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De Blasio Names 'Food Czar' to Combat Impending Hunger Crisis with 'Mobilization We've Never Seen Before'


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Mayor de Blasio serves food (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


As the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, has spread in New York, people have begun buying food off the shelves of local supermarkets to prepare for prolonged periods of isolation in the face of the virus. Public schools and senior centers are closing, many of which provide vulnerable New York City residents with food and meals, and tens of thousands of people appear to have already been laid off from their jobs, all leaving New Yorkers increasingly worried about food access.

While food is still coming into stores, some nonprofit emergency food providers report added premiums as demand has risen and struggles to afford the quantity of food they need during this crisis, leaving many poor New Yorkers increasingly vulnerable to food shortages. A huge surge in unemployment and lost work-hours could quickly push many New Yorkers to the brink of not knowing where their next meals will come from or how they’ll feed their children.

Mayor Bill de Blasio is taking a number of steps to ensure access to food for the city’s most vulnerable -- roughly 20% of New York City residents live in poverty, and just over 14% of New York City residents are food insecure, and rely on services such as food pantries and soup kitchens for meals, according to Food Bank For New York City, -- including meal handouts at shuttered schools and new measures announced this weekend.

As part of larger efforts to combat the spread of coronavirus and its impacts, de Blasio on Saturday announced a restructuring of some of his senior leadership, including naming Kathryn Garcia, currently the city’s sanitation commissioner, as “COVID-19 Food Czar,” responsible for creating, operationalizing, and overseeing “a structure for working New Yorkers to get the food they need during this pandemic. Garcia will also work with City and State agencies, including the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy, as well as food distributors to take any action necessary to ensure the city’s food supply continues without disruption.”

Meanwhile, Food Bank and other nonprofit emergency food providers and their allies are also attempting to combat the impacts of the pandemic’s reach throughout society.

“1.5 million New Yorkers rely on the Food Bank For New York City every year,” the Food Bank posted on Instagram March 16. “As the #COVID19 health crisis continues to unfold, that number will grow. Our warehouse remains open and our trucks are on the road to ensure food is delivered to our network of over 1,000 soup kitchens and food pantries across the city."

On March 17, Food Bank For New York City issued a call to New Yorkers for help.

“Amid mounting concerns around the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) public health crisis, Food Bank For New York City is calling on New Yorkers to support those struggling with food insecurity during this critical time. Food Bank anticipates an extreme rise in need for food and resources in the coming weeks, particularly among vulnerable New Yorkers such as seniors with chronic medical conditions, families with children who may lose up to two free school meals each day as NYC’s public schools remain closed for at least the next five weeks, and low-income and hourly workers,” it wrote in a press release.

“I'm desperately concerned that a lot of New Yorkers are running out of money and that's the money they use to buy food, among other crucial necessities,” de Blasio said at a Sunday press conference.”

Calling Garcia “one of our most extraordinary public servants,” de Blasio said that as Food Czar she will be working with many entities to “create a citywide network to ensure that food is available to those who cannot afford it.”

“It's going to take a mobilization such as we've never seen before,” de Blasio said, saying Garcia will “work with all of those agencies that currently do food relief, the Human Resources Administration, the Mayor's Office of Food Policy, obviously state agencies, Food Bank, soup kitchens, so many amazing nonprofit organizations. She'll work with all of them, but she's going to build something bigger and more comprehensive than we've ever seen in New York City.”

De Blasio said the work begins with “the assumption that food will become much more of an issue going forward and that many people will have a strain that they have not experienced previously because of huge disruptions in their own income.”

In a Sunday statement to Gotham Gazette, Garcia said:

“Ensuring that New Yorkers have a steady supply of food, whether that is a home-delivered meal or provisions from a grocery store, is a top priority. To ensure this, we have had to create brand new models to get food directly to those who need it. New York City is focused on ensuring that the COVID vulnerable population has food. That is the immediate need that we are solving for. We have the full food landscape on our radar, including the tremendous newly food insecure population as a result of job loss. Additionally, we have our eyes on the larger food supply so that we have constant awareness of any vulnerabilities and intervene. We are working with private food vendors, delivery services, and the robust emergency food feeding network to make all of this happen. We will have more to say about these efforts soon.”

