Mayor Adams at a vegan cooking demo (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
The Adams administration recently announced that plant-based meals, free of animal products except for federally-required fluid milk, would be served across the New York City public school system on Fridays. Mayor Adams had been crystal clear throughout his campaign about the connection between food and health: “We must stop feeding the crisis.”
Because city schools serve nearly 1 million meals each day, rolling out the program citywide presents one of many opportunities to put our public health and sustainability priorities on our plates.
What many city residents may not fully understand is just how powerful food can be in not only preventing disease but also treating it. Adams’ personal experience of reversing type 2 diabetes by eating a diet predominated by unprocessed plant foods – beans, whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds – is not an anomaly. Countless people affected by diabetes across the country have had results similar to Mayor Adams, and a rising cadre of healthcare professionals affiliated with the American College of Lifestyle Medicine are counseling their patients to eat diets that are primarily comprised of unprocessed plants, along with other positive lifestyle behaviors, as a first line of defense.
And it’s not just diabetes: heart disease, high blood pressure, overweight and obesity, digestive problems (from acid reflux to constipation), elevated cholesterol, and many other health issues count diet as a root cause. What we put in our mouths directly affects all parts of the body as a holistic system. Dietary habits even modify our genes.
What does this have to do with our kids and vegan Fridays? Here are four reasons we welcome the change and other forthcoming health-forward city feeding policies:
Kids are getting sicker at younger ages. It’s no secret that children across the country, and New York City is no exception, are experiencing the same poor health as adults. They are also experiencing high rates of ADHD, anxiety, asthma, and other chronic respiratory conditions. Children are being diagnosed with chronic conditions that used to be seen only in adults, including diabetes, and most children will have fatty streaks in their arteries, the beginning of cardiovascular disease, by the age of 10. We should not take any of these stats as a given.
Disease is not an inevitable result of the imperfect human body but a direct outcome of the poor nutritional environment our country built throughout the 20th century. Dismantling it will take tremendous effort, and our very lives depend on it.
Kids don’t need animal products to meet their nutritional needs, certainly not on a daily basis. While the food groups and the food pyramid we learned about in our childhood incorporated daily animal food consumption as an essential part of a healthy diet – and our parents and grandparents told us the same – the evidence now shows otherwise.
In fact, children across history and today across the country are being raised on well-balanced plant-based diets and thriving. What's more, they have more immune system resilience, lower rates of chronic disease as they age, and healthier weight than their peers. While more research needs to be done, it's clear that one plant-based meal served at school will not create a nutritional deficiency in children. Instead, it will add critical micronutrients and fiber that are only found in plant foods, while reducing consumption of saturated fat and cholesterol, abundant in animal foods.
Serving plant-based meals introduces critical messages that plants are essential for health. As children (and adults) come to learn that plant-based meals are nourishing and even delicious, we can dispel myths and stigmas about plant-based eating. Over time, this will not only breed a culture of tolerance of different eating patterns but also has the potential to give children and families more informed choices about how to eat for health.
Schools are an ideal place for such education, and in the near-term absence of such instruction in the classroom, modeling and sharing this information in the lunchroom is a welcome first step.
Our planet depends on more plant consumption. As climate change looms large in our minds, animal agriculture is the often-unspoken elephant in the room. Raising animals and their byproducts for human consumption contributes substantially to greenhouse gas emissions. Every step our city takes, with its tremendous purchasing power, to reduce our dependence on animal agriculture helps us to return our ecosystems to health and preserve the planet for our children.
But the details matter. Just as with other meal options in schools, palatability and presentation is important. Parents reporting that their kids didn’t care for the new vegan meal on its first Friday should remember that this phenomenon is not limited to the vegan meal and Meatless Mondays, already in place in city schools. In the background, our school system is working hard on cracking the code of providing meals at scale that are both nutritious and delicious, without defaulting to animal products or highly-processed foods.
As healthcare professionals, community nutrition educators, and health-conscious community leaders, we teach about whole food, plant-based nutrition to achieve the health goals we seek, and this includes a steep reduction if not elimination of refined foods like white flours, oils, sugar, and salt. Black bean burritos and Mediterranean chickpeas are a huge step in the right direction.
Here and now, we must prioritize solving our intractable public health issues that have very obvious, even if challenging, solutions. We support Mayor Adams on his quest to bring healthy eating and lifestyle behaviors into the limelight and offer new and empowering paths forward for all.
***
By Lianna Levine Reisner, President & Network Director, Plant Powered Metro New York; Michelle Loy, MD, FAAP, DipABLM; Louise Merriman, MS, RD, CDN; and Aifra Ruiz, Nutrition & Fitness Coach and New York City public school parent leader. Plant Powered Metro New York empowers people to find better health and overcome chronic disease through whole food, plant-based nutrition. On Twitter @PlantPoweredMNY.
***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
An NYCFC game at Yankee Stadium (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
Is it time for a soccer stadium in the South Bronx now that NYCFC is the Major League Soccer champion and the U.S. is (hopefully) on its way to qualifying for the 2022 World Cup?
Maybe.
A stadium built expressly for soccer could serve as a hub for this global sport in our global city. In addition to serving the home team (NYCFC) it could attract clubs from every continent for exhibition games, drawing fans from New York’s diverse communities. Imagine: Argentina vs. its former colonial ruler, Spain; France vs. Germany; South vs. North Korea. The match-ups would feed the ethnic pride of neighborhoods from Queens to Brooklyn, Manhattan to Staten Island, and of course in the Bronx.
