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Year-End Giving: Five Ways to Help New Yorkers in Need


A helping hand (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photo Office)


While inflation is unsettling for many of us, for fellow New Yorkers who were already struggling financially, it can be catastrophic. 

Imagine entering a store with only $50 to buy your family’s groceries, and watching the register ring up $75 on your usual shopping list.

This month — which The Wall Street Journal dubbed the “humbug holiday season” — is ominously clouded with inflationary prices and the threat of a recession. While our first instincts may lead us to reduced spending and restrained year-end giving, the need to help our neighbors, especially those who lack food and shelter, could not be more urgent. 

If you want to make the most of year-end giving, here are five suggestions to help ease the burden for New Yorkers facing hardship this holiday giving season.

1. Contribute to programs housing and feeding New Yorkers. People are experiencing homelessness in New York City at rates not seen since the Great Depression. More than 63,000 people—including 20,000 children—slept in the municipal shelter system this November. Consider making a gift to one of the nonprofits that advocate for or serve New Yorkers who are without permanent housing or unable to buy enough food.

2. Make generosity a family tradition. Younger children can help choose and deliver toys for families living in shelters. Older children can be part of an annual discussion of which nonprofits or causes to support. The whole family can watch a documentary together or research an issue you care about. Consider setting aside a regular time each year to foster a tradition of helping others. 

3. Prioritize racial justice and equity. In November, New York City voters supported three ballot measures to address systemic racism. To build on this momentum, consider supporting nonprofits working to disrupt systems that have contributed to racial inequities. When selecting nonprofits to support, consider who benefits from the nonprofit’s work, the composition of its staff and board, and if the group is targeting systemic changes in order to have a long-term impact.  

4. Open a donor-advised fund. Donor-advised funds offer an immediate tax deduction on a charitable contribution from which you can recommend grants over time. Starting a donor-advised fund is a great way to ensure that you can support the causes that are most important to you well into the future, even in an unpredictable economy. Donor-advised funds can be used to make a meaningful gift, commemorate a life event, or honor the memory of a loved one. You also can establish a donor-advised fund for someone else.

5. Join forces with other donors to stay informed and maximize your giving power. Join a giving circle and collaborate with like-minded friends and colleagues to pool resources to make a larger impact. Working together can lead you to learn collectively and more deeply about the most effective nonprofits working on key issues in New York.  

If you need help with any of these pursuits, remember that your local community foundation — and there are many — has a team ready to help you be the most impactful donor you can be.

This holiday season, we hope New Yorkers uneasy about the economy will act counterintuitively: by tapping into their empathy for their neighbors and leaning into generosity.  

After all, what is more holiday-appropriate than buoying our spirits with the joy of giving? 

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John Oddy is vice president for donor relations at The New York Community Trust, the community foundation for New York City, Long Island, and Westchester. On Twitter @NYCommTrust.

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Our Holiday Wish: Deep, Necessary Investments in Children’s Mental Health


Mayor Adams at school (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


One profound outcome of COVID-19 has been the consensus among government and school system leaders of the urgency of getting more social workers in our schools – and in particular stemming the shortage of mental health resources for children in communities of color. This week’s New York State Assembly Education Committee hearing reinforced the need to redress the impact of a life-changing event on the educational and social development of our young people.  

Research from the nonprofit organization NWEA revealed just how deep and disparate the pandemic era learning losses have been for children who were already struggling, and now are finding it harder to catch up. This amplified the National Assessment of Educational Progress report on the precipitous decline in math scores, especially for lower-income Black and Hispanic students who tended to have more remote learning, and less technology and human support, than their higher-income peers.

This fall, New York City’s Department of Education made a bold first step towards building a healthier ecosystem as young people return to a post-COVID “normalcy.” With the goal of evaluating students’ social-emotional strengths and challenges, it trained teachers to use a widely-recognized tool, called the DESSA (Devereux Student Strengths Assessment), to ask the right questions about how their students are coping with relationships, self-awareness, and decision-making.  

Yet many New York City students — especially those in economically insecure diverse neighborhoods who disproportionately lost a parent or primary caregiver to covid, or the 100,000 who experienced homelessness in the last year — are not going back to pre-covid lives. They have experienced a level of trauma that calls for the professional skills of social workers.  

Our city’s teachers – already mainstays for our children – are stretched thin trying to achieve academic outcomes. They are not clinically trained to address these underlying conditions nor the complexities of toxic stress, which is the neurological response to continuous trauma that shuts down a child’s ability to learn and socialize.

This kind of stress can also emanate from other inequities linked to systemic racism, such as lack of access to medical care, nourishing food, or clean air and water. These are among the many factors that landed the Bronx at the bottom of the County Health Ranking in New York State – number 62 of all 62 counties, according to a new study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which advocates for a landscape of health equity strategies nationally.  

Taken together, this is an urgent call for a next tranche of strategic investments in the mental health and wellness of our most vulnerable children.

Let’s look at what this means from a child’s perspective. If they are hungry, how are they going to be able to learn? If they experience trauma, how can we expect them to “self-manage” or get along nicely with peers? The risks are that they will act out, miss class time, feel alienated, and not want to be at school at all.

