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The State Should Restart the City’s Clock on Shrinking Class Sizes


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School in session (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


In 1980, Robert Jackson enrolled his daughter in Kindergarten at P.S./I.S. 187 on Cabrini Boulevard in Washington Heights. He soon noticed that her class sizes were huge, sometimes more than 30 or 35 children. There were no science or art rooms left because the school had been forced to convert them to classrooms. He decided to run for president of the school’s parents association, was elected, and soon thereafter became the head of the Community School Board in District 6.

As School Board President, Jackson decided to do something about the deplorable and overcrowded conditions in his district’s schools and citywide, and in 1993, he formed a coalition of parents, community members, and education advocates to sue the state for more education funding.  

This lawsuit, filed in 1995, became known as the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) case, and in a landmark 2003 decision, New York’s highest court ruled that the city’s schools had severe and chronic deficiencies due to underfunding by the State of New York.  

One of these core deficits was class size, which the justices concluded were far too large to provide children with their right to a sound basic education under the State Constitution.

In their ruling, the Justices noted that “evidence of the advantages of smaller class sizes supports the inference sufficiently to show a meaningful correlation between the large classes in City schools and …poor academic achievement and high dropout rates.” They also found that “tens of thousands of students are placed in overcrowded classrooms...The number of children in these straits is large enough to represent a systemic failure.” 

Smaller classes in grades K-3 are a proven, cost-effective method of improving student success. They lead to better grades and test scores and reduce disciplinary problems and teacher attrition. Children assigned to small classes in the early grades are more likely to graduate high school, go on to college, receive a STEM degree, and own their own home. And studies show that smaller classes in the middle and upper grades are correlated with greater student engagement, persistence, and other attributes critical to better outcomes.

Students who reap the most benefit from smaller classes are those from low-income households, along with students of color, those with disabilities, and English language learners. Yet nearly two decades after the CFE ruling, class sizes in New York City public schools have actually increased rather than decreased – especially in the early grades.  

Why no progress? In 2007, in response to the CFE ruling, the State Legislature overhauled New York’s school finance system. It enacted a new funding formula, Foundation Aid, promising a massive infusion of new state aid, and a new law, the Contracts for Excellence (C4E) Law, to ensure that the additional funds districts received were spent on programs proven to improve student learning. The law also specifically required the city to develop and implement a plan to phase-in smaller classes over five years. 

Although New York City developed such a plan, it didn’t follow through. The result? Class sizes remain excessive, and, in the early grades, have actually increased by about 10%. Large disparities persist across the city, with especially huge classes in schools where the population has grown most quickly – often schools with high concentrations of immigrant and Latino students. Last year, more than a third of all students were in classes of 30 or more.

New York City teachers agree that reducing class size would be the best reform to improve student outcomes, and parents put smaller classes among their top priorities every year on Department of Education surveys. Most principals concur.

In 2018, nine public school parents, along with the Alliance for Quality Education and Class Size Matters, sued the city for not reducing class size according to the C4E law. Yet our lawsuit lost in court, primarily because the years cited in the law to implement a class size reduction plan had lapsed.

The federal government is providing the city’s public schools with $7 billion in additional aid to help them reopen safely and well. In addition, due to the efforts of advocates and a progressive State Legislature, including Robert Jackson, now a State Senator, our schools will receive the additional funding promised by the Legislature in 2007, with $530 million next year, rising to $1.3 billion annually over the next three years.  

In recognition of the importance of smaller classes, Senator Jackson and Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon have introduced bills in their respective houses that would restart the clock on New York City’s obligation to lower class size. At the same time, the City Council, led by Council Member Daniel Dromm, Finance Committee chair and former middle school teacher, is calling for $250 million to be dedicated towards class size reduction next year.

The past year-and-a-half have been extremely difficult and disruptive for most students, who have spent months trying to learn remotely, staring into screens with only intermittent engagement with their teachers, fellow classmates, and the curriculum at hand. Isolated, bored, disconnected and at times even despondent, they will need the close, in-person support of their teachers more than ever before. It is even more evident now that human relationships are central to children’s emotional and intellectual development, and the strength of those relationships are immensely enhanced in a smaller class. It is past time that our city’s students are provided with the class sizes that have long been promised but never delivered by our elected leaders.

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Leonie Haimson is Executive Director of Class Size Matters. Wendy Lecker is Senior Attorney at the Education Law Center. On Twitter @LeonieHaimson & @Wlecker.

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Getting Back to Our Roots: End the Influence of Multinational Corporations in New York Elections


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Wall Street (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


For the framers of our Constitution, the desire to free themselves from corruption by foreign powers was central to their debates at the hot summer in Philadelphia that gave structure to what became the oldest surviving democracy. But the threat of foreign influence, and corruption--the struggle for self-determination, self-representation, and freedom from outside influence--continues. 

That struggle is epitomized by unlimited campaign spending by corporations and wealthy individuals through super PACs and dark money groups. Since 1976, the Supreme Court has approached campaign finance reform with growing skepticism, slowly loosening restrictions on political spending to the point that just about anything goes.