A gleaming new stadium outfitted with high-tech screens, lounges, interactive consoles for fan engagement, and instant access to color commentators, coaches, and players would be a cathedral for soccer. As Yankee Stadium is to baseball, an NYCFC stadium would be a mecca for American soccer. And the same mass transit-rich hub that serves 50,000 fans of The Bronx Bombers each game would easily accommodate 25,000 fans of the Boys in Blue. There are three subway lines (B, D, and 4 ), a new Metro-North station, and three MTA bus lines. Easy to get to; easy to leave.
A soccer-specific stadium alongside Yankee Stadium, the Universal Hip Hop Museum, The Bronx Children’s Museum, and a few blocks from Pregones Theatre, the Hostos Center for Arts and Culture, Andrew Freedman Mansion, and The Bronx Museum could further enrich a diverse cultural corridor second to none in New York City. Sports and Salsa and drama and art and film and dance. All together in one square mile. Activities, events, and joy for people of all ages and inclinations.
Or maybe not.
A new stadium won’t work if it ignores the vital needs of its host community, one of the poorest in the country. The South Bronx can’t afford to be victimized like it was when the new Yankee Stadium was built. Former Mayor Bloomberg gave then-Yankee owner George Steinbrenner a sweetheart deal: no property taxes and only $1 per year in rent.
Like Steinbrenner, the NYCFC owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, is one of the world’s wealthiest people, and the community is still plagued by poverty and despair. A new South Bronx soccer stadium won’t work if it deprives the neighborhood of the revenue it deserves for housing, health care, and combating hunger and unemployment.
A new stadium can’t work if it turns the neighborhood into a mini-Vegas, filled with slot machines, sports betting kiosks, and 24-hour-a-day gambling. The debauchery that accompanies urban betting palaces is at odds with the religious, family-focused nature of South Bronx neighborhoods like Concourse Village, Melrose, and Morrisania. Recently, many major league sports teams and leagues are partnering with gaming companies like Bally’s, Resorts International, and Caesars. In Madrid, they are even building a new soccer facility that will be half-soccer stadium and half-casino. But, in a recent survey of residents, business owners, and employees in The South Bronx, only 33% favored a casino-stadium hybrid.
Maybe not. If the arena doesn’t have a dome so it can be utilized year-round for concerts, conventions, and convocations. If it isn’t accessible for use by local teams. If it doesn’t have a professional women’s soccer team. If it doesn’t include a youth center for those who favor e-sports or need coaching or a refuge from any number of things. If it doesn’t provide local businesses with preferential rents in the stadium.
If the stadium is environmentally irresponsible. If it will result in more pollution than it mitigates in the neighborhood. The South Bronx is sadly known as “Asthma Alley” and the borough ranks last in health among New York State’s 62 counties. If a stadium results in more traffic jams made up of idling Ubers, Lyfts, and taxis spewing fumes into the lungs of residents and preventing safe passageways for pedestrians and residents, we don’t need it.
Or definitely not.
Unless the team owners partner with the neighborhood and offer those who work, live, serve, or own businesses and property a piece of the pie. A New York City soccer stadium will be an enormously valuable asset worth billions of dollars. There’ll be naming rights (Facebook Field?), broadcast fees (for MLS games, exhibition games, and World Cup matches), corporate sponsorships, merchandising and ticket sales. The South Bronx deserves to benefit as partners from any and all of these revenue streams. This host community has earned the right to be paid for its nine decades of hospitality and the infrastructure it would provide for a new stadium.
Or definitely.
If Mayor-elect Adams endorses our partnership idea and makes a Neighborhood Ownership Plan a symbol of his administration’s commitment to inclusion, diversity, and equity.
***
Dr. Cary Goodman, a sports sociologist, is the executive director of the 161st Street Business Improvement District around Yankee Stadium.
***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Black History Month (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photography Office)
Each February, we celebrate the achievements of towering singular figures — icons who paved the way for Black Americans to have a more just and dignified existence in the United States. Indeed, they should be lauded for their accomplishments, but we must also remember the innumerable people whose experiences constitute the whole of Black histories.
There are many nonprofits that promote and preserve New York City’s rich cultural heritage. These nonprofits are doing exemplary work to ensure that the city’s tapestry of stories includes local artists, activists, laborers, and historians that may otherwise be little known. This is important for a few reasons: it portrays more accurate narratives about historically-marginalized groups; paints a fuller picture of histories that are as diverse as the people who live them; and leads to a better understanding of our past so we can expand the possibilities of our future.
One little known story in our city begins in 1969 Brownsville, where Mother Rosetta Gaston created the Children’s Cultural Corner in her home to pass down African-American history and culture to younger generations. Today, known as the Brownsville Heritage House, it is situated on the second floor of the Brooklyn Public Library’s Stone Avenue Branch and continues to preserve local heritage through the arts, education, and history.
BlackSpace, a collective of Black urbanists, is working with the House to shore up its activities as a community hub. This includes developing an archive of its 500-artifact collection, plus items from local residents that highlight Brownsville’s histories of changing demographics, progressive organizing, and Black Arts Movement-inspired schools.
Another effort that is bringing everyday stories to light is underway in Staten Island. The Staten Island Museum is working with the Richard B. Dickenson Chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society and Frederick Douglass Memorial Park, an African-American cemetery, to digitize Census and burial records and make Black family histories more accessible.
Of particular significance is a museum card catalog that Dickenson, the late borough historian, created with entries for every mid- to late-19th century African-American resident on the Island. The U.S. Census largely excluded Black people until 1870, so records before this period are especially informative for families tracing their ancestry.
In Upper Manhattan, the Dyckman Farmhouse uncovered the names and stories of enslaved people and indentured servants who built the building in the 1800s and worked there, but whose historical presence was made invisible. This history came to life at the Farmhouse in 2020 through an installation by the artist Reggie Black. He projected “Slaves Lived Here” onto the building, literally bringing to light the stories of laborers at the site and in the surrounding Inwood neighborhood.