As a 115-year-old nonprofit that provides in-school social workers for 30,000 K-12 students in 67 schools across the city, we know that kids don’t get to choose their environment. But they can benefit from a trusted adult who can help them sort out their experiences.

A young woman, who we will call Keisha, was struggling with her identity as an adopted child. During her first year in high school, her grades were slipping, she was cutting classes and was hanging out with friends who reinforced her slide. When the covid shutdown hit that year, she felt alone and angry at home. Her parents, loving relatives, were alarmed but couldn’t get her back on track. With the professional sounding board of a social worker who worked with her first remotely and later in person, Keisha built the skills to make her own decisions and change her behavior. When she returned to in-person school, she shed her old crowd and formed a few healthy friendships. Today as a senior, she has stellar grades and has already been admitted to two colleges. 

In short, this approach works. A recent survey of our middle and high school students found that 87% have relationships with adults who care about them, cultivating resilience; 80% get the space and support to honestly share what they are feeling and thinking, the basis of agency; and about 75% said that our work with them supports their academics, helping them stay in school.

Parents and teachers agree: 96% of parents said our counseling helps with their children’s social and emotional needs; and 91% of teachers said our work makes their classrooms easier to manage. 

Right now, though, the city is facing a perfect storm in funding all these services. Reduced student enrollment numbers affecting budget allocations and competing priorities threaten to diminish resources for our at-risk children, precisely at the time they need them most. 

It’s going to take not just government, but also private funds to tackle this confluence of issues. All New Yorkers will benefit when our next generation is healthier and better prepared to succeed in society. It’s a landmark moment. Our children, and our city, deserve the chance.

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Wesner Pierre is CEO of Partnership with Children. On Twitter @PWCNYC.

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The Bill Expanding Liability Will, In Fact, Increase Costs


A bill on the governor's desk (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


Unfortunately, Assemblymember Helene Weinstein traffics in misinformation as she claims to lay out the facts about her bill to expand liability in wrongful death lawsuits. She wrote in a recent Gotham Gazette op-ed that “there’s no evidence” that insurance costs will skyrocket if the bill becomes law. Not only does common sense say that when you increase payouts to more people, the money has to come from somewhere, but there are also oceans of data that debunk her claims.

Indeed, an independent and peer-reviewed actuarial analysis finds that the bill (S.74A) will increase medical liability premiums by 40%, general liability premiums by 11%, and auto insurance premiums by 6%.

The assemblymember offers no fact-based evidence to the contrary. Weinstein cites an Illinois law that is nowhere near as broad and open ended as her bill. The Illinois law specifically refers to "pecuniary damages" caused by grief and anguish – i.e. the quantifiable damages. Her bill does not. And no other state allows for nebulous categories of damages like “any disorder caused by grief or anguish” or allows for a near-unlimited pool of possible plaintiffs..

She also mentions estimates related to Laverne’s Law. As the sponsor of that bill, she is well aware that her original proposal was significantly narrowed to mitigate unintended consequences. The analysis she cites reviewed the bill as introduced by her office, not the overhauled and amended version that was signed into law.

And about those special interests Weinstein mentions? Well, local governments, doctors and hospitals, organizations representing MWBEs, and businesses of all sizes are all calling on Governor Kathy Hochul to veto this bill. The fact is, the bill’s top supporter is the special interest that would profit the most: the New York State Trial Lawyers Association – an organization former-Governor Andrew Cuomo once referred to as “the single most powerful political force in Albany.”

As the oft-quoted Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." This goes for Assemblymember Weinstein, too. When it comes to this legislation, let’s hope Governor Hochul's decision is truly based on evidence and facts and not an attempt at misdirection in service of Albany’s most powerful special interest.

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Tom Stebbins is executive director of the Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York. On Twitter @ThomasStebbins and @LawsuitReformNY.

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The Path Forward for New York Democrats


Gov. Hochul & Mayor Adams (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


Over the past month, New York Democrats have been grappling with the outcome of a midterm election with devastating implications—both on a local and national level. 

Despite Republicans falling short of expectations across the country, New York Democrats saw four Congressional seats and seven state legislative seats flipped by the GOP. Not to mention closer than expected races for statewide offices. 

None of this was inevitable. In fact, Democrats in far more competitive and divided states fared much better, proving that New York’s red wave was not a national trend, but a localized crisis, coming within a few percentage points of disaster. 

The New York Democratic Committee, led by Chair Jay Jacobs, was clearly underprepared and unorganized, and appeared uninterested in protecting key Democratic seats. Elected officials became exasperated over the lack of down-ballot support and volunteers routinely noted abysmal grassroots organizing attempts

The 2022 performance was very much a repeat of 2021, where the state party failed to spend a single dollar in support of constitutional amendments to fix the state’s redistricting process, expand eligibility for absentee voting, and authorize same-day voter registration, which consequently led to this year’s redistricting chaos. As Jacobs said last year, “maybe, in that sense, the ball was dropped.” 

Here we are a year later, and the ball was dropped yet again.

With just weeks to go before Election Day, elected officials, union leaders, and others raised the alarm and called for a more concerted effort. Thankfully, the New York Working Families Party (WFP), labor unions, and local political organizations and clubs stepped up to fill the vacuum of leadership left by the New York Democrats. 