New York now has the chance to turn this tide, and usher in a new era of freedom nationwide, with a bill that could blast a hole in Citizens United v. FEC. 

The New York Democracy Preservation Act, championed by State Senator Michael Gianaris and Assemblymember Latrice Walker, is making its way through the New York Legislature. The bill, which just passed the State Senate, takes aim at one of campaign finance’s heaviest hitters: the multinational corporation. Corporations with partial foreign ownership have thrown millions of dollars into races on the federal, state, and local levels to lift restrictions on their activities and grow their bottom line, always at the expense of everyday Americans denied the ability to impact our democracy.

The 2016 election gave us a perfect example of this attempted bribery in New York. Airbnb, partially owned by a Russian oligarch’s venture fund, spent at least $1.2 million in New York’s 2016 legislative races while fighting a bill to end the advertising of illegal units on home-sharing sites.

The Democracy Preservation Act isn’t just a landmark bill in the fight for campaign finance reform — it’s also common sense. Federal law explicitly prohibits all election-related contributions, expenditures, donations, and disbursements made directly or indirectly by foreign nationals. Such restrictions are enshrined in the Constitution in the form of the Foreign Emoluments Clause. Unless, of course, the foreign national owns stock in a major corporation.

How does this work with the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision in Citizens United v. FEC? In the decision, the majority held that big corporations spending unlimited sums of money in our elections deserved First Amendment protection. The logic of Citizens United might seem to apply to foreign money, too. However, a case just two years later in 2012 made clear that Citizens United doesn’t preclude limits on foreign spending, making this legislation possible. It would make a big dent — over 98% of S&P 500 companies would fall in its ambit. In fact, it points to a fatal logical flaw in Citizens United, which simply failed to address the inevitable role of corporations with foreign owners spending in elections. 

The measures laid out in the bill aren’t entirely unique. Similar legislation, pioneered by the nonprofit advocacy group Free Speech For People, is on the books for municipal elections in Seattle, Washington. In the lead-up to Seattle’s 2019 City Council elections, omnipresent tech giant Amazon spent $1.5 million to elect business-friendly candidates. Their efforts were mostly unsuccessful, and in January 2020, the Seattle City Council voted unanimously to bar multinational corporations like Amazon from spending money to influence city elections.

Countering the corrupting influence of corporations and billionaires, both foreign and domestic, on our elections is no easy task, but it is vital to the future of our democracy. By passing the Democracy Preservation Act, New York can embody the best parts of our framing generation — the anticorruption spirit — and put an end to the fundamental threat of money from foreign-influenced corporations in our elections. Because democracy should be by and for the people it represents, and no one else.

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Zephyr Teachout is an Associate Law Professor at Fordham Law School. On Twitter @ZephyrTeachout.

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Note: this article has been updated to reflect Airbnb disputed the $11 million figure reported by the Daily News - that number has been adjusted to "at least $1.2 million" to reflect one Airbnb PAC's spending.

To Build Back Better, New York Should Build Public Renewables


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(photo: Mike Groll/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)


A state with the nation’s most ambitious climate justice goals and a White House and Congress promising historic investment in green infrastructure should be a match made in heaven. If we act quickly and pass the New York Build Public Renewables Act, we can make the most of this historic opportunity to rebuild our energy system and economy, and ensure the historic targets we set in 2019 on eradicating carbon emissions and environmental racism become reality.

The New York Build Public Renewables Act, or “NYBPRA,” (bill S6453/A1466a), introduced by State Senator Kevin Parker and Assemblymember Robert Carroll, will enable our nation-leading public power provider, New York Power Authority, to lead a mass buildout of 100% renewable energy.

According to a recent report from a University of Pennsylvania research group, this will create up to 51,000 jobs; build enough renewable energy to power the majority of the state; add as much as $93 billion to the state’s economy; and put billions in green stimulus towards fighting environmental racism in frontline communities like the “Asthma Alley” shared by Queens and The Bronx. This is all achievable without raising taxes a single cent.

The NYBPRA is a revenue-neutral bill that jumpstarts renewable energy construction and adds over $90 million to the economy. Since its creation by New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, NYPA has gone from New Deal prototype to the nation’s leading public power provider, supplying over 25% of New York State with 80% renewable energy. And it is funded by issuing its own bonds, which are highly-rated by all three major rating agencies.

And unlike for-profit options like NRG, which even in 2021 feel as comfortable as ever pushing fracked gas projects on Asthma Alley, despite fierce opposition from the community and its representatives, NYPA’s long history as a top public institution has proven it a more accountable, transparent, and cost-effective option for all involved.

Though ambitious, this plan is not risky. NYPA is the rare institution to be as lauded by Green New Deal activists as by S&P Global. The fact is, the risk of not passing it is far greater. In 2021, New Yorkers know the climate crisis isn’t some abstract fear—it’s heightened COVID deaths, heatwaves, hurricanes, and the huge racial disparities in who they harm most.