The United Way of New York City has already developed a fund to help ensure all New Yorkers have access to food. “We have launched the UWNYC COVID-19 Community Fund to raise the critical funds needed for food and supplies,” Sheena Wright, president and CEO of United Way of New York City, said in an email to Gotham Gazette. “With support from New Yorkers across the City, this fund will allow us to assist in closing the gap. We want to help people who rely on pantries and kitchens to be well-resourced and prepared for this situation.”

David Greenfield, CEO of Met Council, said his organization has been preparing an emergency plan since the first case of coronavirus was identified in New York. Met Council provides food to 40 kosher food pantries in New York, serving, on average, 56,000 people per month, according to Greenfield.

“We’ve seen an explosion, really a shocking explosion and need and the people are coming to us from across the spectrum, from assessment, from anything, from housing, to social services, to seniors who are shuttered in their homes, to quite frankly, tens of thousands of people who have lost their jobs for the first time,” Greenfield said in an interview.

“I don’t think people appreciate the strain that not-for-profits are under,” Greenfield said. “Unlike government and private corporations that have deep benches of reserves, we don’t. We’re living generally month to month. And what's happened now is that because of this huge extra new need, we’re actually purchasing more food so that we can meet needs. For our organization alone, we have projected that this month, just in the next two weeks, we are spending an additional $1.1 million in our food department just on coronavirus response.”

Even before naming Garcia to the Food Czar role, Mayor de Blasio promised major pieces of a response to a potentially drastic deepening of the city’s food insecurity crisis.

New York City public schools were closed as of Monday, March 16. Given that many students rely on school for two free daily meals, officials are trying to ensure students still have access to food as the city shifts to remote learning for an indefinite period. During the first week of school closure, the city handed out meals outside of schools, from the morning through lunchtime, and, according to the mayor’s office, gave away roughly 560,000 meals.

Beginning Monday, March 23, de Blasio tweeted on Friday, “435 sites will be open for Grab-and-Go breakfast, lunch AND dinner for children. Any child under 18 is eligible. None will be turned away.”

The mayor followed that up by saying “We’re also partnering with @DoorDash to get food to the homes of medically fragile students. No child will go hungry. Not on our watch.”

According to a Friday evening press release from the mayor’s office, it’s actually going to be “439 hub sites citywide” where young people can get food, “100 of the sites were high participation sites in Summer, 2019, and the remaining sites are schools where more than 50 percent of the students are eligible for free and reduced meals.”

The release also mentioned the developing partnership with Door Dash to deliver meals “to students whose medical needs are so significant that they should not be leaving the home even to get meals.”

It continues to say that “food delivery will also be made available to children who reside in City shelters.” Families can “search “Free Meals” on schools.nyc.gov or call 311 to find a site near them. Starting Monday, families can also text FOOD or COMIDA to 877-877 to find a meal near them. A complete list of meal hubs is available here.”

The Food Education Fund, a nonprofit in the city, has created a webpage, the COVID-19 Food Hub NYC, to “share resources on available food sources for families and share general resources created by our partner organizations.” The website includes a map of food service providers donating to families of public school students in the city, how to volunteer, to donate, or to add resources to the website itself.

Senior centers in New York City were also closed as of March 16, suspending all activities but also still providing to-go meals to seniors who need access, and will make deliveries to those who cannot come to the centers themselves, according to de Blasio.  

As the city continues to see long lines at some grocers and runs on things like toilet paper, bread, and more, food continues to fly off the shelves and be replenished. De Blasio and others have stressed that the supply chains for food and basic household goods is sound. On March 16 he noted “a very intensive resupply in recent days,” but added that while this is good news, the bad news is everything is being snapped up quickly.

“But if there's someone in your life, someone older, someone with one of those preexisting conditions, someone who has a disability that keeps them from getting out and getting supplies they need, either help them by getting what they need for them or share your supply enough to help them out,” de Blasio said. But that was before much more restrictive orders were issued by Governor Andrew Cuomo, urged by de Blasio, to insist that people stay home as much as possible, forbid commuting for all those not deemed part of “essential services,” and stress the importance of not exposing the most vulnerable, especially older people, to infection with coronavirus.

These new restrictions, announced by Cuomo on Friday, make food access even more complicated for many. The governor did say that food delivery is an essential service.