But the shortcomings weren’t just limited to party organizing: we didn’t speak about what Democrats have delivered and would deliver in the future. For example, in last year’s state budget, Democrats passed the largest expansion of childcare coverage in a generation and new investments in the CUNY and SUNY systems. Yet out on the campaign trail, you barely heard about these meaningful accomplishments. 

Instead, we were stuck playing defense against the perennial Republican playbook, with many high-profile voices in our own party echoing Republican talking points and giving weight to Rep. Lee Zeldin’s apocalyptic rhetoric, despite the fact that we have a stronger and more comprehensive message on public safety. 

It’s not hard to imagine what would have happened if the WFP did not intervene. New York Democrats came within less than one percentage point of losing another congressional seat to Republicans. The contest for Governor was closer than it has been in decades, and Governor Kathy Hochul’s margin of victory was almost entirely explained by votes she received on the Working Families Party line. 

These lessons are abundantly clear — and must be carried into the next legislative sessions in Albany and New York City. 

First, Democrats must build a new party infrastructure that touches every level of government and every community, with the mission to support and elect Democrats up and down the ballot.

Rather than engage in intra-party battles to exclude voices, we should be more inclusive, and by doing so harness the power and energy of the grassroots. We should activate and empower local party chapters and county organizations to do what only they can do best — support and elect local candidates — and not just during election seasons, but year-round. And we should embrace real transparency at every level of government and politics, and work to dismantle the corrupt machinery that discourages grassroots engagement. 

The New York WFP is a great model to look at, operating as a coalition party of working class activists, community advocacy groups, labor unions, and affiliate organizations that stand for a clear set of values and put in the work to support candidates in districts all across the state.

The second lesson we should learn from this election year is that message and substance matter. All the party infrastructure in the world means nothing if you’re not able to excite and motivate voters. Instead of engaging with Republican lies, voters want to hear our ideas and records of achievement. We must speak to the issues that our base — New York’s diverse working class — demands action on. 

Our party is built upon big ideas and recognizing the power and potential of everyday people. We believe in creating great jobs, increasing the minimum wage, expanding tenant protections, investing in child care and mental health, tackling climate change, and more. And to help make this possible, we believe that the most fortunate among us should pay their fair share so that working- and middle-class families don’t bear the full cost of building a more fair and just society. 

That’s what’s popular. That’s what builds trust. And that’s what will help the most people.

Our state’s Democratic Party cannot afford a repeat of 2022. The New York Working Families Party has laid out a roadmap for successful campaigning. Now it’s up to the Democrats to learn from and work with them to defeat an increasingly dangerous GOP and, more importantly, build a New York where every person can thrive.

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State Senator Andrew Gounardes and City Council Member Chi Ossé are Democrats who each represent parts of Brooklyn. On Twitter @agounardes & @OsseChi.

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The Solution to Our Labor Shortage is Clear: Remove Barriers to Immigrant Employment


A naturalization ceremony at City Hall (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


The economy was the top issue on American voters’ minds this election season, with 9 out of 10 citing it as one of their biggest concerns. Especially in an era of increased partisanship, this serves as a rare moment of national agreement.

Unfortunately, that’s where the consensus stops.

The economy isn’t a simple, standalone issue, and many complex forces affect its condition. What many politicians and power brokers fail to recognize is that the economy is closely intertwined with the health and efficiency of our nation’s immigration system. That’s especially true here in New York City, where immigrants are as critical to our prosperity as Wall Street. Considering the state of our current immigration system, however, it’s no surprise our economy is struggling. 

But how would a more efficient immigration system and sufficient federal resources help the economy? It’s quite easy: it’s the most efficient way to balance the labor shortage.

The economy hinges on the strength of our labor market, and the United States is facing a disastrous labor shortage. With an estimated 10 million open jobs nationwide, American businesses are struggling to find workers to fill much-needed vacancies. In New York City alone, the shortages are visible from construction sites to the halls of government. Yet we’ve seen numerous recent profiles of asylum seekers in the media and have heard from many of our own constituents from Venezuela about the sea of barriers — many the result of policy — between one’s eagerness or ability to work and securing actual employment.

One simple solution to ease the burden is to support migrant workers with easier pathways into the labor market.

The U.S. has an estimated 11.4 million undocumented immigrants in the country ––  with almost 3 million coming to the country in 2022 alone. As we detailed in a recent letter we authored, cosigned by dozens of our colleagues in the New York State Senate and Assembly, to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, immigration laws prevent migrant workers from obtaining gainful employment and integrating them into a lagging workforce.

Licensing restrictions, backlogged processes, and social integration barriers are just a few hurdles recent immigrants must navigate –– all while trying to find a job. Those who can find a job are often forced to do so through an “underground economy,” where workers are often abused, exploited, and paid drastically lower than minimum wage. This is why in our letter we called for Secretary Mayorkas to, among other things within his power, extend “parole” for asylum-seekers from two months to two years and facilitate expedited work permits for asylum-seeker arrivals and those paroled into the United States.

The answer seems to be right in front of us: the U.S. has a labor shortage and there’s a steady supply of willing and able workers. Sadly, we are far from this answer becoming reality.

