a wholesale look at whether protocols were properly followed and what we can learn to improve our response.

Crises have historically challenged us, well after the actual tragedy. We are judged both by our response in the moment as well as what we did to mitigate future catastrophes. Hurricane Sandy and COVID-19 both cost us too many lives. It’s time we learn our lesson and prepare. The next disaster will come. Whether or not we are ready, that much is clear. 

***
Nick Roloson is a candidate for the New York City Council in District 22, in Queens. On Twitter @nickroloson.

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It’s Actually the Perfect Time for City Government to Invest in Housing


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Mayor de Blasio makes a housing announcement (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


In the wake of the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus shutdown, Mayor de Blasio must find budget savings anywhere he can, while still advancing his mission to make New York “the fairest big city” in America.  

It won’t be easy. But the sudden drop in tax revenue should not stop the mayor from continuing to make one smart investment: creating new affordable housing.

With the pandemic exposing the full extent of the city’s homeless crisis, now is exactly the time to create more affordable and supportive housing, as well as high-quality shelter. Doing so can sharply reduce exorbitant spending on emergency homeless hotels, create good-paying jobs when we need them most, and end the terrible damage homelessness has inflicted on a generation of children.

New York City cannot afford to miss what is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the city’s economy, the mayor found himself stuck in an unwinnable war against homelessness.

Mayor de Blasio created thousands of new, locally-funded rental vouchers for homeless families, helping many return to permanent housing. But the lowest rental housing vacancy rate in decades meant too many of the vouchers went unused, unable to counter the law of supply and demand.

The mayor also launched a record-breaking affordable housing production initiative that likewise helped thousands of homeless people find homes again. But with so many New Yorkers becoming homeless each night, the housing just couldn’t be built fast enough.

The pandemic has changed all this. And while the economic repercussions will be devastating, they also present a promising opportunity for change.

No matter what we do, New York City is likely losing residents now and into the immediate future. With the drop in demand, thousands of overleveraged properties will become available for purchase and conversion to affordable housing. With far fewer tourists visiting the city for the foreseeable future, newly superfluous hotels will be available for pennies on the dollar. Otherwise healthy apartment buildings will need formerly homeless tenants with rent vouchers those tenants can finally use.

With these new conditions suddenly in place, the mayor finally has the chance to lay the foundation for his successor to end widespread homelessness in New York City.

To do so, the city should first maintain – or even increase – capital investment in affordable housing production this year. The city borrows to fund this housing investment, so it has an outsized economic effect: the money creates housing (and jobs) today, but the bonds are paid back over decades. Fortunately, at this time interest rates are low, and the share of the city’s budget going toward borrowing costs is far below the 15% fiscal experts recommend as a cap. In short, we can afford to do this.

The administration has instead proposed slashing the capital housing budget by 40% — roughly half-a-billion dollars annually — this year and next. These cuts will delay the creation of thousands of new affordable housing units right when we need them most, and just as the cost of acquisition and development is falling.

Cutting half-a-billion dollars from the capital budget sounds like a lot of savings. But because the money for long-term investments like affordable housing is borrowed, the cut will only reduce the city’s cost of paying the money back — less than $50 million a year in savings. But in reality,  we won’t save a thing. If these cuts go through, the next mayor will end up spending even more sheltering New Yorkers who remained homeless because the housing was never built.

Of course it’s not enough just to restore the cuts to affordable housing. Despite its newly straitened circumstances, the city should stick to the mayor’s original vision and keep providing rental vouchers to homeless households. It must redirect capital dollars to acquire newly available distressed properties. And it should build housing for the people who need it most: homeless, senior, and very poor New Yorkers, because housing vulnerable people has been proven, over and over again, to reduce public spending on health care, shelter, and other expensive emergency interventions.

Our city’s terrible homeless crisis demands a renewed commitment to creating more housing. Fortunately, few economic activities generate more benefits: such an effort will bring precisely the kinds of increased jobs and consumer spending we need right now to restore the city’s economy. It is the most effective and cost-efficient option available to the mayor to spur the city’s comeback. At the same time, no investment will do more to cement the mayor’s legacy of correcting long-standing systemic inequities that have plagued the city for decades.

***
Ted Houghton is the President of Gateway Housing, the former Executive Deputy Commissioner of New York State Homes and Community Renewal and former Executive Director of the Supportive Housing Network of New York. On Twitter @Gateway_Housing.

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