To make the stories of today available to future generations, African Voices Communications, known for its literary magazine and women’s film festival, is working with Spelman College. They are digitizing and archiving back issues of its magazine and database of films to preserve fiction, poetry, and other artwork from the African diaspora. Functioning as a permanent repository, the college will make the records accessible online for a broader public.
Black History Month is a reminder to rededicate ourselves to an ongoing study of the past, a process that should begin with looking at all the histories that brought us to where we stand today.
The New York Community Trust supports groups that are preserving these stories and making them widely available. We hope others will join us in this continual discovery of our city’s past by visiting cultural institutions that steward Black histories, as well as encouraging friends and family to do the same. These histories can be a source of new inspiration from a city whose true wealth—its people—always renews us with hope for the future.
***
Salem Tsegaye is the program officer for arts, culture, and historic preservation at The New York Community Trust -- the community foundation for New York City, with divisions in Westchester and Long Island. On Twitter @SalemTsegaye of @NYCommTrust.
***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Students at school (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayor's Office)
Our more than 1,600 schools have been under “mayoral control” since 2003 when the New York State legislature gave New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg full control of the school system. The City Board of Education (which former Mayor Bloomberg unofficially renamed the Panel for Educational Policy) has the power to approve contracts, budgets, regulations, “standards, policies and objectives” related to educational achievement and student performance, but is made up of a majority of mayoral appointees, who are terminated or forced to resign if they vote against the mayor’s will.
While parents and advocates have succeeded in amending the law to insert some additional checks and balances, the ultimate decisions that affect 1 million children in the school system and their families still rest with one man: the mayor.
Last month, Governor Kathy Hochul released her Executive Budget, which includes a four-year extension of mayoral control, although it has no impact on the state budget. Parent leaders have objected to such a maneuver in the past, claiming that school governance deserves its own bill and a vote. Yet once again, we find ourselves having to argue our case against mayoral control of New York City when legislators are preoccupied with the real budget issues.
Here are the major reasons why we oppose mayoral control of city schools and believe that state leaders should enable rights-holders in New York City to create a new school governance system.
Despite what supporters of mayoral control claim, there is virtually no accountability. We know who is in charge but there is very little that rights-holders, such as parents, can do to hold mayors accountable and those who have the power, such as the Governor or members of the State Legislature and New York City Council are often unwilling to do so.
In addition, New Yorkers are not single-issue voters, not to mention that mayoral elections happen only once every four years. Both Mayors Bloomberg and de Blasio implemented policies that were failures in their first term, yet both of them were re-elected to their second term (and Bloomberg got a third term against the will of New York City voters).
While the City Council holds hearings on a variety of education issues and can require reporting on education-related matters, the Council does not have the power to require the Department of Education, let alone the Mayor, to take any action or change course. The best the City Council can do is create some level of transparency for an agency that is extremely opaque.
At the state level, the Legislature and the Governor have the power to hold the Mayor accountable by amending or enforcing the education law but neither seems willing to exercise this power. Despite more than a decade of parent leaders pleading with legislators to create more checks and balances, only very minor tweaks have been made. Instead of creating real accountability, the State Legislature and the Governor have used mayoral control as a political bargaining chip. And even in this political horse trading, they have failed to implement significant substantive changes to improve school governance in New York City.
Supporters of mayoral control have also claimed that the old school boards were corrupt. There are two problems with this claim. Under mayoral control, corruption became bigger and more importantly, one does not dismantle a whole system because of corruption. If we were to follow this logic, then neither house of the State Legislature should exist (or the Governor’s Office, for that matter).
None of this may matter if mayoral control was making a positive difference in the lives of our most marginalized students. Unfortunately, it has not.
The inequities that have existed since the founding of this nation are still painfully visible in our school system. Under two mayoralties and almost 20 years of mayoral control of city schools, our schools remain highly segregated -- New York City is one of the most segregated school systems in the nation -- and our Black, brown, immigrant, low-income students, and students with disabilities continue to be neglected by a system that was created to serve white and affluent students. Even during the pandemic, which illuminated the inequities for all to see, the de Blasio administration pressed forward with policies that did not serve historically marginalized students, who suffer deeply from covid’s disparate impact.
We simply cannot continue a system that does not well serve the majority of the students. Some legislators agree and have asked us what should replace mayoral control. We must first acknowledge that the nation’s largest school system with majority low-income students of color must not be “controlled” by one person regardless of who it is. Second, we must recognize that the best solutions in the world come from collaborations among diverse rights-holders. Perspectives of and ideas from parents and students, particularly those historically marginalized, are necessary in developing sound policies. Teachers, support staff, and administrators also bring critical perspectives and must be at the table.
We need to create an alternative school governance system through an inclusive, collaborative, and participatory process. For some years our organization -- Education Council Consortium -- has asked the State Legislature to create a task force to develop recommendations for alternatives. Indeed, a task force established in 2002 was exactly how the current system of Citywide and Community Education Councils was created.
It is past time we focus on and invest real resources in developing a new school governance system for New York City public schools. Those politicians who decry playing politics with the education of our children must do the right thing: start a process to develop a democratic system of governance that replaces mayoral control of city schools.
******
NeQuan McLean is Co-chair of Education Council Consortium and President of Community Education Council 16. Shino Tanikawa is Co-chair of Education Council Consortium and the Public Advocate Appointee to the Citywide Council on High Schools. On Twitter @NequanMclean & @Estuaryqueen & @EducationCounc1.