Partisan politicking, outdated immigration policies, and limited resources have kept migrant workers from actively leading the labor market, leaving the nation’s economy weak and uncertain. Through a more defined and regulated process, migrant workers can stabilize the economy for future generations, providing years of labor and income taxes while increasing the tax compliance rate across businesses nationwide. We cannot afford to wait. Our leaders must act to provide resources to the growing number of immigrant workers and streamline the bureaucratic process to provide pathways to employment.

This isn’t a new idea. Many nations across the globe are turning to immigration to solve their labor shortages. In Canada, immigration accounted for 84% of growth in total labor since 2010, and the Canadian Minister of Immigration recently announced the country will be increasing to 500,000 permanent resident applications a year by 2025 as a way to lessen the Canadian labor shortage. Other countries struggling with a dwindling supply of labor, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Japan, are exploring immigration reforms as a way to increase their workforce and ease their labor shortage. Other nations are adapting and it’s time the U.S. follows suit.

After all, our nation has always relied on New York City as its economic engine, and New Yorkers have always relied on immigrants to keep this city going. Unless we change the policies and practices that prevent them from gainful employment, however, the New York — and the United States — we have all become accustomed to will cease to exist. 

We have the solution at our fingertips. It’s time to act.

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State Senator Brad Hoylman represents the 27th Senate District and Chairs the Committee on Judiciary. Assemblymember Catalina Cruz represents the 39th Assembly District and Chairs the Task Force on New Americans. On Twitter @bradhoylman and @CatalinaCruzNY.

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The Facts About the Grieving Families Act


Facing life and death (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


Just the facts, ma’am.

That’s what fictional Dragnet detective Joe Friday used to ask for on TV decades ago. Today, the phrase is best known as a meme, but it’s still a good approach to decision-making in government. My colleagues and I should always look at the facts because that will point us towards the best course of action.

Rarely is this more apparent than in the discourse around the Grieving Families Act, which passed both houses of the Legislature by wide, bi-partisan margins and awaits action by Governor Kathy Hochul.

The Grieving Families Act reforms New York’s 175-year-old wrongful death law. If that sounds obscure, it’s not. This antiquated law currently says that if someone is killed, their lives are only worth what they earn for a living and the grief of their survivors is worth nothing. For example, because women earn just 83 cents on the dollar compared to men, their lives are worth 17% less if they are killed. The life of a retiree is basically worthless because they’ve already earned most of the money that they ever will. The same with the life of a child who isn’t working; incredibly, existing law accords little worth to the life of a child.

And, because the law only recognizes the 19th-century model of a family, many modern families are shut out of the courts entirely. The love and loss of grandchildren or domestic partners are legally worthless in New York.

If we were gathering the facts for Joe Friday, it would be indisputable that these are a pretty terrible set, utterly indefensible in our modern society. 

As the Assembly sponsor of the bill, I introduced versions of the Grieving Families Act to correct these injustices every year since 1994, and this year with the crucial help of State Senator Brad Hoylman - sponsor of the Senate version of the bill - we finally beat the special interests and passed the bill through both houses of the Legislature. 

But those same special interests aren’t giving up. Insurance company lobbyists are coming out of the woodwork trying to water down or even stop this legislation altogether. But they’re not offering the facts. Instead, they’re spreading ‘alternative facts’ like the Trump White House, and what our neighbors in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and beyond would simply call lies.

Insurance companies are claiming that this bill will cause malpractice insurance costs to skyrocket 40%. There’s no evidence for that. In fact, according to the American Medical Association, when Illinois reformed its wrongful death law in 2007 in a similar way, insurance rates for specialties such as surgery, internal medicine, and OB/GYN went down over the course of the next decade. That’s not even adjusted for inflation, the actual dollar amounts went down because the performance of financial markets plays the biggest role in rate-setting.

It's not the first time that the opponents of reform have tried to mislead us.  When New York passed Laverne’s Law in 2018, the Medical Society claimed that it would cause a 15% rise in premiums for every doctor. Instead for the specialties such as general surgery, internal medicine, and OB/GYN, the state’s largest malpractice insurer either kept rates flat or even lowered them in every downstate county.

So using Joe Friday’s approach to government leads to a pretty clear set of facts: For too long, New York’s antiquated wrongful death law has undervalued the lives of many in our society, and the Grieving Families Act corrects this 175-year old injustice. Hopefully, the Governor will recognize the importance of correcting this injustice and will sign the bill as passed by the Legislature.

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Assemblymember Helene Weinstein represents parts of Brooklyn. On Twitter @HeleneWeinstein.

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California and the Federalist Papers Offer a Path Forward on Housing, New York Should Take It


 

Housing in view (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


The United States, and New York particularly, faces a housing crisis of its own making. Today, housing costs are the main driver of inflation, which is leading to painful interest rate hikes across the whole economy. And they’re the main driver of homelessness, an even more acute problem in high cost states like New York and California. In fact, for every $100 of increase in median rent, there’s a 9% increase in homelessness

High housing costs lead to teachers, police officers, firefighters, and service workers being forced to live far from communities they work in simply to be able to afford a home. As distance between communities and their essential workers grows, so does distrust and lack of cohesion within them. And, housing costs are cited as a major driver of our inability to diversify and grow the economy. In fact, as numerous residents and businesses move to the Sun Belt, cheaper housing for workers is one of the most commonly cited reasons. 

