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The City Council’s First Test to be The City of Yes We All Need


New housing (photo: @NYCHousing)


The housing market in New York City is more unaffordable than ever. How we got here may be complicated, including decades of zoning barriers to building affordable housing and insufficient overall production, but the way out is simple: every neighborhood must do its part to add to our affordable housing supply, without exception or delay. Rejecting the outdated attitude of “no” is the only way that we will ever overcome this challenge and create the city we deserve.

Mayor Eric Adams has rightly called for a “City That Says Yes” to infrastructure, jobs, and housing. That vision is facing its first test in the eastern Bronx in City Council District 13, where two projects will soon be debated before the Council, the first of which has a hearing on Wednesday. We cannot let the opportunity to say “yes” pass us by.

The first is a mixed-income project on Bruckner Boulevard, including affordable housing for seniors and veterans, and the second is an innovative supportive housing project led by the Fortune Society and NYC Health + Hospitals called Just Home that will provide housing and stability to formerly incarcerated New Yorkers with severe medical challenges on the Jacobi Hospital campus in Pelham Parkway.

Both proposals are in City Council District 13, presenting an opportunity to help fight the housing crisis in a district that has seen little affordable production. The data from our NYC Housing Tracker shows that more than half of District 13 residents are rent-burdened (which means they pay more than 30% of their income on housing), and 14.7% are living below the poverty level. Nearly 1,000 New Yorkers who were in a city shelter at the end of 2021 last lived in one of the two overlapping community boards. This district needs affordable housing as much as anywhere else in the city.

Despite the urgent need, District 13 produced just 58 units of new affordable housing in total over the last eight years – the fifth least among all 51 City Council districts.

Even still, the ugly face of NIMBYism continues to rear its head. A vocal minority of residents in Throggs Neck is fighting the affordable housing projects, shouting down advocates and even threatening them with garden hoses at rallies supporting affordable housing.

Communities should debate the specifics of individual projects, but it must be with the goal of getting to “yes,” for the good of people, communities, and the city as whole. We will never improve our housing crisis as a city by saying no to housing and telling vulnerable neighbors to pack up and find somewhere else to go.

Every neighborhood must say yes to more housing – including more affordable and supportive housing. When each neighborhood does its part of building more affordable housing, we will also be building a more equitable, livable city. In the past, more affordable housing has been built in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods; in the top third of districts in terms of affordable housing production, on average 72% of residents are Black or Latino, while in the bottom third of districts by housing production just 35% of residents are Black or Latino.

We cannot continue this trend. We need low-rise outer-borough neighborhoods that have continually opposed new affordable housing, supportive housing, emergency shelters, and other needed community infrastructure to also do their part.

In other words, we need to powerfully reject the NIMBYism and exclusionary zoning policies that have no place anywhere in New York City. No neighborhood can be allowed to simply opt out as they have in the past.

Throggs Neck may be the first test, but it will not be the last.

The entire metro area has a shortage of 772,000 apartments affordable to very low-income households, while nearly 1 million households are rent-burdened and more than 68,350 people were homeless in New York City, according to the most recent comprehensive estimate.

If we allow the reactionary forces in Throggs Neck to outnumber voices for positive change and growth, then those forces will be empowered everywhere – and the crisis will only get more distressing, year by year.

That is not the city that New Yorkers deserve. We must simply start making better choices – and that starts now, in Throggs Neck and then in every New York City neighborhood.

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

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A Fall To-Do List for the City Council’s Veterans Committee


At a Veterans Day parade (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


When City Council Member Robert Holden was appointed chair of the Council’s veterans committee in January, there was optimism in the city’s military veterans advocacy community as many felt his predecessor was caretaking the committee and holding hearings that didn’t press the city’s Department of Veterans Services (DVS) for answers.  

Yet over the past several months, veterans have been surprised at the Council Member’s seeming unwillingness, particularly with his no-nonsense reputation, to take the agency head-on. That instead has come from Council Members Joanne Ariola and Vickie Paladino, who have chided the agency at several hearings, including Paladino threatening to request a Comptroller audit.

With fall upon us and a return to a more active City Council, as well as the recent re-appointment of Veterans Commissioner James Hendon (after a conflict-of-interest board violation), this is a chance to reset and discuss topics the community believes the committee should consider holding hearings on.

Already, the Council’s veterans and small business committees are scheduled to hold a joint hearing in late September on “veteran entrepreneurship and public contract opportunities”; despite the fact there was a similar hearing with the small business committee less than 10 months ago. At that hearing, it was pointed out that the lack of access to capital is a serious challenge, with Commissioner Hendon sharing that veteran entrepreneurship dropped 33% nationally over the last 20 years. It wasn’t explained how that percentage translated to city veterans. 

The Commissioner also testified that DVS “connects veteran business owners with a variety of needs through our robust VetConnectNYC network, our VetBizNYC map and our DVS website.” Therefore, a focus of this upcoming hearing should be what DVS does in these areas, how veterans are utilizing the agency, the data surrounding these systems and its relationship with the city’s Department of Small Business Services (SBS).  

Additionally, the city establishes goals for awarding contracts to businesses owned by women and racial/ethnic minorities (MWBEs). However, unlike federal and state programs, the city does not include veteran-owned businesses as a special category for city procurement. This hearing should explore why. It should also focus on what the city government has accomplished from its December 2014 SBS/Pricewaterhouse report, which highlighted ways to identify veteran-owned businesses, support their growth, and prepare them for procurement opportunities.

The committee should also consider the following topics for fall/winter hearings:

Oversight: DVS Contracts
The last hearing on contracting by the city’s Department of Veterans Services was held jointly by the veterans and contracts committees in November of 2019. That hearing examined DVS’ contracting ability with veteran service organizations within the Council’s discretionary (Schedule C) budget.