***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Health care in New York (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)
California Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed a $2.7 billion expansion to his state’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, in his state budget proposal. This transformative policy would extend to all immigrants, regardless of their status, covering an estimated 700,000 individuals. As California moves forward to expand immigrants’ access to health care, shouldn’t New York have immigrants’ backs, too?
The answer is yes. Here in the Empire State, community members and legislators have joined together to support a proposal known as Coverage for All (A880/S1572), which would create a state-funded Essential Plan for all New Yorkers earning up to 200% of the federal poverty level who are currently excluded because of their immigration status. The question is: will Governor Hochul show the same leadership as Governor Newsom, and support the expansion of health coverage and care to New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status?
In the United States, our broken health-care system treats health care as a privilege, instead of the right it should be. It has been commodified to the point where people die because they decided not to seek preventative care due to high prices or they go bankrupt when choosing to seek medical care.
Take the experience of Reyna Tellez, a Make the Road New York member and Queens resident who has struggled without health care in New York and recently shared her story with us: “In the past, I have paid about $200 for a single doctor's visit and about $300 for medications. Sometimes, I have had to take out a loan to pay for medication. Early last year I found a lump in my breast and finally in July a biopsy was done. However, the hospital told me they couldn't remove the mass because I don't have health insurance. I am scared and still in pain. I am a single mother, I am afraid for my two children.”
Reyna’s experience is, unfortunately, a common one for undocumented immigrants, who cannot access health insurance and necessary medical care because of exorbitant costs.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vast inequalities that exist within our health-care system. In the darkest days of the pandemic, immigrants and other New Yorkers of color stepped up to work in harm's way. Immigrants make up 54% of New York’s essential workforce. But, while they were putting their bodies on the line, many were being systematically excluded from the health-care system they needed if they got sick. According to a 2021 report by Families USA, more than 8,200 New Yorkers died from COVID-19 due to a lack of health coverage. It is estimated that at least 2,700 of them were undocumented.
When more than 40% of all COVID-19 infections, and roughly one out of every three COVID-19 deaths, are associated with health insurance gaps, there is systemic failure. With no current federal plan to address the problem of inequality in coverage, especially for undocumented people, individual states must step up to remedy this.
The answer for our state is Coverage for All, which would help New York move toward extending health-care coverage to all. Similar to what Governor Newsom has proposed in California, the bill would ensure access to coverage and care for undocumented residents.
By investing the resources to develop a more inclusive health-care system, New York will be creating healthier and more sustainable communities. Roughly 154,000 New Yorkers are uninsured and not eligible for insurance due to their immigration status. Passing Coverage for All in this year’s state budget, due April 1, would fix that. It would also help continue moving towards implementing the New York Health Act, the north star for universal care in New York.
Immigrant New Yorkers are not the only ones calling for an expansion of health coverage either. Insurers across the state have come out in support of Coverage for All and dramatically expanding coverage. Moreover, according to the Urban Institute, insuring 110,000 uninsured people could also save providers over $318 million in uncompensated care costs.
Like Governor Newsom, Governor Hochul has spoken of the need to invest in and improve our health-care system. By passing and funding Coverage for All in this year’s budget, she has the opportunity to make it happen. We all deserve access to doctors and hospitals and care. We all deserve to live healthy lives.
***
Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas is an Assemblymember representing the 34th District in Queens. Theo Oshiro is the Co-Executive Director of Make the Road New York. On Twitter: @votejgr & @theooshiro of @MaketheRoadNY.
***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
On the Hudson (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)
The New York-New Jersey Watershed Protection Act is critical for maintaining our fisheries, protecting our wildlife, and conserving our natural resources, urban greenspaces, and coastal resources. This watershed, the land that channels New York and New Jersey’s largest waterways and rainfall into the Hudson-Raritan Harbor Estuary, benefits us in many ways. Restoration efforts for the numerous waterways flowing through the Hudson Valley and New Jersey are scarce and underfunded. Restoring the watershed is an arduous task, due to extreme weather, such as rising air and water temperatures, increasing storms and rainfall, and rising sea levels.
The New York-New Jersey Watershed Protection Act, a bill under consideration in Congress, seeks to change this fact, introducing a watershed restoration program and a grant program to implement restoration and protection activities for the watershed.
Implementation of the New York-New Jersey Watershed Protection Act would alleviate some of the detrimental effects of storms caused by climate change and provide more protection for residents and wildlife from future crises. It would also reduce the loss of biodiversity and natural habitat, provide more residents with clean drinking water, and improve the quality of life by providing green spaces for communities to gather and cherish the natural habitat.
Managing the shorelines of the watershed is critical for flood mitigation. The current climate brings about unprecedented crises in natural disasters. Extreme loss of life and billions of dollars followed Hurricanes Sandy, Irene, Lee, and most recently, Ida. This bill recognizes that nature-based flood mitigation and restoring riparian corridors are cost-effective solutions. These nature-based features will maximize the resilience of neighboring communities and natural habitats in this era of changing sea levels and storm risks.
Managing the shorelines is also critical to improving the fish and wildlife habitat. This watershed also supports threatened and endangered species, including the shortnose and Atlantic sturgeon. Sustaining and enhancing fish and wildlife restoration and protection activities is pivotal for maintaining biodiversity. We need to meet the ecological needs of the wildlife and their habitat–for their protection and benefit and our own.
Many residents in the watershed region lack environmental justice. The populations living in the watershed region deserve access to clean water and the chance to enjoy the wildlife. Maintaining the water quality will improve opportunities for public access and recreation. The water quality in this region is particularly imperative, as this watershed is the source of drinking water for millions of people on the Mohawk, Raritan, and Hackensack Rivers.