Prior localized efforts to build more housing in New York City and particularly its suburbs have failed, captured by NIMBYism (“not in my backyard” opposition) and parochial local politics. New York’s own Regional Plan Association estimates that half-a-million homes could be developed along New York City’s commuter rails alone by allowing housing density on properties already zoned residential, but few suburbs have allowed it. 

New housing supply is severely below new housing demand because localities work to oppose new housing through means such as exclusionary zoning, parking requirements, and extended public comment periods that amount to filibusters to run out the clock. In New York, extreme NIMBYism has led to embarrassing episodes such as a recent viral video of a young man speaking in favor of an affordable housing project being shouted down at a Bronx community meeting.

Even in high-opportunity, transit-rich neighborhoods like Soho and Midtown West, you’d be hard-pressed to find many local elected officials who support upzoning their jurisdictions to develop more housing — something that would be very beneficial for the city and society as a whole but where there are hyper-local costs such as construction noise, property value changes, or blocked views. 

Too many people presume that hyper-local direct democracy -- where neighborhoods get vetoes over what gets built -- is the American way. Yes, our fundamental unit of government is local, but NIMBYs do not have the sole claim to American history and traditions. For another way forward, look to Federalist 10, where James Madison makes the most forceful case for enlarging the sphere of decision-making so local communities could not kneecap widely beneficial policy.  

In short, building housing has become a dysfunctional direct democracy issue – what Madison termed factional. Madison argues that "the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property." Today, the immediate costs of building housing are borne by immediate neighbors in the immediate future, creating political pressures on local officials, community boards, and towns to block housing with infinite delays in hearings and approvals. Coupling these pressures with the fact that voter turnout among homeowners is approximately 25% higher than renters, we have a perpetual public choice problem where our local governance perpetually under-approves housing.

These patterns were foreshadowed by Madison 230 years ago when he wrote “those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society." Thus, Madison argues to combat the effect of faction, we must adopt a national Constitution that enlarges the sphere of interests. 

Faced with localities continuously under-developing housing, this is exactly what California did in passing a landmark law at the state level that summarily approved housing as-of-right in underutilized commercially-zoned corridors.

California provided a way forward for New York and elsewhere as part of its effort to address its own shortage of 3.3 million homes by passing a statewide law that provided higher density zoning as of right for underutilized commercial properties (for comparison the New York City metro area alone has 516,000 fewer housing units than jobs and faces a shortage of 560,000 units by 2030 simply to account for current population growth). California’s success was made possible because it bypassed the NIMBYism of localities by building a statewide, broad coalition of business, labor, and housing advocates. The diffuse benefits of more housing were used to marshall public support at the state level even if they would likely fail at a local level where parochial interests rule. 

I spoke to the architect of the law, AB 2011, California Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, about the path to passing such a controversial but important bill. Wicks credited the passage of her bill to the visible failure of decades of NIMBYism with regard to aggregate housing.

“Every freeway ramp encampment, every city, is a visible reminder California has 27% of the country’s homeless population and it’s a very visible reminder of our failure on the housing issue,” she said.

“It takes 5, 6, 7 years to break ground on a project because of red tape and approvals,” Wicks added, and the housing construction industry is one that many people are exploited in and leave.

Her solution was a bill that ties together important pieces: it took as-of-right approvals statewide and out of local hands for specific projects that alleviate the housing shortage while using labor that pays a prevailing wage to bring workers back to the housing industry. 

Another major component of the California victory was focusing on commercial corridors in order to sidestep residents who otherwise object to adding density to their current neighborhoods from single family to multifamily, the type of upzoning many reformers focus on most.

According to a quantitative analysis by Urban Footprint that Wicks credits for bringing California’s proposal to life, underutilized commercial corridors targeted by the bill could provide up to 2.4 million new homes, including up to 400,000 affordable to low- and moderate-income households across the state. This while increasing local tax revenues and providing substantial environmental benefits - it is estimated that these new units will produce 50% less greenhouse gas emissions than the average California household due to their density and proximity to already existing roadways, water mains, and sewage.

(source: Grand Boulevards: A Plan to Solve California’s Housing Crisis)

California’s new law creates two options for underutilized strip malls and commercial corridors along wide boulevards such as the Bay Area’s El Camino Real. Developers who choose to build 85% market rate and 15% affordable housing can build mixed-use housing with retail on the ground floor as-of-right with only ministerial approval, bypassing local councils and rezoning if they provide prevailing wages, raising the take home pay of people who work in construction and developing a much needed workforce.

Developers who choose to build 100% affordable housing do not have to pay prevailing wage. According to Assemblymember Wicks, starting with underutilized commercial corridors rather than upzoning existing residential zones helped bypass NIMBY opposition in part because people recognize that parking lots and strip malls are not efficient uses of space on major arteries. 

(Artist Conception of Commercial Corridor Based on Boulevard Size, Source: Urban Footprint)

California’s landmark housing victory would not have been possible without the broad coalition that realistically could be built at the state level without falling victim to Madison’s “factions” that can capture smaller units of government and politics. Wicks particularly credits support from service and education workers, who are often forced to live hours away from where they work, carpenters’ unions who do not belong to the large building trades but whose work goes primarily to housing, and even Republicans in the Assembly who are traditionally opposed to red tape and regulations. These are not the kind of groups who would necessarily show up to a community board meeting for a single housing development, where the benefits are often too narrow to attract attention and rally those focused on the greater good.