NYBPRA will put New York in prime position to use every last federal dollar from the American Jobs Plan, the Department of Energy’s $8.25 billion electrical transmission loan, and anything else our federal counterparts can offer as cost-effectively, transparently, and equitably as possible.

It will let Congress know that when the American Jobs Plan comes to our state, we’ll execute it with the same leadership and success that makes “New York” a name known all across the globe. That when it comes to Building Back Better, New York will build back best.

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Michael Gianaris is New York State Senate Deputy Majority Leader and represents parts of Queens. On Twitter @SenGianaris.

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City Should Quickly Expand Use of Schools as Vaccine Hubs — Welcoming Students, Parents, Staff and Anyone Else


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Mayor de Blasio at a school offering vaccines (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Wednesday that New York City would launch covid vaccination sites at select schools across the city for 12 to 17-year-olds. The program is to start at four schools in the Bronx on Friday, June 4, and move to additional locations in the five boroughs, trying to vaccinate large numbers of kids by the end of school this month. The mayor should be commended for this initiative, along with City Council Member Mark Levine, chair of the Health Committee, who had been advocating for this effort.

The converging developments involving the return to full in-person learning this fall for the school system, and the expansion of COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to adolescents, were strong arguments to use the schools as vaccine sites. But the outreach power of the schools is enormous, and several million adults in the city, the vast majority of them Black and Hispanic, remain unvaccinated. 

There are hundreds of junior high schools and high schools available -- with all their security, their gyms, cafeterias, and auditoriums for space, their freezers in their kitchens for storing vaccines, and their widespread proximity to the people in their neighborhoods, who drop their kids or work at schools or simply walk by them all the time -- that could be perfect locations for continued mass outreach. That is why city government should plan to vaccinate adults as well as kids at the schools and ramp this effort up as quickly as possible in order to help overcome some of the gaps in vaccination that we’ve seen.

New York City’s overall vaccination effort is keeping pace with the nation. According to the city Department of Health vaccine tracking system, by last week about 61% of adults aged 18 and up have received at least one dose of the vaccine. The Center for Disease Control vaccine tracker reported as of May 26 that 62% of American adults had received at least one dose of the vaccine.

Here is the city’s breakdown as of May 28 (with data updated through May 27):

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The city’s table shows more than 2.5 million adults still have not received one dose of the vaccine. Data in the city’s table also show that 7% of persons aged 0-17 have received the vaccine. Mayor de Blasio stated in his announcement this week that about 118,000 12 to 17-year-olds have already been vaccinated, about 23% of the city’s population of persons in this age group. That means about 400,000 12 to 17-year-olds are still unvaccinated, nearly all of whom will be in school in September. 

Although the city’s overall vaccination rate is showing similar progress to the nation, it hides massive racial and ethnic disparities. This table, from the city’s data set just cited, shows how striking these disparities are:

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Description automatically generatedOnly 34% of Black adults have received one dose of the vaccine. That rate is 45% for Latino adults, 52% for white adults, and 76% for Asian adults. The city Health Department offers a caution on the data: some vaccination reports don’t identify a racial or ethnic background, and DOH records show about 11% of the vaccinated adults don’t have their race or ethnicity identified. It means that the actual vaccination rates for the different groups are somewhat higher, but the overall concern doesn’t change. Using the percentages of the city’s population broken down into different ethnic groups from 2019 Census estimates, and comparing those to the percentages vaccinated, I estimate that nearly 2 million of the roughly 3 million unvaccinated adults and adolescents are Black or Hispanic.

The city begins a summer school program on July 6 that includes all grades. Not every school will open. Junior high school and high school sites will be clustered. For instance, one junior high school will open and receive students from nearby junior high schools for the program in addition to their own. The programs run through mid-August. The city could add vaccine distribution at the summer school sites and continue them through August and the beginning of the school year while expanding the effort to as many schools as possible.

The Biden administration said it plans to ship vaccines to pediatricians. A Kaiser Family Foundation vaccine monitoring survey indicates about 40% of parents of adolescents aged 12-17 either have already had their children vaccinated or plan to do so soon. This survey suggests that a majority of adolescents will not be vaccinated in the very near future. 

Again, the outreach power of the schools is enormous. Every school has records of the addresses and phone numbers of the families whose children are enrolled. The parents and other family members of the kids can be invited to get vaccinated at the school, and parent associations can be enlisted to encourage parents to use the schools for vaccinations.

The schools should also be available to the general public. The schools have the records of the kids who dropped out, and of the kids who just graduated. Many high school students are “overage” and many kids don’t graduate until they are 19 or 20 years old, and the lowest percentages of unvaccinated adults are the youngest adults, aged 18-24. Sixty-six percent of New York City public school students are Black or Hispanic. The schools should stay open into the early evenings to address one of the most significant hurdles remaining to get the population vaccinated — the work schedules of people who can’t get time off or need time after the workday is over.

Vaccination progress will continue as the summer rolls on;  thankfully the vaccines are widely available at pharmacies and many other sites. But with 3 million New Yorkers unvaccinated, developing the potential of the schools to reach the broad population of the city still unvaccinated is a self-evident proposition.