The resources provided by the watershed support a very densely populated region, and they deserve adequate green spaces. The public depends on the improvement of the ecosystems and ecological processes in the watershed for clean water and enjoyment. The Watershed Protection Act aims to engage communities lacking in environmental justice through outreach, education, and community involvement to increase support for the restoration and protection activities in the New York-New Jersey Watershed. It also aims to improve opportunities for personal recreation along rivers and shorefronts within these communities.
New York Congressional Rep. Paul Tonko’s bill currently has 25 cosponsors: 16 from New York and nine from New Jersey, including all of the House representatives from Queens. These representatives from New York and New Jersey, and the rest of us from these two states and beyond, should continue to urge members of Congress to support this bill. It is America’s most crowded watershed.
Just this month, a companion bill of the same name was introduced by Senators Cory Booker, and Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. Many versions of this bill have been in and out of Congress for years, and now more than ever, it is absolutely crucial to get it passed and signed into law by President Joe Biden. Our government representatives need to work to solve this problem and protect the watershed, for the environment’s sake, as well as our own.
***
Sarah Quispe is studying at St. John’s University to receive a bachelor’s degree in psychology and master’s degree in criminology and justice.
***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Kids at play (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)
Prior to the pandemic, countless New York families struggled to put food on the table, pay rent, and access the child care or behavioral health care they desperately needed.
Unacceptably, poverty often resulted in families getting involved in the child welfare system and disproportionately impacted children and families of color. Today, the pandemic has only heightened these needs and exacerbated the risk of child welfare involvement.
We’re at an inflection point. Now more than ever, we need to take action to support New York families.
A recent survey of child welfare prevention service providers draws attention to the challenges facing New York’s families and service providers. The survey from the Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies (COFCCA) and Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York (CCC) found that the pandemic has dramatically increased families’ need for cash aid, food, child care, mental health services, internet access, and many other supports.
The survey also found that preventive service providers are running into dire challenges with insufficient funding and staff turnover that limits their capacity to meet families’ needs. A significant share of survey respondents reported that their agency does not have the funding necessary to provide appropriate internet and transportation options to enable communication and contact with families. Additionally, close to half of providers reported challenges with retaining and recruiting personnel, such as licensed clinicians, to staff prevention programs.
Through the state budget process, the governor and New York lawmakers have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine our child welfare system. While the heightened needs of families have not dissipated, the statute underwriting the financing of the entire child welfare system – including protective services, prevention, independent living, foster care, adoption and kinship guardianship – is about to sunset.
Governor Kathy Hochul’s recently-released Fiscal Year 2023 Executive Budget fails to go far enough to address increased child and family needs.
We must ensure that the state budget adopted by April 1 heavily invests in supports that can strengthen families and communities to ensure child safety and family stability. We can achieve this by reauthorizing and reforming the child welfare financing statute, investing in primary prevention, and committing to universal child care.
We also must leverage the budget process in a manner that ensures we make strides in addressing the root causes that bring countless children and families into the child welfare system in the first place and to prevent the life-altering trauma that comes with it.
First, we need intentional investments in primary prevention so counties can address and prevent trauma and hardship and ensure access to services that help children and families thrive. We must support community-driven “whole child and whole family” approaches to primary prevention, with neighborhood investments that improve wellbeing and avert child welfare involvement all together.
Second, we have an opportunity to create a universal child care system available in all communities that focuses on supporting the social, emotional, and developmental needs of young children and provides parents with resources critical to accepting and maintaining employment or pursuing educational opportunities.
Lastly, we have an opportunity to reauthorize and strengthen the child welfare financing statute by securing full funding and restoration of the state and local 65/35 match for prevention; by pulling funding for Kinship Guardianship out of the Foster Care Block Grant and ensuring KinGap subsidies mirror adoption subsidies; and by raising the value of the child welfare housing subsidy to promote family reunification and independent living.
Furthermore, the budget must adequately invest in a stable, well-trained workforce, by increasing base salaries for staff and providing regular cost of living adjustments.
The pandemic has laid bare the fragility of our lives and has dramatically heightened the needs of children and families who were already struggling; many of whom were known to the child welfare system or at risk for child welfare involvement. As budgets are statements of what we value, it is incumbent upon us to ensure that the state’s adopted budget invests in children and families and ensures they have access to the wide range of services needed to support their safety, well-being, and strengths.
***
State Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi represents parts of Queens and chairs the Assembly’s Children and Families Committee. On Twitter @AndrewHevesi.
***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
On the subway (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)
My friend and I had left the theatre on 42nd Street around 11 p.m. on a recent beautiful night. We walked peaceably to catch our usual #1 train at Times Square—the station where a young woman, Michelle Go, had been pushed to her death in front of a train by an apparently deranged, homeless man just days earlier.
The platform was packed but the train, also packed, came quickly. Almost immediately we sensed something was wrong, as people shifted uncomfortably and looked to the back of the car, where a man was yelling obscenities.
Then a lovely, trained soprano voice started singing:
“Goodnight, my someone
Goodnight, my love”
Dressed in white, she was blond, small, delicate, very slim, almost emaciated, and poised.
“Shut the fuck up,” came the man’s voice.
“Sleep tight, my someone
Sleep tight, my love
Our star is shining its brightest light…”
I pulled out a dollar, which she saw, stepping forward to take the money without pausing her song.
“Sweet dreams be yours, dear, if dreams there be. . .”
“Didn’t you hear me? I said shut up.”
Suddenly he was there beside her, big, menacing, and mean: “Once and for all shut the fuck up or I’ll do it for you.”
She whirled and lunged “Touch me and I’ll rip your fucking face off.” Shocked and silenced, he froze, as did everyone. The car doors opened, my stop. She exited ahead of me and disappeared. A survivor, apparently.