In New York, a similar statewide housing plan could apply to New York City and surrounding suburbs on Long Island and up the Metro North region. The state would designate an underutilized commercial corridor based on the width of a commercial boulevard or along a mass transit artery like the subway, LIRR, or Metro North. They would receive as-of-right mixed-used zoning with appropriate density based on corridor size, with only ministerial approvals in exchange for 100% affordable housing or 85/15% but using prevailing wage construction. Labor, business, and housing advocates would be able to succeed in getting more housing approved through this state level action than piecemeal at the local level. 

In New York and across the country, building housing is a necessity. With the Federal Reserve hiking interest rates, there is no guarantee new housing supply will be added to meet demand. It’s a vicious cycle as housing costs now comprise the biggest portion of core consumer price index (CPI) increases year on year, which will continue to push the Fed to painful rate hikes and produce even fewer housing starts. 

Now is the time to embrace the Madisonian model and take some decision-making out of the hands of localities that have proven they will not add housing, instead embracing essential growth for the good localities, states, and their residents. It’s a rare issue of bipartisan agreement with bills by Republicans such as Senator Todd Young of Indiana and Democrats like Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey pushing to clear hurdles and red tape to build more housing.

In New York, we ought to take a lesson from Madison and from California’s experience to embrace housing reform at the state level. 

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Suraj Patel is a professor and former candidate for Congress. On Twitter @surajpatelnyc.

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Growing to Love New York City’s Soils


A community garden (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


As urbanites, it is easy to disregard the ground beneath our feet. As we sidestep tumbleweeds of trash or awkwardly circumvent waste from any of New York City’s 508,000 registered dogs, we tend to lose not only the forest and the trees, but also the dirt below. Even when we are in one of the city’s 1,700 parks, we probably are paying more attention to our friends or a good book than to what is growing underneath us. The dirty truth, however, is that we deeply rely on soils, and now more than ever. But, when was the last time we really took stock of the stuff?

World Soil Day, which happened earlier this month on December 5, focused on the theme: “Soils: Where food begins.” But for New York City residents, this topic can seem disconnected from our daily lives. Urban soils are an often-forgotten, critically important part of the city’s infrastructure. Community gardens and urban farms might be few and far between, and many New Yorkers may never have seen food growing in the city, but soils are all around us. All that is needed is a discerning eye to realize their presence and potential. Examining soils can help us understand the health of our city, performing a checkup, literally from the ground up. 

Below, we outline four ways to promote soil health in the city, particularly for interactive soils in gardens, and get New Yorkers in touch with the soil, for their wellbeing and the quality of the shared environment. Whether it’s tree wells or parks or community gardens, urban soils represent a complex system we must appreciate.

1. Seeing Local Soils as an Intersectional Solution
Although 19 billion pounds of food are distributed throughout New York City each year – about 2,000 pounds per person on average – more than 1 million New Yorkers are still food insecure. In certain communities, like the South Bronx, this rate jumps from the citywide 12.5% to one-in-four. Rather than simply increasing food deliveries to funnel nutritious foods into these areas, exacerbating air pollution in communities that already suffer from suffocating amounts of tailpipe emissions, fresh food could be produced and supplied locally. 

Programs, such as Farms at NYCHA and GreenThumb Community Gardens, do exactly this, expanding access to healthy foods while also providing valuable training and jobs. Community-centered urban agriculture might not be able to, on its own, serve the city all its food. Yet, when community members drive food production locally, it gives them pride and dignity in being able to provide for themselves while promoting food security in their neighborhoods.

More so, community gardens not only offer accessible food, they also enhance a community’s green space. They are more prevalent in communities with below-average access to parkland. Healthy soils are also climate-resilient soils – absorbing water during flash flooding or storm surges. Thus, they fulfill the purposes of food production and green space, while also giving the city much-needed protection against climate change.

2. Healthy Soils Promote Healthy People, More Than Just With Nutrition
In addition to food nutrients, community gardens convey bushels of benefits. They reduce stress, and soil microbes can even boost our serotonin levels – an important feature, with over 8% of New Yorkers suffering from moderate to severe depression.

Gardeners are also generally more active, which improves physical functioning. One segment of New York City’s population in particular – older adults – would especially benefit from getting down and dirty by stimulating both mind and body. But there are other important considerations as well: time spent in a garden can improve quality of life outcomes in dementia patients, which means that as New York City fosters an aging population, community gardens can play a big role in how we care for our older adults.

On the other end of the life spectrum, children benefit from getting into soils, too, and already 824 schools have garden programs and 140 schools are a part of the educational Farm to School program. Soils act like a living classroom, allowing hands-on learning in and out of school to teach about where food comes from, the microbiome, and other topics. This can all foster healthy relationships with food, and reduce obesity.

The city has educational programs centered around farming already in place, such as workshops at farmers markets and childcare centers. Other community educational spaces exist, including action centers leading events and outreach to seniors. But New York City has just some 600 community gardens to serve its more than 8.4 million residents. The goal of having gardens in all schools, in neighborhoods, and close to seniors is a multi-benefit one.