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

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De Blasio is on Right Track, But Mental Health Response Teams Need Crucial Changes to Really Work


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Emergency response (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


Last month, Mayor de Blasio unveiled his Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2022, which included a $112 million line item to expand his mental health teams pilot, yet to get off the ground, citywide. Minimizing the role police officers play in responding to mental health crisis calls is a sure sign of progress, but the fact of the matter is that there is absolutely no role for law enforcement in a truly compassionate and appropriate crisis response system.

Eighteen New Yorkers experiencing mental health crises were killed in police encounters in the five-year period spanning 2015-2020, to say nothing of the many others injured and otherwise harmed.

De Blasio’s proposal stops short of the transformation that’s needed to help New Yorkers get the right support in their time of crisis. There are two key issues that must be addressed if the system is to save lives: the role of police must be eliminated, beyond the 30+% of calls the city estimates will still require police intervention; and involvement of peers—those with lived mental health crisis experience—on the teams is essential.

According to the city, the proposed mental health teams, composed of a licensed clinical social worker and emergency medical technicians from the city’s Bureau of Emergency Medical Services (EMS), are to be dispatched to “urgent, non-violent mental health needs.” Whether or not police will be dispatched is entirely up to the existing 911 call center staff, who are to use their judgement to determine if someone poses a “public safety risk.” This is a pivotal decision, and one wholly inappropriate to embed within the existing 911 processes. Leaving this decision to the discretion of the NYPD’s 911 call center leaves little hope that police will be used judiciously, and endangers those in need of care.

Meanwhile, the city’s failure to meaningfully involve trained peers is unacceptable. We can’t design or deliver new services without involving the expertise of those who are most affected by those systems. “Nothing about us, without us,” has been a clarion call of the disability rights movement for decades. Why, then, has the administration failed to incorporate the recommendations of those with lived experience as they have moved to reform our crisis response system?

Our system is in need of transformation, not merely reform, and including peers in the service delivery system is the way to ensure transformative change. Without peers as required components of the new teams, the city risks replacing one flawed system with another. 

Correct Crisis Intervention Today in NYC (CCIT-NYC) has developed a proposal, first shared with the de Blasio administration last spring, that properly addresses these issues. Our mental health teams consist of one trained peer and one independent emergency medical technician (EMT). Given the embedded nature of the city’s EMS within the current, flawed system, as well as EMS’ own admission that they do not wish to take on this task, we believe independent EMTs are a better choice. And, we have built our proposal on successful models found elsewhere in the country, like CAHOOTS in Eugene, Oregon, which has a nearly 40-year track record of responding to mental health crises without a single injury to those experiencing a crisis or to its staff. 

Most importantly, our proposal was developed by the very people who are likely to be on the receiving end of such a system. Indeed, many of us have had experience with police officers when experiencing a crisis.

De Blasio’s initiative is a welcome first step, but the city must take another look and get this right. Failure to do so puts New Yorkers in crisis at risk of serious harm from police violence. System transformation is possible. It is long overdue. And it must happen now. 

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Cal Hedigan, CEO of Community Access, and Carla Rabinowitz, Advocacy Coordinator at Community Access, are members of Correct Crisis Intervention Today - NYC (CCIT-NYC). On Twitter @ca_nyc and @ccitnyc.

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Dream Big Dreams: How Federal and State Covid Relief Can Be Used to Revitalize New York City’s Public Schools


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


In 1951, Langston Hughes famously asked, “what happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun, or fester like a sore and then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over—like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?”  

For years, the dreams of children in our community have been deferred. They have been deferred through an army of overcrowded classes, an assembly line of underfunded schools, and a sea of broken promises. The result: far too many low GPAs, poor standardized test performances, and a high rate of placement in special education programs.  

However, with the passage of the federal American Rescue Plan Act, plus an additional $1.3 billion from the State on top of expected funding, New York City is looking at an additional $8.2 billion in public school support. It’s a once in a generation opportunity to reimagine schooling in our city.  Here’s how we can get it done: 

1. Create an Individualized Success Plan for Every Student
Every child needs to know that we are invested in his or her future. This starts by taking a more personalized approach to the learning process.   

Each child should receive an individualized success plan that accounts for academic performance, home environment, and any non-academic variables that impact his or her ability to learn. There should also be benchmarks at every stage of the child’s learning cycle, and students and families should be encouraged to provide feedback during the plan-making process. By having an individualized success plan, we can make sure our kids aren’t falling behind. 

2. Increase Academic Enrichment Opportunities and Aggressively Tackle Learning Loss
There is a direct connection between the amount of time students are engaged in learning and academic achievement. The more time we can devote to teaching our students, the better they will do academically. To put it bluntly, we need longer school days and more after-school tutoring. We must expand summer school and explore Saturday school options.  

I’ve seen firsthand what additional academic enrichment can do for student achievement.  Four years ago, I started a free tutoring and mentoring program called DREAMChasers. In a short amount of time, we’ve been able to get our students into top schools such as Brooklyn Technical High School, the Bronx High School of Science, and Stuyvesant High School.  

