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Opinion

4 Keys to an Equitable Economic Recovery from the Pandemic in New York


 

Ground-breaking (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


A month before COVID-19 swept through the five boroughs, headlines about New York City’s historic economic growth were abounding. Yet, even as the growth of the city’s economy reached historic heights, a crisis of inequity persisted in Black and brown communities, who were facing higher rates of unemployment, less investment and growth, poorer health outcomes, and limited access to a pool of fewer resources. A global pandemic only exacerbated those inequities and forced communities of color to shoulder the disproportionate impact of the public health and economic crises.

Two years later, this crisis of inequity persists, despite countless community development organizations, including the organization I lead, having proposed thoughtful solutions to help these communities become more resilient. Now, with new administrations leading both the New York state and city governments, it’s critical the wait-and-see approach comes to an end and that government, public institutions, and the private sector come together to advance public policy and programs that once-and-for-all forge a recovery and equitable future for our city.

Here’s how.

Solving the Affordability Crisis
With more than 70% and 80%, respectively, of Black and Hispanic households in New York City being renters, it’s critical the skyrocketing cost of living for renters is addressed immediately, particularly with the end of the eviction moratorium.

That requires a few things we’ve been calling for. First and foremost, government must renew the Emergency Rental Assistance Program to support the thousands awaiting relief.

Second, state and city government need to shift our faltering project-by-project approach to affordable housing financing to reduce our dependence on government subsidies, and instead rely on creative financial tools — including revolving loan funds and equity products — that are geared toward preserving affordability.

Finally, homeownership is the leading pathway toward building generational wealth, and it’s an opportunity that’s been out of reach for far too many New Yorkers of color. To ultimately address the affordability crisis, we need programs that help and encourage people, especially people of color, to become property owners.

Investment in Minority-Owned Businesses
Among the most financially devastated businesses during the pandemic were minority-owned businesses, facing the dual threat of systemic inequity and pandemic-induced challenges.

That’s why as both the state and city governments finalize their next budgets, we’re asking that funding is specifically targeted toward the minority-owned businesses that make up once-vibrant commercial corridors in communities of color.

Without this targeted approach, we run the risk of countless minority-owned businesses closing, blight taking hold of commercial corridors, and underserved neighborhoods, in turn, failing to meet the challenge of a full recovery and allowing outside companies to seize shuttered mom and pop businesses – driving up prices and forcing long-standing community members out.

To address this risk, we developed innovative relief programs that not only provided immediate financial support to minority-owned businesses in desperate need but also the tools they’ve long been neglected, including access to institutional financial resources and networks, training, and mentorship opportunities. It’s an opportune moment for government and private institutions to structure their relief programs similarly.

Closing the Digital Divide
As countless companies went online to continue their operations during the pandemic, minority-owned businesses found themselves in neighborhoods without high-speed broadband or without the capacity to take their businesses online.

Pandemic or not, tapping into digital networks is the way of the future for business but also for access to medical services, education, and global communications. To allow Black and brown communities to keep pace in this ever-digitized environment, we’re calling on government and private institutions to support major investment in internet infrastructure, improvements in technological assistance and cybersecurity, and legislation that would require the Federal Communications Commission to increase broadband access in communities of color.

Restoring Confidence in Underserved Neighborhoods
Finally, systemic inequities, the lack of opportunity, and the feeling of disenfranchisement have led to an understandable loss of trust in our institutions in communities of color. These upstream doubts have downstream consequences.

It’s paramount that all levels of government devote their attention and resources to ensuring that confidence and trust can be restored in communities of color through action. These communities need to see that investment is being committed to their schools, businesses, infrastructure, and people; they need to see that our elected leaders and public officials care.

Government, Community Development Financial Institutions, nonprofits, and institutions must work together to develop thoughtful economic development programs that uplift underserved neighborhoods and show them a path forward. And, to ensure these community-based organizations and nonprofits can sustain their operations, we must double down on efforts to empower them with the resources and financial support needed to improve long-term outcomes in our disinvested neighborhoods.

The past two years certainly laid bare the inequities and disproportionate burden that Black and brown communities are forced to contend with. But, enough is enough. Let’s get to work, take lessons learned during the pandemic, and commit to making these neighborhoods more resilient.