3. Put New York City’s Waste to Work
Soil is as much about where food begins, as where food ends. Compost-amended soil has better chemistry and fosters more biodiversity. In New York City’s community gardens, compost has even been shown to mitigate stormwater runoff, thereby attenuating flooding. Composting fights two battles at once: combatting the immense amount of organic matter that is sent to landfills and providing nutrients and benefits to urban soils for gardens, parks, tree wells, and other spaces.

Despite its continued importance, the city’s composting system has been in flux for the past three years, as COVID-19 disrupted momentum. A recent municipal pilot program in Queens has had success, collecting 5.7 million pounds of waste in just six weeks. This sets an example for curbside, no-opt-in-necessary programs, which could be rolled out in the future across boroughs. This can also put people in better touch with their food cycles.

And food waste isn’t the only kind of waste being considered in soil. The NYC PUREsoil program helps turn clean, deeply-excavated earth from construction into clean fill for community organizations, like gardens, rather than removing it as waste. Using what New York City already has by way of ground materials and pre-soil (aka food) and putting it to good use for the city’s soil fertility is a win on waste.

4. Equitably Incentivize Healthy Urban Soils and Ecosystems
In 2021, New York State followed the growing trend to prioritize soil. The State’s Soil Health and Climate Resiliency Act put into law a definition for soil health, suggestions for monitoring it, and encouraged collaboration between scientists and practitioners to better the quality of our agricultural soils.

The letter of this law does all of the above for rural, suburban, and urban soils. But New Yorkers know our city is unique, and this includes our soils – both their quality and how they are (under)prioritized. Part of the problem with urban soils is that economically, they are viewed as lacking what makes rural soils so important: food production. In a city, though, soils provide the services that we have described above and more. The value of urban soils should be incentivized, economically or otherwise. 

To any pedestrian, walking down the sidewalk might give the impression that the concrete jungle doesn’t need or value its soil. But the lives of New Yorkers tell a different story.

Community gardens produce food and flowers on the land. We benefit from the protections that healthy soils offer when facing storms and excessive heat, both of which will only increase in their frequency and severity in the future. Coming out of this year’s World Soil Day, we are reminded we can all play a part in helping the Big Apple live up to its name – getting in touch with our food, getting down and dirty to care for city soils, and spreading the word about the brown gold beneath our feet.

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Karl Palmquist is the Vice-Chair of the Sierra Club NYC Group and a systems biologist. He has worked on soil health issues at the state level, and developed science outreach programs for students to learn about soil. Mallory Rutigliano is a sustainability professional based in New York who holds an MPA in environmental science and policy and has worked in the fields of global policy, healthful behavior, and sustainable finance. She works on climate resiliency for the City of New York and is an active community volunteer. All opinions expressed in this column are the authors' alone.

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Bridging the Gap in Understanding the Link Between Domestic Violence and Brain Injury


Answering the call (credit: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


If you ask most Americans to describe what comes to mind when you say the word “concussion,” they will likely describe a staggering football player being helped off the field. This is understandable, as football is fully enmeshed in our culture. When Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffered a vicious head injury a few weeks ago, for example, the debate around his handling was a major media storyline. And, in recent years, concussion awareness in youth football is now standard.

That is good news: concussions and traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are serious medical conditions that can dramatically alter the trajectory of a person’s life. But we cannot solely focus on football players or even just men if we want to mitigate their impact and treat those afflicted. Instead, we need to broaden our horizons and recognize that TBIs are also dangerously linked to domestic violence.

The limited data we have paints a distressing picture. Annually, an estimated 10 million adults in the United States experience domestic violence and/or intimate partner violence, and 74% of domestic violence events involve injuries to the head or neck. 

This suggests that the 1.5 million Americans each year who survive a traumatic brain injury, and the 230,000 hospitalized, is likely a serious undercount because domestic violence survivors are rarely assessed for concussions in interactions with law enforcement, medical care, mental health systems, or even victims’ services. In other words, there is a barely-noticed and highly-understudied public health epidemic primarily afflicting some of our most vulnerable neighbors.

There are several negative impacts stemming from the lack of awareness, data, and medical literature on this link. 

First, and most importantly, survivors are simply not getting the care that they desperately need in the short term, extending their suffering. And the undiagnosed and untreated negative impacts of a concussion – including light sensitivity, foggy memory, and constant headaches – can impact future employability, credibility in the eyes of law enforcement, and even influence survivors’ self-worth.

This lack of resources can also perpetuate a vicious cycle of poverty. After all, domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness for women and their children, and 41% of families entering the New York shelter system do so because of abuse. Many do not even know they may have a concussion or that they are suffering from long-term medical effects because they are focused on escaping the clutches of their abuser.

In other words, TBIs remain a major blind spot for America’s most vulnerable – and it is complicating the road to justice, recovery, and equality in New York and across the nation.

That is why our organizations, Volunteers of America-Greater New York (VOA-GNY) and Safe Living Space, partnered to create an innovative, first-of-its-kind TBI screening program at all seven VOA-GNY domestic violence shelters here in New York City.