Nothing is good about this story except that it could have ended far worse.
This is what we’ve come to—our subway system, the lifeline of New York, precarious, unpredictable, dangerous. Bizarre episodes occur regularly, reflecting disorder, and far more often than in the pre-pandemic past, ending in violence.
New York Needs Its Subways to Work
"When the subways work, the city works,” said the late planner, Alexander Garvin, on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Bloomberg administration had put huge resources and concentrated effort into rebuilding downtown and its public transportation, and New York was thriving, despite many expert predictions to the contrary.
When the subways don't work, New Yorkers worry—and neighborhoods decline. And right now, the subways aren’t fully working, and New Yorkers know it. Ridership is down by more than a third over the month of January, coinciding with Omicron and unignorable violence, Or to think of the numbers in another way, daily subway trips fell from a pandemic-era high of 3.4 million in early December to only 2.57 million trips on Jan. 31—roughly half the pre-pandemic ridership of 5.5 million.
MTA leadership is making no attempt to sugarcoat this. The MTA is suffering from “a crisis of rider confidence,” says Chair and CEO Janno Lieber: “Our riders are letting us know that they don’t feel safe. Our workforce is scared in addition to our passengers. Our workforce is scared because they’re feeling vulnerable.”
The NYPD reported 461 felony assaults in the subways in 2021, a level not seen since 1997, said the MTA. The system also had eight homicides last year, the highest number since data was first tracked.
Reported crime is up, as is the sense of disorder. Lieber says that the presence of homeless people in cars and in stations is also damaging. Their number is large – some 1,600 homeless people are living in the subway system, estimates Robert Mascali, a former city homelessness official and vice president for Supportive Housing at Women in Need.
Lieber told CBS2’s Marcia Kramer, “They are scaring our riders. They are having a disproportionate impact on not just riders’ sense of vulnerability, but on the conditions in the system.” To Kramer’s question, “How do you get them out of the subways?” Lieber answered inconclusively: “Our rules of conduct in the subway system say that if you’re engaged in erratic behavior, if you’re doing things that impact on other people you may not belong there.”
What is to be done? The MTA is in the difficult position of being forced to handle an immense social problem—homelessness—that is far outside its mission or area of expertise. Meanwhile, the responsible agency, the New York City Department of Homeless Services, has allowed the subway’s underground population to grow unchecked, said state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli. DHS and the MTA have paid the outreach contractor, the Bowery Residents Committee, an aggregate of $88.8 million since 2010. DiNapoli called the outreach services, which are supposed to help homeless people find shelter, “shoddy.” The lack of results has been obvious to regular subway riders for years, even pre-pandemic.
I take the subway nearly every day, even as friends and neighbors urge me not to, which they do partly because our #1 train, running the length of the West Side, seems to be especially vulnerable to chaos. Sometimes it’s disturbing but non-threatening—the man the other night in the frigid cold, sleeping covered by a marathon silver sheet, bare feet sticking into the aisle. More often it’s alarming—the woman sprawled across four seats, bellowing vulgarities at the entire car, selecting individuals for specific insults: “Hey fat girl, you think that you’re hot stuff in your Lululemon?”
These incidents and their seeming omni-presence these days do not leave New Yorkers feeling good about their city – or likely to ride the subway if they have other options. The Chief of NYPD Transit told the January MTA Transit & Bus Committee that prolific offenders who are repeatedly released back into the population right away are the major problem–and that “there need to be more serious consequences for crimes.”
We’ve Been Through This Before
As Joseph Raskin showed in his book, The Routes Not Taken, the details of constructing and maintaining New York’s subways were contentious and even contrarian from the very first days. But in addition to chronic crises there were several periods of profound crises – the 1980s being one of the worst and most recent. In 1983 “New York City's subway system was in chaos, rife with crime, derailments, delays, broken doors, track fires, and graffiti,” wrote William Finnegan in the New Yorker. Ridership had declined to under a billion in 1982, the lowest number since 1917.
Now it’s happening again but more dramatically — the system had far under a billion riders at 640 million in 2020 (official data for 2021 has not yet been released). Such a catastrophic plunge, largely due to the pandemic, has never occurred before.
Governor Mario Cuomo’s solution was to bring in Boston’s Robert Kiley as chairman of the MTA. Kiley understood his job as getting control of the system, which meant changing the culture from top to bottom, reorganizing managerial ranks, securing the yards where trains were kept overnight, and pushing zero tolerance for fare-beating and graffiti. While many of his reforms were fundamental and remain with the system today, he had one serious failure: by 1989 he still faced some quarter of a million passengers a day going over, under, and around turnstiles, said political scientist George Kelling.
Cuomo recruited William Bratton, another Bostonian, as head of the transit police, and he quickly ordered the arrest of fare-beaters. Bratton’s analysis showed that one in seven arrested fare beaters had an outstanding warrant for a previous crime — and one in twenty was carrying an illegal firearm. The Transit Police slogan became, “Disorder, fare-beating, and robbery are one problem. Deal with one and you deal with all.”
Many of Bratton’s ideas are now out of favor, but there’s no denying that after the Kiley-Gunn-Bratton years the subways functioned far better than they had in years. By the mid-1990s they were graffiti-free, safe, and packed with passengers. And they pretty much stayed that way until covid wreaked its destruction. Today’s path back is the path taken decades ago: restore order, and assure New Yorkers they’ll be safe. The problem of homeless people living in MTA facilities is far more severe now than then, spiking nearly 45% in eight important stations just over the summer, according to MTA chief safety officer Patrick Warren. And the challenges of so many New Yorkers working from home will continue.