The reason our program works is because our students have more time to focus on their studies. No matter where our kids matriculate, they enter high school with over 300 additional hours of tutoring in math, English, and reading comprehension.  

The more opportunities we give our kids to succeed, the more likely they are to reach their potential. 

3. Experiment with Offering Mastery Level Learning Classes in Public Schools
At the Khan Academy, they employ a teaching philosophy called “Mastery Learning,” where they focus on developing a deep understanding of concepts and mastering skills before moving to the next subject.  The Khan Academy is a world-renowned educational organization that provides free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere online. It empowers students who can handle more academic work to move faster through subject areas, while allowing students who need additional assistance ‘mastering’ core concepts, additional time before moving on to more advanced lessons.  

We need to transition to a mastery learning system here in New York. Too often, students advance without developing a proficiency in the basics. They’ve experimented with incorporating mastery learning into California public schools and are already seeing promising results. Switching to a mastery learning model could be the key to ensuring that our students are receiving a quality education.

4. Transforming Public Schools into Community Schools
A community school is a school that offers wrap-around services that address the well-being of our children.  They provide students with access to health care, mentoring, and social services, making it easier to thrive academically.  Community schools have been effective in increasing graduation rates, curbing absenteeism, and increasing academic achievement for students coming from low-income, English language learning, disabled, and temporary-housing home environments.

If we can transform more of our local schools into community schools, we can make sure students dealing with physical, emotional, or social challenges have the help they need so they can focus on their studies.  

And, in the early evenings, community schools could be used as sites for young moms and dads who want to finish high school – offering free child care while their parents learn.  

It’s a holistic approach to teaching that makes it easier for our kids to learn.

5. Expand College or Career Readiness Fellowship Programs for Out-of-School and Out-of-Work Students
We need to do a better job preparing our young people for life after high school. As of December 2017, the three-year graduation rate at CUNY community colleges was just 22%. That is an incredulously low number! Furthermore, nearly 25% of all young people ages 18 to 24 are unemployed and not enrolled in school. The answer is more college or career readiness opportunities so that disconnected youth can thrive in college and build a career. 

For high school graduates interested in enrolling in college, they would attend classes that would help them improve their math, writing, and reading comprehension skills, as well as prepare them for life as a college student. If they’re more prepared for college, they are more likely to graduate.    

For those interested in a career, course work would be focused on preparing them for jobs in high-need and high-growth sectors. Even now, there are job opportunities in areas such as information technology, financial services, climate-resiliency, and health care. With the proper training, we can put our young folks on track to securing jobs that pay a competitive wage and achieve the financial stability needed to raise a family. It could make all the difference for youth in danger of becoming disconnected. 

In 2019, the city created CareerReadyNYC, to help disconnected youth prepare for the workforce.  However, because of the pandemic, things have changed. Here in Southeast Queens, we’ve seen a surge of out-of-school and out-of-work students. By increasing our investment in career readiness programming, we can get some of our most vulnerable young folks back on track. 

With the state and federal funds we are about to receive, we have a bona-fide opportunity to reset our public school system and offer a quality education to our students.  

Let’s make the commitment to individualize the learning process and expand enrichment opportunities.  

Let’s implement a mastery learning system and build more community schools.  

Let’s expand college and career readiness programs that give our kids the support they need after graduating high school.  

Dreams only defer if we let them.  It’s time to take back our children’s future.  

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Jason Myles Clark, Esq. is the founder of the free tutoring and mentoring program DREAMChasers and a Democratic Candidate for City Council in Queens’ District 27. On Twitter @jasonmylesclark.

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A Simple But Essential Step to Help Limit Recidivism


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Rikers Island detainees (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


In New York, our rates of recidivism are unacceptably high. An estimated 45% of all parolees in New York City experience a re-arrest within two years. 

Eliminating barriers to reintegration into society is a proven, fact-based way that we can reduce recidivism, and that starts by treating formerly incarcerated people as regular people. 

In New York, we place a needless hurdle in the way of enabling a formerly incarcerated person from succeeding. Currently, when a person is released from prison, they are given a temporary ID card from the Department of Corrections. In essence, they carry around a card labeling them as a former convict.

This makes it much, much harder for someone returning home to proceed with the day-to-day things they need to succeed in re-building their life. Imagine trying to do something as routine as applying for an apartment and having the broker look at you with fear after seeing that you were incarcerated, or going to a job interview and having the employer immediately question whether you can be trusted. This is what New Yorkers who have paid their debt to society face right now, and it’s not fair.

Reintegrating into society after incarceration is a daunting task. Half the people who get out go straight into a homeless shelter. They need to find a place to live. They need to find a job. Giving them a card that labels them as a former convict only makes this even harder. Instead of providing a released person with the same kind of identification we all have, they are given something that simply makes it more difficult for them to succeed, which is the goal not just for the person returning to society, but for all of us. The stigma associated with these IDs is both unnecessary and extremely harmful. 

Our system of incarceration has lost its focus -- we should be doing everything in our power to reduce incarceration and recidivism, and lowering these rates should be our measure of success. 