And the supply chain remains a key aspect of the equation and nationally it is working well and increasing the amount of food distributed to meet demand, The New York Times reported on March 16. There will still be bare shelves at times as individuals nationwide continue to scoop up products and retailers figure out how to respond to demand quickly.

Greenfield argues that even though food supply is strong, it still disadvantages nonprofits. As grocery stores need more product to sell to meet need, they are willing to pay a higher premium, which forces nonprofit organizations, like food banks, to dish out more money to meet the demand they feel.

“We can’t compete with what they’re paying. They’ll pay anything. If you’re a grocery store, they will pay anything because their customers will pay anything. We budgeted a certain amount that we’ve always budgeted for the last 20 years,” Greenfield said. “We can’t afford to pay three times as much. We are, because we have no choice. What am I going to say, you can’t have eggs? So I’m buying it, but at the end of the day that’s costing me hundreds of thousands of dollars more.”

National advocates are pushing for food assistance as well. Hunger Free America wanted to see the federal government pass the “Families First Coronavirus Response Act,” a relief bill that would provide funds to make it easier for schools, senior programs, and food charities to provide alternative meals, and also create a “federally funded program to give extra food purchasing dollars to all families with children in closed schools,” according to a press release from Hunger Free. The bill was signed by President Donald Trump on March 18.

“This massive increase in the pre-existing hunger crisis demands a massive, highly-coordinated response by federal, state, and city government agencies, as well as corporations, nonprofit groups, and philanthropies,” Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, said in a statement. Once the Families First Coronavirus Response Act becomes law, he said, “one top priority for such joint efforts should be helping eligible families enroll in the new government food benefits available. The other key priority should be dramatically ramping-up the home delivery of meals to older Americans, children, and families who lost income.”

On a hyperlocal level, groups are taking action. The Greater Flushing Chamber of Commerce is helping to lead the launch of an emergency food distribution center in Flushing. “The Flushing community is proactively organizing volunteers to contact local residents, including homebound individuals, who may need emergency food assistance ahead of a possible City lockdown this week,” a press release from the group said before Cuomo gave his orders that are not a “lockdown” per se, but amount to significant limits on what New Yorkers should be doing outside their homes and who they should be interacting with.

And some individual New Yorkers appear to be quickly responding on their own. A GoFundMe fundraiser page appeared late last week to raise money for the Food Bank For New York City. The page is called “Helping New York City During COVID-19” and was started by Frederick Joseph. It quickly surpassed its $20,000 goal, with the post noting that every $1 to the Food Bank provides five meals for those in need.

“Cancellations of large events, fewer people at restaurants, and school closings means that wage workers who live on hourly pay + tips are going to be having a harder time than usual making ends meet,” Joseph’s explanation of the fundraiser reads. “It also means that some adults and children who rely on meals from these places may struggle with hunger. We need to make sure that the non-profits who serve our communities have the resources both to keep their volunteers and staff healthy and to provide food to meet rising demand.”

As the situation develops, it is unclear how demand for food will change, especially since some are predicting this will be a six-to-nine month crisis, if not longer. “With schools closed and the overall uncertainty, we need a comprehensive approach to replacing these missing meals,” said Wright of United Way. “We will have to consider new food distribution strategies, maybe even going door to door to make sure people have the food they need. This is an unprecedented event, and I am not surprised that our food pantry and soup kitchen operators, who can, continue to serve their communities. I am so inspired by their dedication. They have modified their operations to adapt to this crisis, and we are so thankful for their fast response and commitment to meeting on-the-ground need right now.”

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by Katie Kirker, Gotham Gazette

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Ben Max contributed to this article.

Coronavirus Fallout Raises Concerns About Domestic Violence Increase, Survivor Services


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City Hall lit up purple for domestic violence awareness (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


As New Yorkers shelter at home to avoid exposure to COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has put the city largely at a standstill, concerns are growing among that victims of domestic violence may be particularly affected if they are unable to escape an abusive home.

Time and again, studies have shown that domestic violence tends to increase during and after natural disasters. Though the coronavirus pandemic is not analogous to a hurricane or an earthquake, it has nonetheless had a devastating and disruptive effect on people’s lives, their abilities to move around and work, their emotional and mental well-being, and on the broader structures that prop up society.