When survivors and their families enter a VOA-GNY emergency domestic violence shelter, they will now be offered concussion screenings developed in partnership with the medical experts at Safe Living Space. Those in need of care will be connected to the Concussion Program at Northwell Health, where they will receive medical care.

In the short-term, this data will assure that all domestic violence survivors entering VOA-GNY residences have access to a full suite of TBI services and evaluations. It will also help to fill a glaring gap in medical literature around the link between DV and TBI as we build on these findings to create a formal study. 

Of course, this work alone will not solve the many challenges facing survivors. Far from it. To do that, the many institutions working with survivors will need to account for the impact of concussions on the community and build a new infrastructure accordingly.

The good news is that we’ve done this with football and other sports – and now the time has finally come to extend that knowledge out into broader society and ensure that nobody is left behind to suffer in silence.

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Myung Lee is the President and CEO of Volunteers of America-Greater New York, an anti-poverty organization working to end homelessness in the New York area by 2050. Dr. Edie Zusman is the CEO of Safe Living Space, a group of medical practitioners working to raise awareness of TBI. On Twitter @VOAgny & @SLS_MediaTeam.

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Governor Hochul Must Fulfill Her Promise of Compassion and Clemency; We Can Help


Gov. Hochul at the Court of Appeals (photo: Mike Groll/Governor's Office)


As we sat together in a Brooklyn backyard, we examined shared circumstances: all of us were convicted of serious crimes that caused immeasurable harm, received a life sentence, and served decades behind bars. Now, all of us have much to be thankful for – we each had our sentence commuted through clemency. Collectively, we reflect on the many people still in prison who merit the same consideration.

Each of us has been doing all we can to re-integrate into our families, communities, and society at-large. We tend to loved ones who are elderly and ailing. We work and engage with social justice organizations that provide support for incarcerated women and their children, and with case management services for formerly incarcerated persons. We help organize impacted communities in efforts to secure legislative reform around the pernicious effects of mass incarceration.

Gubernatorial grants of clemency -- the official recognition of redemption -- bring much needed hope to those in prison. Every time a sentence is commuted, it reverberates across correctional facilities. Those who may have resigned themselves to life in prison now leave their cells eager to focus inward on areas of growth through education and by participating in and developing programs to benefit themselves and others. 

While granting clemency sends a clear message of hope, the converse is also true. When New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2015 and then again in 2017 rolled out a clemency project, anticipation spread like wildfire to people inside and their families outside that the governor would use his vast constitutional clemency power on an ongoing basis. And yet, we are among the fortunate few to reap the benefits of clemency. 

To people serving massive prison sentences, false hope of the potential for release is often worse than no hope. The unwillingness to grant clemency to those who accept and acknowledge responsibility for the harm they caused, who have worked so hard to repair and transform, and who have been incarcerated for decades, magnifies the feelings of despair and futility that pervade prison life.

We know we are not special. We are first-hand witnesses to the many men and women who have used their time in prison to grow, improve, mentor others, and atone; to take stock of who they are and what brought them to prison. We know how much these men and women have to offer to everyone on the outside. Yet due to a criminal legal system that regularly inflicts massive, death-by-incarceration sentences, they face the reality of perishing in prison despite no longer in any way resembling the person they were decades earlier when they were first incarcerated.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, in similar fashion to former Governor Cuomo, raised hopes when she promised to devote more resources to clemency and to issue grants on a regular basis rather than the typical once-a-year December announcement. We know too well the crushing disappointment when December 31 would come and go with at best a few people receiving clemency. The resulting anguish is palpable and is manifested by decreased involvement in various programs and activities, as people surrender to the reality of dying behind bars.

Governor Hochul’s clemency website provides that applicants should demonstrate “exceptional strides in self-development and improvement.” We know numerous people who meet and far surpass that criterion. We also know people serving life sentences for crimes committed when they were as young as 15 years old. We know people who are now in their seventies and eighties. We know people who are gravely ill. We know people who have selflessly devoted themselves to others in prison through hospice care, as mobility aides, and as sign language interpreters. And we know numerous people who have served 30, 40, or more years and present no threat to public safety. In fact, public safety would be improved if more people were returned to their families and communities.

We have banded together to amplify our voices. We call ourselves the Clemency Collective and hope that Governors will heed our message. Along with promising clemency on an ongoing basis, Governor Hochul created a clemency advisory panel. We hope the governor will also turn to us as a clemency resource. We know what it takes to prosper in the harsh confines of prison and the many challenges that people inside face every day. We have experience-based suggestions for how to improve the clemency process; to make it transparent and accessible so that it will inspire and motivate those inside to pursue life-affirming goals, as well as provide confidence to those in the community at-large that successful applicants for clemency are ready and able to safely re-enter and contribute to society. In the meantime, we raise our collective voice to implore Governor Hochul to fulfill her promise and begin granting clemency on a regular basis.

The Clemency Collective:

Colin Absalom
Roy Bolus
Ulysses Boyd
Richard Chalk
Judy Clark
Paul Clark
Rodrick Cole
Robert Ehrenberg
David Gilbert
Andre Jenkins
Gregory Mingo
Arnold Raimondo
Alfonzo Riley
Monica Szlekovics
Jon Adrian Velazquez

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