We cannot continue to incarcerate Black and brown New Yorkers at such alarming and disproportionate rates, and we need to step back and refocus our efforts on both keeping people out of prison and giving them the tools to succeed and avoid recidivism once they are released. While reforming our policing is part of the equation, it’s on our lawmakers to take action now to reverse this damage.

The truth is this: there’s no public safety reason that anyone can articulate as to why these stigmatized Corrections-issued IDs are necessary in place of a regular, non-driver ID. Why are we complicating the process when what we really need is assistance for people focused on reintegration back into society, finding a job, and spending time with loved ones?

This issue may seem like a small one, but it will make a world of difference for someone who is trying to rejoin society and obtain a job. The number one thing we can do in our state to reduce recidivism is eliminate the barriers to reintegration. 

Our legislation, S1149/A4905, will require the state to provide returnees with a non-driver identification card — which is available to any New Yorker — to each incarcerated individual upon their release from custody. These IDs will help formerly-incarcerated people obtain jobs and live normal lives after their release, which will in turn help to lower our rates of recidivism by supporting reintegration. The state already has the information necessary to issue every person released from prison with a non-driver ID, so implementing this should be easy.

Let’s cut through the bureaucracy and simplify the process.

There’s ample precedent that proves such a program could work. In New York City, there is an already established partnership with the Department of Motor Vehicles that assists parolees in obtaining a non-driver ID. It should be easy for us to use this already existing partnership to provide IDs that don’t carry a stigma to those who have been released from prison.

This issue shouldn’t be a controversial one. A state-issued ID could be the difference for someone struggling to readjust to life on the outside, and it could be the key to reducing recidivism in our state.

This is common sense legislation, and our colleagues in the New York State Legislature should join us and pass S1149/A4905 now.

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Senator Brian Benjamin and Assemblymember David Weprin are members of the New York State Legislature, and are both candidates for New York City Comptroller. On Twitter @NYSenBenjamin & @DavidWeprin.

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A Small But Mighty Model for Community-Driven Development


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New Yorkers participating (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Decisions around development are among the most controversial and consequential that our city leaders face. Whether a single building or an entire neighborhood, rezoning can change the face of a community for years to come. With New York’s desperate need for affordable housing and economic recovery competing against corporate profits and big developers, it is not surprising that these decisions are so contentious. 

Yet as we recover from this pandemic, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to forge a new path forward on zoning decisions to put communities first and ensure new affordable housing that prevents the further displacement of low-income communities of color. 

In my community of Sunset Park, the rezoning of a residential building at 737 4th Avenue provides a small but powerful example of developers succeeding by actually listening to the needs of the community and moving forward in partnership for the common good. 

But this kind of responsible development is the exception in this city when it should be the norm. Without a commitment to community-led development, comprehensive city planning, and real reform to our land use process, we’re leaving our city’s future up to powerful corporate interests when it should lie with the people. 

Over the past several years, Sunset Park’s waterfront has been the focus of many fights over large-scale development projects. As Chair of Brooklyn’s Community Board 7, I fought hard for community voices to have a seat at the table in discussions around the rezoning plan at Industry City that effectively fell apart last year. The project had the potential to create new jobs and spur economic growth, but from day one the private developer ignored the voices of the community. We held more than 25 community meetings on the issue and sought a comprehensive community assessment to inform the negotiations and understand the long-term impacts of the project. The developer refused to change their proposal and moved forward with the process in defiance of the community they hoped to fundamentally reshape, or, more accurately, replace. 

The rezoning at 737 4th Avenue stands in stark contrast. From the outset of the project, the local developer participated in Community Board hearings, heard our concerns, and made key changes to the plan that will benefit our community for years to come. Sunset Park is incredibly diverse, and our immigrant and low-income families desperately need more affordable housing. By listening to advocates — the people who know this community best and want to see it thrive — the developer was able to focus on building much-needed apartments for families, not studios that would attract gentrifiers. Our recommendations helped us win a guarantee of 25% affordable housing and sustainable, good-paying jobs. Due to our efforts and the willingness of this developer to make responsible changes, the rezoning passed unanimously in the City Council. 

While the plan isn’t perfect — we can always fight for greater affordability and more guarantees for the community — this process has proven that we’re being served a false choice by wealthy developers: jobs and economic opportunity in the midst of a recession or affordable housing and services for the community. We can have both — we just have to empower and engage communities in rezoning, and force the developers to take our concerns seriously.  

First and foremost, we need a comprehensive, citywide rezoning plan. We need to stop reacting to one-off development projects, an approach that leaves community members playing defense against powerful interests. Our current approach favors developers and the well-connected and fails to center the needs of those most vulnerable to displacement, homelessness, and the effects of environmental racism. Year after year, we spend precious time and resources fighting harmful proposals like Industry City where developers have the upper hand and can take advantage of hidden loopholes. To build a stronger city, we need to plan for the long-term and enact our vision — the community’s vision — for sustainable, equitable city planning. 