What Can Be Done
A serious underlying problem is not the MTA’s to solve, and that’s the scandalously substandard quality of many New York City shelters. Mascali says that the number of single adults sleeping nightly in DHS shelters increased by a staggering 154%, from 7,700 in December 2009 to 19,596 in June 2021. Releases from state prisons directly to the shelters are largely to blame for the overcrowding and increase in danger.
Homeless people have repeatedly told outreach workers and journalists that they live in the subways because most shelters are unacceptably dirty and dangerous. But not all are, as the Upper West Side learned in the summer of 2020 when DHS overnight moved some 750 homeless men into previously private hotels. Two of the hotels became targets of neighborhood complaints about men loitering, drinking, fighting, shooting up, and having public sex – but the third, run by the Center for Urban Community Services (CUCS), went uncriticized.
Then-Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer had called CUCS one of the best service providers in the city, and so they were. The manager took community calls and quickly handled complaints, which, by the end of the mens’ stay in July 2021, were almost zero. The men have returned to CUCS’ Delta Manor in the Bronx, a beautiful, new transitional facility with excellent programs, including athletics. If more Department of Homeless Services providers ran their facilities as well as CUCS, the MTA would be facing far less of a crisis – perhaps none at all.
And even though Mayor Adams can and should reorganize and restructure DHS and provide more drop-in centers, his reforms won’t happen in time to help the MTA. Instead, Governor Hochul and Mayor Adams are basically proposing two ideas: more cops and more outreach teams. On WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show, Lieber said that the first step Mayor Adams has taken was to move police officers onto the platforms and onto the trains. Lieber said there would shortly be far more mental health professionals to provide services to those now using the subway as a dwelling.
The NYPD has increased police presence, ordering cops to make at least two subway station checks during their shifts, a law enforcement source told The Post. Gov. Hochul has pledged up to 20 teams of eight to 10 workers this year, including four teams by early spring.
What isn’t clear, however, is whether cops or mental health professionals will have enforcement authority to deter objectionable behavior or move dangerous people out of the subways. What if, as is likely, homeless people want to stay where they are, living in the subway rather than a shelter? Brian Stettin, policy director at the Treatment Advocacy Center, argues that “any strategy to tackle untreated severe mental illness must unapologetically recognize the need to provide involuntary treatment to individuals in crisis.” But this isn’t going to happen so long as what he calls “a phalanx of New York interest groups” oppose involuntary treatment. The major hope is that Governor Hochul’s additional outreach workers will persuade hundreds of homeless people to come in from the cold, temporarily in drop-in centers or longer term in shelters.
As a former NYPD captain and long-time student of crime, Mayor Adams has emphasized that public safety is “the prerequisite to prosperity.” He’s trying to strike a balance between “intervention and prevention,” which won’t be easy. But his mayoralty will only prosper if the subways prosper — once again safe, vandalism-free, and overflowing with New Yorkers.
***
Julia Vitullo-Martin is a long-time editor and writer on cities. On Twitter @JuliaManhattan.
***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
A housing line-up (photo: Governor's Office)
Governor Kathy Hochul’s commitment to a $25 billion, five-year housing plan creating and preserving 100,000 affordable homes throughout the state – including 10,000 supportive housing units designed to prevent homeessness – sends a bold and welcome signal to low-income New Yorkers still grappling with the spiraling economic effects of the pandemic.
At a time when 4 in 10 job losses have not come back since early 2020 – especially in food service, tourism, and retail sectors populated by hourly workers – we must tackle the complexities of creating more affordable and supportive housing. Otherwise, we’ll see a deepening of the bifurcated economy that has led to greater homelessness among families, curtails children’s long-term potential, and threatens the future vibrancy of our city.
Affordable and permanent supportive housing play vital roles in keeping people housed. Affordable housing enables low-income New Yorkers to pay a portion of their income for rent – 30% for applicants with income up to roughly $25,000 for an individual and up to $36,000 for a family of four – and be protected from dramatic hikes. Provided by entities like NYCHA and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, most affordable housing is accessed via lottery and requires a 12-month positive rental history. This can be a high bar for individuals and families in shelter or facing homelessness.
Supportive housing is a subset of affordable housing focused on many of the most vulnerable New Yorkers. In residences built for this purpose or through subsidized apartments, supportive housing offers the dignity of a lease and key at 30% of a person’s income – coupled with counseling to enable long-term security by addressing employment, health, special needs, or substance abuse barriers.
There are some 50,000 supportive housing units in New York – the leader in the nation. The state and city have each pledged 15,000 supportive housing units by 2030, and have funded approximately 40%. The NYC 15/15 Initiative has funded residences including ones we have built for veterans, LGBTQ+ young adults, and families. Yet the needs are far greater.
Last year, more than 107,000 different homeless individuals, including nearly 32,000 children, slept in the New York City Department of Homeless Services shelter system. More than half of all families in shelters have at least one member with a disability.
Lack of supportive housing is one of the primary drivers of homelessness – but its impact is felt across our neighbors’ education, employment, and health and wellness. Even as parents struggle to get or keep jobs, life in a shelter can lead to disruptions in their children’s access to healthy food, school transportation, and technology, and to increased risks of physical or mental health issues.
That’s why supportive housing, which includes vital social services, is essential to our city’s long-term housing plan. Among Jericho Project’s nine supportive housing residences, 95% of all residents do not return to homelessness.
But there are stubborn obstacles, such as New York’s deficit in supportive housing stock and a shortage of vacant land that helps keep prices stratospheric. Those developers committed to housing equity face a gauntlet of city, state, and, often, private funding requirements. And sadly, most supportive housing units require negotiations with community boards to accept them into neighborhoods.