Survivors and victims of domestic violence, already among the most vulnerable members of society, are even more so impacted by an event like the coronavirus and its impacts. They may be faced with the terrible choice between remaining in an abusive household with their abuser or to risk exposure to the virus by seeking help and shelter. They may even be unable to report abuse or seek services when largely stuck in such close proximity with their abuser. On March 13, the National Domestic Violence Hotline published guidelines to help people "Stay Safe During COVID-19," including warnings about how abusive partners may take specific hurtful coronavirus-related actions, including, for example, withholding basic supplies like hand sanitizer or health insurance information, or sharing misinformation about the virus.

Those are just some of the fears of nonprofit service providers that contract with New York City government to provide services to domestic violence survivors.

“Typically in times like these, either of a national emergency or times when people are forced to remain at home more often, even around the holidays, domestic violence incidents do tend to spike,” said Christopher Bromson, executive director of the Crime Victims Treatment Center (CVTC).

Though it is too soon to identify any change in domestic violence to the current situation in the city, complaints this year have already increased somewhat. NYPD data shows that between January 1 and March 15 this year, domestic violence complaints increase slightly to 2,377 from 2,263 (about 5%) over the same period last year. Arrests for domestic violence dropped marginally from 9,945 in that time last year to 9,890 this year. But that was all before the new orders from Governor Andrew Cuomo to shut schools and most places of work, and to limit all travel outside the home to only essential trips for food, medicine, solitary exercise, and health care.

The city and providers are continuing to function, though with the limitations imposed by the epidemic and those related government orders aimed at mitigating the worst of the virus’ spread.

On Tuesday, the Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence (ENDGBV) closed its five Family Justice Centers, one in each borough, and started providing services by phone. Nonprofits have similarly suspended in-person services as far as possible and are setting up remote infrastructure so hotlines and other forms of support are not interrupted.

But providers say they’re seeing some of the effects of the outbreak and related social shutdown already, with victims calling in to hotlines uncertain about what to do as individuals and families isolate themselves at home. What worries them more, however, is the ones that don’t call.

Bromson’s organization partners with four hospital emergency departments, and volunteers are sent in whenever there is a domestic violence or sexual assault incident. He said they deal with between one and two cases each night on average. “We have not had a case of sexual assault or domestic violence present to a partner emergency department since Sunday night, which is quite unusual,” Bromson said on Friday afternoon. “Which says to me that people are afraid. They're afraid to go to the hospital for health reasons. They may not feel safe escaping the situation.”

He did emphasize that providers across the city have adapted as quickly as possible and that they are ready to provide much-needed services. “I think that having such inconsistent messaging from the systems of government that we rely on for information and direction has not helped. But I think the biggest message is that we're here now, we're ready. Everything is set up and people can still access [services],” he said.

The city says it is aware of the heightened risk that domestic violence victims face. “The COVID-19 public health crisis touches the lives of every New Yorker. Survivors of domestic and gender-based violence may face additional risks and stress with more time spent at home,” said ENDGBV Commissioner Cecile Noel, in a statement to Gotham Gazette. “Survivors need us now more than ever in these extraordinary times, and our top priority remains to ensure continuity of services and unwavering support. Our Centers continue to provide crucial crisis support and advocacy by connecting survivors to immediate safety planning, shelter assistance, legal consultations, and more.”

Manhattan City Council Member Helen Rosenthal, who chairs the Committee on Women and Gender Equity, echoed Bromson and other nonprofit service providers who want the city to more broadly advertise that services are available and ongoing. “I do think that the city should be putting out public service announcements getting that message across. I think that would be important,” Rosenthal said in a phone interview, emphasizing that arrests for domestic violence and sexual assault are still being made, survivors can still receive orders of protection from the courts, and district attorneys continue to operate helplines.

The epidemic has also surfaced some of the existing problems in city services. The city has perennially been delayed in paying out contracts to human service providers, who continue to do the work regardless. In declaring a state of emergency, Mayor Bill de Blasio did take steps to try to ensure there is no interruption in those services, including guaranteed payments to contractors, cash advances, and assistance from city agencies to obtain disinfecting supplies.