Next, we need to make the land use review process, ULURP, more equitable. If we want to level the playing field and create a real plan for New York City, we need to reform the process from the ground up. Throughout any land use process, our city government has to be open, transparent, and engaged directly with community stakeholders.

On Brooklyn Community Board 7, we’ve worked hard to make meetings accessible, offering simultaneous Chinese and Spanish translations, guaranteeing childcare for working parents, and providing food. To ensure real community engagement, not just the illusion of it, the city needs to provide funding and resources for Community Boards to hire experts, expand language access, and ensure residents can be involved every step of the way. Moreover, we should be utilizing ULURP to support a fully unionized workforce for any new project. 

As with so many issues, this pandemic has created a pivot point in our city’s future. If we want to solve our affordable housing crisis, it’s obvious we need more development. And as we recover from this pandemic, we need to be thinking of new ways to spur economic growth and create more good-paying jobs. But that needs to be driven by the people who live in a community, not developers who would prefer to drive them out.

Projects like the 737 4th Avenue rezoning show us what’s possible when you view the community as key partners, not adversaries. When community voices lead, everyone benefits. 

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César Zuñiga is a Democratic candidate for City Council in Brooklyn’s 38th District. On Twitter @Cesar4Council.

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Homeless Young Adults Must Have Equal Access to Housing in New York City


1 young adults utility

A discussion with young adults (photo: Edwin J. Torres/Mayoral Photograph)


New York City Department of Youth & Community Development (DYCD) shelters and drop-in centers are specifically designated for youth and young adults ages 16-24. Yet, those same youth, when between the ages of 18-24, are not eligible to receive housing vouchers unless they move into a Department of Homeless Services (DHS) adult shelter. For its entirety, the de Blasio administration has withheld critical housing vouchers for young people in DYCD programs rather than provide a viable solution for permanent affordable housing to these individuals. When will it end?

The time for a solution is now – no more band-aids. Year after year, Safe Horizon’s Streetwork Project witnesses youth in this age group cycle in and out of homelessness because they cannot readily access a housing voucher at the very facilities created for them. Our own overnight youth shelter cannot issue housing vouchers to our clients, a true disadvantage to them, and we must direct them to a DHS shelter to go through the “proper channels.”

This ineffective policy is hurting these youth in the worst possible way. Housing is a right not a privilege. To that end, access to housing vouchers and priority access to NYCHA apartments for this age group cannot be put on hold by the city administration any longer. And the COVID-19 pandemic has only heightened this urgency, especially when it comes to safety.

Our clients feel safer in DYCD shelters among their peer group. DYCD shelters were created specifically for young people because of their unique needs. This age group is at a different stage developmentally, socially and emotionally. DYCD youth facilities have staff trained in youth and adolescent development to support and address their needs as we prepare youth towards independence. It is critical to have this particular age group in a setting where staff is skilled in addressing their behavioral health within this specialized focus.

As a resource to young adults seeking safety, stability, and housing, we are faced with the harsh reality of having to tell them we cannot provide them with a housing voucher and have them go down the “rabbit-hole” of obtaining one which in some cases can take years.

A transgender client who recently came to our overnight shelter and felt safe staying with us had to make the tough decision to leave and go to a DHS shelter to possibly obtain a voucher. She is under 21, single with no children; criteria that makes it twice as difficult for her compared to others. Being transgender, she has already experienced rejection from her community. Being homeless and transgender, she is also at greater risk of harm on the streets, as well as at a DHS shelter, which is most often not equipped with the same staff or resources to make her feel safe.

The longer someone is homeless, the prolonged exposure to the violence and poverty only intensifies mental health needs, placing an unnecessary strain and burden on communities. For those who end up on the streets, public survival behaviors such as petty crime, substance use, and sex trade activity, often result in avoidable harm on communities, particularly those of color. Bias and discrimination against poor and homeless young people begets stigmatization, oppression, and consequential outcomes such as drug overdose, incarceration, and dissolution of families.

The ripple effect of leaving DYCD shelters to go to DHS shelters for the purpose of obtaining a housing voucher is another unnecessary step that further exacerbates the city’s homelessness crisis. Providers who offer shelter and services to homeless youth want to work in tandem with the city administration. Eliminating inefficiencies of the system, streamlining processes, making it less complicated to navigate the system, and leveling the field of eligibility for young adults are the keys to getting them into housing. Lack of investment in homeless youth does not benefit the adults they are to become, and it does not benefit the city they call home.

Equal access to vouchers and priority for NYCHA housing is a right for these individuals. They face the same challenges as others being homeless. Though age discrimination is deemed illegal by landlords, why are these young adults being subjected to it as a result of the systems created to assist them?

As New York City transitions into a new mayoral administration for the start of next year, a sound and resolute policy for providing housing vouchers and priority access to NYCHA housing to young adults while in DYCD shelters and programs is imperative. One simple step to accomplishing this is to have all DYCD and DHS shelter and program administrators report to one primary contact in the administration. This alone can streamline communication and align policy-making for equality to be a priority instead of division.