***
Valerie White is the executive director of LISC NYC, an economic development non-profit. On Twitter
@LISC_NYC.

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How to Revitalize New York City’s Food System Beyond the Pandemic


Mayor Adams preps food (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


This month marks the second anniversary of New York City’s first reported case of COVID-19. As the pandemic begins to recede, it is time to set the policies that will repair the damage it has caused to the city’s food system and to take steps to protect against future crises. 

The pandemic exacerbated long-standing issues of food insecurity, diet-related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, and an inadequately paid and protected food workforce. To ensure a recovery that moves beyond a pre-pandemic baseline that was already unacceptable, city policy-makers need to develop comprehensive policy actions that address the fundamental drivers of the city’s food problems.  

For the last two years, food policy researchers at the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute at the CUNY School of Public Health, Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center, and the Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy at Teachers College, Columbia University have assessed the impact of the pandemic on the city’s food system. This week we released recommendations based on these studies that will enable New York City to make meaningful progress towards creating a healthier, more equitable, and more sustainable food system.  

Our report suggests four broad goals for a revitalized New York City food system.

First, to ensure all New Yorkers get the food they need to sustain health and eliminate hunger, the city needs to strengthen and integrate its separate and dispersed food assistance programs into one coordinated agency focused on food.

Another imperative is to synchronize policies that increase access to healthy food with those that discourage promotion of unhealthy products like soda and fast food. 

High rates of food insecurity and diets that lead to disease are two sides of a dysfunctional food system. To reduce food insecurity, New York City can shift its charity-based emergency food system in which private organizations distribute free food during crises to a public system that ensures that everyone can afford the food they need.

Specific measures to begin this transition include maximizing enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP,) the nation’s largest food security and poverty reduction program, and ensuring access to affordable housing and health care -- the two expenses that lead many New Yorkers into food insecurity. To improve healthy food access, the city can significantly expand fruit and vegetable vouchers and incentive programs, such as Health Bucks and Get the Good Stuff, and improve the nutritional quality and reach of the city’s institutional food programs in schools, childcare programs, hospitals, and senior centers.

To reduce the abundance of messaging that promotes unhealthy food, city agencies should restrict the promotion of unhealthy food in schools, public transit, public parks, and public housing developments. This will reduce the deluge of messages that encourage New Yorkers to consume unhealthy foods, which is a driver of the city’s high rates of diet-related diseases. By expanding the application of the NYC Food Standards, which ensure that the city serves healthy food in its public institutions, the city can discourage distribution and sale of unhealthy food in these settings. Providing incentives to food retailers and restaurants to stop promoting unhealthy food and beverages in their businesses will help make healthy food the default choice for all New Yorkers. Taken together, these steps will help create a coordinated, integrated policy agenda designed to reduce the incidence and severity of diet-related diseases and the racial/ethnic inequities in these conditions.   

Second, New York City needs to move beyond its crisis-driven response to recurring food problems and  create a more robust and sustainable food infrastructure with ongoing monitoring and food insecurity surveillance.

Other actions that can help to avert a repeat surge in food insecurity and diet-related health problems triggered by the pandemic include further investments in the Hunts Point Distribution Center; improving regional transport of food to make it easier for retailers to get regionally grown produce; using zoning to distribute healthier food outlets more equitably; and implementing a long-term plan to support urban agriculture.

Establishing a user-friendly, community-accessible city-wide system for measuring progress towards achieving food policy goals at the neighborhood and city levels will enable residents to hold city officials accountable. Similar data systems are currently in place in public education and public safety.   

Third, any plan to revitalize the food system must also improve conditions for the city’s food workers, a large, low-paid sector of the city’s workforce that was particularly hard hit by the pandemic.

To realize this goal, the city can improve enforcement of local laws on wages, benefits, and health and safety; extend new laws ensuring fair work hours and just causes for termination to all food workers including food deliverers; and develop a comprehensive food workforce development strategy for the city that improves pay, benefits, health, and safety protections and provides the skills and education that enable food workers to advance their careers.

Finally, to improve food systems planning and engage citizens in control and ownership of our food system, the city can support community organizations to develop and implement community food plans. It can also establish and support training and educational programs in schools, community organizations and universities to prepare New York City’s young people and community leaders to be effective advocates for food justice and food equity. 

For the last 20 years, New York City Mayors and City Councils have made multiple important changes to the city’s food system. These changes, however, have been uncoordinated and modest compared to what is needed.