Converting hotels into studio apartments can be another source of supportive housing, as outlined last September in a plan by now-Mayor Eric Adams to create 25,000 total housing units from such conversions. Recently, Governor Hochul said she wants to amend a state law to allow hotels within 800 feet of a residential area to be converted into permanent homes.
Another important tool is the 15% set-aside of residential units for formerly homeless individuals and families in affordable housing projects receiving public funds, implemented by New York City beginning in 2020.
For these to succeed, we as individuals can make a difference. Housing insecure families are like any of us. They want the best for their children, but struggle with issues that can push them into homelessness: disabilities among children or adults; a lost job; caregiver demands; mental health issues, a health setback.
We all share the same backyard when it comes to the future of our city. Let’s consider our choices:
Will we fear a hotel conversion or teach our children how to live alongside others not as fortunate as ourselves?
Will we refuse to rent where apartments are set aside for formerly homeless families, or value how they transform lives?
Will we remain a city of inequality, where hourly workers – who staffed the office buildings, hotels, and restaurants that brought our city wealth – cannot afford to live?
It will take the political will of our leaders – and a choice of conscience among New Yorkers – to shape a city we can be proud of post-pandemic.
***
Tori Lyon is CEO of Jericho Project, a 39-year-old nonprofit providing housing and services to nearly 3,000 homeless and housing insecure New Yorkers annually. On Twitter @JerichoProject1.
***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Renewable energy for New York City (photo: Governor's Office)
Climate extremes in New York are on the rise, from flooding to excessive heat. The city is experiencing frequent heat waves, including three last year, when temperatures soared to 90 degrees Fahrenheit or higher for three consecutive days. Five of the hottest Julys on record occurred between 2010 and 2020.
Part of how we tackle climate change is by implementing and supporting wise energy policy that brings on more non-carbon-emitting energy. We need to prioritize how we sustain energy security and avert deadly power outages like what Texas experienced almost one year ago. Mitigating against climate change requires a deep energy transition, and for New York, that means looking up to Quebec for hydropower.
The hard reality is decarbonizing the electric grid will require supporting economically viable and socially acceptable clean energy and transmission projects. And to that point, there's a project many in New York may not have heard of but is a critical one for the city's future energy security. The Champlain-Hudson Power Express (CHPE) is a 339-mile permitted and buried transmission line that will bring clean, renewable, and abundant hydropower from Canada into the New York metro area by 2025.
Construction of the transmission line will create 1,400 construction jobs and go a long way in helping New York City and State achieve their clean energy and carbon emissions reduction targets by 2030 and 2050; without this project, the math doesn’t add up.
As of today, New York State only has 28% clean energy in its mix. And shockingly 90% of the electricity powering New York City currently comes from the burning of fossil fuels that has direct negative impacts on people’s health in frontline and disadvantaged communities.
Hydropower is a viable clean alternative to fossil fuel plants and already plays an important role in the state’s energy mix. New York has the opportunity through CHPE to build in more resilience and reliability at a time when energy insecurity is a problem for other states.
The CHPE line represents a vital interconnected and mutually beneficial economic energy relationship between Canada and the United States; an example of cross-border clean electricity transmission with our oldest ally.
Find an energy project, whether fossil-focused or clean, that requires building infrastructure, and there will be pushback and criticism; there's no project that garners 100 percent consensus. But if you want to find a project that has strong political and stakeholder support, the CHPE does it thanks to a decade of extensive community and stakeholder outreach. The process has been long and successfully inclusive. A powerful example is an indigenous leader, Grand Chief Sky-Deer of the Mohawk of Kahnawake, co-owners of the Quebec portion of the line. She calls the project a "game-changer" for her people.
What should be a slam dunk win for New York is like most energy infrastructure projects these days still a target for incumbent energy producers and a small minority of environmentalists who have been actively seeking to derail and slow down clean energy projects in the Northeast. It’s critically important for our collective good and public interest that shovel-ready projects like CHPE move forward if we are ever going to hope to address the existential threat of climate change.
Other parts of the country have successfully launched similar projects like the Great Northern Transmission Line, a 224-mile line running from Canada to the U.S. that delivers hydropower from Manitoba, Canada to Grand Rapids, Minnesota to help balance the healthy wind resources in the northern Midwest.
We are almost to the February 7 deadline of the New York State Public Service Commission public comment period to review the CHPE contract with the state. Governor Hochul announced this project as vital to the state reaching its goals and getting people back to work in our economic recovery from covid. CHPE is one of the largest clean energy transmission line projects in New York history and is critical for the city's energy security.
And let's be grateful we are getting this hydropower from friendly Canada, the United States' largest and most reliable trading partner. Look across the Atlantic to Europe and watch the cautionary tale of what happens when energy security is put at risk due to an over-reliance on Russia for natural gas; the residential energy consumer is paying a 4-5 times higher price for gas this year than a year ago. We have clean and abundant hydro from our (friendly and democratic) neighbor to the north; it's a no-brainer.
Without CHPE, we increase our window of vulnerability: offshore wind is projected to come online mid-decade at the earliest, and as important a source and the contribution it will be for New York's power mix, it remains intermittent, so we'll need to make sure we have reliable hydropower to back it up. Moving forward with this critical transmission line for New York is not really optional; yes, this is about moving to clean energy, but it is also about keeping the lights on and ensuring New York's energy resilient future.
***
Carolyn Kissane is the academic director of the graduate programs in Global Affairs and Global Security, Conflict and Cyber at the Center for Global Affairs and a clinical professor, as well as the director of the SPS NYU Energy, Climate Justice and Sustainability Lab. On Twitter @carolynkissane.
***
Have an op-ed idea or submission for Gotham Gazette? Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.