At that hearing, a DVS representative stated the agency was holding conversations with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to address what direction the agency should take.  However, at a preliminary budget hearing in March 2020, Commissioner Hendon testified: “While we continue to discuss a strategic plan for the functionality of a contract shop, DVS has begun a search for a Director of Contracts.”

Unfortunately, this still hasn’t happened, with the commissioner blaming covid and continued ongoing discussions with OMB. As DVS has been an agency for over six years and now handles its own contracts, this hearing should be considered a priority to find out why OMB continues to block this hiring and what DVS has been doing to help veteran-focused nonprofits.  

Student Veterans at CUNY
Over the past 20 years, New York City’s higher education has been a tremendous attractor of veteran talent, with veterans using their GI Bill at CUNY as they transition into civilian life.

Enrollment of student veterans grew 50% over the past decade, with roughly 3,200-plus student veterans at CUNY schools. Unfortunately, between the lack of support and the pandemic, many veterans have left CUNY and are not likely to return. This has resulted in a drop in enrollment among veterans. This hearing, held jointly with the Council’s higher education committee, should address what CUNY is doing to enroll, retain, and support student veterans, along with its needs to help this community.

Veterans Advisory Board
It has been several years since the Council last held a hearing on the city’s Veterans Advisory Board and with new leadership and open positions, it’s time to hear from the board and what its members are hearing from the veteran community.

The Council committee should also explore what can be done to improve communications between DVS and the board. This includes addressing delays in posting public notices of meetings and possible legislation for a permanent agency liaison to the board. The Council should also explore legislation that would create a secretary position within the board.

Veterans and Mental Health Services
While the Council veterans committee has held multiple hearings over the past several years on veteran mental health needs, there are unanswered questions.

Last year, DVS fired its Mental Health Director while the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health (OCMH) quietly defunded DVS. There have been no updates or data on the Mission: VetCheck program, which was started during the pandemic.

Also, earlier this year the state budget included $7.7 million to expand the Joseph P. Dwyer Veterans peer support program statewide. A hearing on this should include how much money New York City received for this program, how it will be spent, and who has oversight.

Finally, the Council passed Local Law 647 in 2018 establishing a hotline to provide peer support services and mental health information to veterans, yet no one has heard anything about it — the hearing should get to the bottom of what’s going on here.

More
Other topics for hearings by the City Council veterans committee could include a data and accountability hearing on DVS services through its UniteNYC (VetConnect) and VetConnect Pro (JobPath) platforms; Oversight on DVS’ Indigent Veterans Burial program; and what DVS has been doing to address unemployment among military veterans in the city.

This is a robust agenda but if Council Member Holden and the veterans committee members take a serious approach to hold DVS accountable, they will be up to the challenge.

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Joe Bello served 11 years in the U.S. Navy/Naval Reserve and has been a veterans advocate in New York City for over two decades. He is the founder of NY MetroVets. On Twitter @NYMetroVets.

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Our Behavioral Healthcare System is in Crisis; Here’s How We Fix It


Getting help (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


Very often patients with serious issues such as active hallucinations, self-harm behavior, severe depression, and suicidality wait for days in common spaces or crowded hospital hallways for observation or the next available inpatient psychiatric bed. I’ve seen patients in need of hospitalization far exceed available beds in New York City.  For someone experiencing a mental health crisis, such an experience can be traumatic and triggering. It impacts quality of care and prolongs and complicates treatment. It shouldn’t happen.

Over the years, demand for psychiatric services has increased, while the number of psychiatric beds and services have decreased due to hospital closures and funding cuts from the state. Under Governor Hochul, the state has made up for some of this shortfall with recent historic investments in the mental health workforce, in new program models, in services, and a commitment to bring more beds online — but more must be done to improve our entire behavioral health care system, which is siloed and lacks the coordination to ensure appropriate care.

There is a good chance that the same patient who waited days to get a psychiatric bed will be discharged from the hospital with fragmented medical and psychiatric follow-up plans. They may have to wait a month, or more, after discharge to be seen in the community. This is why so many people cycle in and out of emergency rooms. 

The lack of coordination also leads to redundant services, which drive up costs and reduce quality of care. The United States has one of the most inefficient healthcare systems. Some of this inefficiency stems from redundant medical services costing an estimated $700 billion per year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

We need real-time coordination between hospital systems, outpatient services, criminal justice systems, and substance use treatment programs, so that we can implement collaborative treatment plans that provide efficient, cost-effective, quality care.

Ensuring patients can access care in the community has also been a challenge. One key change that helped mental health professionals improve service delivery is the expansion of telehealth. When we began using telehealth at ICL at the start of the pandemic, the number of clients who kept medical appointments increased. Surveys of our clients indicated they enjoy the convenience of speaking with a provider over the phone or computer, rather than visiting a clinic.

With the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration that expedited the adoption of telehealth set to expire this year, New York State must make sure providers continue to have the flexibility to deliver various forms of therapy virtually at all levels of care.

Many clients don’t have the access or technological capability to use a computer for telehealth. For them, a phone call is the best way to get care. We need a telephone option in telehealth services so that these patients remain engaged in care, making it less likely that they’ll be back in an emergency room seeking treatment.

Our behavioral health care system is struggling, and fixing it is a public health imperative. To begin to meet the challenges of this crisis, we need the state to increase the number of psychiatric beds, break down silos and better coordinate services, and ensure providers have the flexibility to continue to provide telehealth services to their clients. This will help deliver life-saving care to New Yorkers in need.

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Dr. Victoria Pham is Chief Medical Officer at Institute for Community Living (ICL). On Twitter @ICL_inc.

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