In fact, our studies show these efforts have not been sufficient to make significant progress in reducing food insecurity and diet-related diseases or improving the conditions of food workers, problems  prevalent before the pandemic that have worsened since. To show that food policy matters, the current Mayor and City Council -- in partnership with communities, activists, and academics -- will need to chart and effectively implement  a more ambitious, coordinated, and well-resourced plan.

The pandemic, new city and state elected leaders, and the growing recognition that only smart, robust government policy can solve the most serious challenges facing the city have created new opportunities for making greater strides towards fixing our food system. Our recommendations provide a comprehensive and practical road map for beginning that transformation now.  

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Sara Abiola is Executive Director, Tisch Food Center, Associate Research Professor, Dept. of Health and Behavior Studies, Teachers College; Charles Platkin is Executive Director, Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center and Distinguished Lecturer at Hunter College, and Nicholas Freudenberg is Senior Faculty Fellow at the CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute and Distinguished Professor of Public Health at CUNY School of Public Health. 

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Strengthening New York City’s Natural Areas to Tackle Unemployment and Climate Change


 

Trees and jobs (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's)


New York City’s 20,000 acres of natural areas have been a lifeline for New Yorkers throughout the pandemic and form the first line of defense against the harms of climate change. But decades of underinvestment in the care and preservation of these vital open spaces threatens their longevity, even as surging visitation adds new stresses.

At a time when New York City is still down nearly 388,000 jobs from pre-pandemic levels, and unemployment is painfully high in many of the city’s lowest-income communities, investing in New York City’s natural areas now could spark thousands of new—and necessary—green jobs, while strengthening the city’s forests and wetlands for years to come.

New York City has made progress in recent years, expanding the tree canopy and addressing some longstanding inequities in access to open space. But since COVID-19 first hit, investment in the city’s natural areas has fallen short—even as New Yorkers depend on them for their physical and mental health.

The number of trees planted in the city annually has plummeted, from 62,086 in fiscal year 2016 to just 22,144 in 2021—a 64% decrease. The proposed $63 million cut to the Department of Parks and Recreation in Mayor Adams’ preliminary budget would make strengthening the city’s natural areas even more challenging. Meanwhile, environmental threats exacerbated by climate change—from invasive species like the mile-a-minute weed and spotted lanternfly to more powerful storms—have only grown. And a dearth of data collection means that far too little is known about the state of the city’s natural areas

Protecting and expanding the city’s natural areas is crucial. Currently, New York City’s forests capture nearly 2 billion gallons of stormwater, remove 1.2 million tons of carbon, and filter 1,300 tons of pollutants from the atmosphere annually. This helps avoid nearly 16,700 health events and saves New Yorkers $93.2 million in health costs each year, while lessening the impact of severe storms. But there’s still more to be done.

For instance, scientists estimate increasing New York City’s existing tree cover by just 10% would lower average temperatures, resulting in 3,800 fewer deaths annually—helping to mitigate the urban heat island effect that disproportionately affects lower-income communities.

Mayor Adams is right to recognize parks and open spaces as necessities, while remaining laser-focused on the city’s economic recovery. But these two goals can be one. In the months ahead, the mayor and City Council should work with the Parks Department to launch a natural areas revitalization program to help train and employ New Yorkers to care for the city’s ecosystems—from tree planting and wetland restoration to trail marking and invasive species management.

Any plan to strengthen the city’s natural areas should start with fully funding the Parks Department in next year’s budget. But city leaders should be thinking longer-term, too. Officials should set a goal of investing $400 million over the next decade targeted to improving forest and natural areas management and maintenance. The mayor should also work with the Parks Department, employers, and nonprofit partners to fund and pivot the Parks Opportunity Program into a full-fledged green jobs training initiative—including forestry, horticulture, surveying, and more. He could even go a step further by creating a NYC Climate Corps, training and deploying young adults to help make the city greener and more sustainable, including by maintaining and expanding the city’s natural areas.

Strengthening New York City’s urban forests and natural areas is both an ecological and economic imperative. Mayor Adams and the City Council should help get New Yorkers back to work caring for their wild places, while cultivating healthier and more resilient ecosystems for future generations.

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Eli Dvorkin is the Editorial & Policy Director of the Center for an Urban Future. On Twitter @wetwax & @NYCFuture.

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