Everyone deserves a home. Everyone deserves an equal chance at obtaining housing. New York City’s young adults deserve to know that is a fact and an easily attainable reality for them, not an abyss of red tape that serves no one.

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Carolyn Strudwick, MSW, is Associate Vice President of the Streetwork Program at Safe Horizon. On Twitter @SafeHorizon.

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A Resounding No to Deadly No-Knock Warrants


bomb squad presser

NYPD (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


As a City Council Member and Chair of the Council’s Public Safety Committee, I understand that people need to feel safe, particularly in their homes. One aspect of this safety is an assurance that authorities will not haphazardly burst in. This is enshrined in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which grants everyone freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. That means there must be probable cause to raid a home.

However, the NYPD and other law enforcement agencies seem to think otherwise. Because instead of substantive evidence, their burden of proof is often nothing more than hearsay from an informant, who may be compensated. Judges are willing to go along and issue warrants. And not just any warrant, but a no-knock warrant. 

Having gained more attention since Breonna Taylor’s death, a no-knock warrant allows law enforcement to raid someone’s home without announcing themselves, often in the middle of the night or early morning, and using military gear. The justification is that the operation would be too dangerous or evidence would be destroyed without the element of surprise.

The NYPD has abused the use of no-knock warrants to an egregious degree, including in my own Southeast Queens district. Early one morning in March, the NYPD broke down the door of my constituent, Tijuana Brown, an African-American woman, on the grounds that her nephew was allegedly dealing drugs. They tore through her home and even cut a hole in her nephew’s bedroom wall, only to find a miniscule amount of cannabis, consistent with personal use. Her nephew was arrested for possession, but the Queens District Attorney’s office later dismissed the case. An officer at the scene allegedly remarked, “Well this was a bust.”

That “bust” traumatized Brown, who now has trouble sleeping, and also cost her almost $1,000 to replace her door, not to mention hours of cleanup.

This was not an isolated incident in my district. In 2017, officers burst into the Far Rockaway home of Nigerian-American husband and wife Isaac Okoli and Millycent Atuegwu in the early morning, pointing guns at them and their children, tearing off Okoli’s sleep apnea device and rolling him to the ground, and startling Atuegwu out of bed. Officers claimed they found cocaine and arrested Okoli for possession. He insists officers planted the drugs, a practice a former NYPD narcotics officer admitted is common. Regardless, the Queens District Attorney quickly dropped the charges. The search warrant listed someone else with the name Okoli at a different address nearby, suggesting the NYPD went to the wrong home. 

These raids have got to stop. The justification, that people would be in danger if officers were to announce themselves, does not hold water. Strangers unexpectedly bursting into someone’s home in the wee hours of the morning has just as much potential for disaster, if not more, for everyone involved. 

For example, in March officers also raided the Queens home of Debra Cottingham, an African-American woman who is a retired correction officer and former NYPD staffer, in search of her boyfriend’s son who no longer lived there. Cottingham owns two legal firearms, which she could very well have discharged at the sound of intruders. Then there was the 2003 case of Alberta Spruill, a 57-year-old African-American woman with a heart condition, who died of cardiac arrest from the shock of NYPD officers breaking down her door and detonating a flash grenade. The officers were searching for drugs, based on an unverified tip, and found none.

Indeed, there have been many deadly incidents stemming from no-knock warrants: the New York Times found that at least 94 people across the country died in no-knock raids from 2010 through 2016. Of these deaths, 13 were law enforcement officers.

Unsurprisingly, these no-knock warrants disproportionately affect and target people of color. And before someone says, “Well that’s because they’re the ones committing the crimes,” consider the fact that law enforcement rarely uses them for white-collar suspects, who tend to be white people. And in a rare case where law enforcement does, like the FBI raid of Donald Trump associate Paul Manafort’s home, multiple legal scholars denounced it as excessive. 

Why is it excessive? After all, one justification of no-knock warrants is that officers announcing themselves would prompt the suspect to destroy evidence, often citing that a drug dealer could start flushing contraband. Would the same not apply to a white-collar criminal, who could easily start deleting files and shredding documents in response to such a knock? 

Encouragingly, state legislation to restrict no-knock warrants might finally pass after decades of floundering. The bill would limit the use of such warrants to cases where there is an “imminent threat to human life,” such as terrorism, human trafficking, kidnapping, or an active shooter. The bill would also require greater oversight of no-knock warrants.

However, even this legislation is probably not enough. Given the NYPD’s track record of what the department calls “threatening,” one can only imagine what inventive excuses police would make to claim there is an imminent threat. We need legislation establishing a burden of proof greater than hearsay, such as weeks of surveillance, as justification for a no-knock warrant.

It is true that law enforcement needs tools at their disposal to keep us safe. However, one of those tools cannot be bursting into people’s homes in military gear based on a sliver of evidence. No-knock warrants are an affront to our Constitutional rights, and must stop in almost every situation. Because a home is meant to be a safe place, and the NYPD must recognize and respect that.

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City Council Member Adrienne Adams represents parts of Queens in District 28 and chairs the Council’s public safety committee. On Twitter @AdrienneEAdams1.

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