Another problem, far harder to solve, is the dearth of emergency shelter beds for domestic violence survivors, which advocates have said have been insufficient for years. “There are never enough beds for domestic violence survivors, especially single survivors who don't have children,” Bromson said. “That is in and outside of this crisis. That's something that is always on the top of everybody's mind.”

Judy Harris Kluger is executive director of Sanctuary for Families, a shelter and service provider for domestic violence victims. “We're doing a lot of the work that if we didn't do it, no one would do it,” she said. “So government needs to continue to support us and both increase the support on a short-term and long-term basis."

Kluger said the shelters her organization runs are usually near-full or full, as they are right now. But while those survivors may be safe or safer from their abusers, they then face the challenges of finding jobs and housing. “They have to find affordable housing and just the whole mechanism for going out and looking for an apartment and moving in, that's kind of on a standstill at the moment,” Kluger said.

“Most of our clients, the vast majority, are poor women with children who are struggling even before this, but this just puts another layer,” she added, “The stress and the fear is exponentially increased because of this."

Even with the few shelters available, there are even fewer available to LGBTQ survivors who deal with intimate partner violence at the same and sometimes higher rates as non-LGBTQ survivors but also are victims of bias-motivated crime, according to Catherine Shugrue dos Santos, Deputy Executive Director for Programs for the New York City Anti-Violence Project.

“People are used to thinking cisgender men cause harm to cisgender women and so folks who don't fit that binary, heteronormative vision, end up not being found credible or having access to safety, support and services,” she said.

“When folks are directed to or forced to stay home, if their partner is abusive, or if they’re experiencing violence or threats from roommates, or if they're living...with family members that are not accepting of their identity, this can pose an immediate danger to their physical safety,” she said. “Even in situations that are necessarily an imminent physical threat, I think there's also a lot of emotional violence, and power and control that is happening.” She said that she also worries the impact may be felt long after, which is what happened after Hurricane Sandy. 

“This is an intersection of issues. Intimate partner violence, economic justice issues, service access issues and COVID,” she said. “This is a real crucible moment for our communities. It is highlighting...so much inequity that already existed.”

AVP was among the signatories to an open letter on Friday sent to New York City’s elected officials by Nonprofit New York, an organization with 1,700 members, which urged governments at all levels to ensure that nonprofits survive the devastation of COVID-19.

“One of the things that we're saying to the city and to the state government in particular is, the most important thing that they can do is to keep money flowing to the organization that serves hard to reach folks,” Shugrue dos Santos said.

The New York City Anti-Violence Project hotline is 212-714-1141; the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233.

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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New York City to Share Homeless Shelter Data with U.S. Census Bureau in Unprecedented Agreement


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Efforts continue to get every New Yorker counted in 2020 Census (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


New York City has reached a first-of-its kind agreement with the U.S. Census Bureau to transfer data on the city’s sheltered homeless population in a way that is intended to negate the need for census enumerators to perform their own separate count.

Through the agreement, which was described to Gotham Gazette by an official from the city’s census office, the city will compile data on the roughly 60,000 people expected to be sheltered at around 650 sites in the five boroughs as it stands on a particular designated night. The data will then be provided to the Census Bureau via a secure file transfer protocol.

The information will include all the city has available to fill out standard census details like name, age, sex, and address (which will be the address of an individual’s shelter). Like the rest of the information collected as part of the once-in-a-decade count, it will be protected from release by federal law and cannot be shared with other components of the federal government, such as immigration enforcement authorities.

“This plan will ensure that every single homeless person in New York City is properly counted while also accounting for community health care needs during the COVID pandemic,” said Julie Menin, the director of New York City's 2020 Census office, referencing the ongoing global public health crisis caused by the novel coronavirus. The discussions between the city and the Census Bureau preceded the onset of the pandemic, but the agreement has proved particularly auspicious as the virus frustrates census outreach efforts.

Typically, the Census Bureau takes two separate and complementary approaches in attempting to count an area’s total homeless population: there’s a count of the “unsheltered” population, which includes people staying in informal spaces like subway stations, outdoor encampments, and parks, and a count of the “sheltered” population, which includes those staying at formal homeless shelters.

For this latter phase, known as the Service-Based Enumeration (SBE), census employees coordinate directly with shelters and service providers like food pantries to arrive in-person and conduct interviews with residents and clients. At shelters, their goal is to count or at least estimate the total number of people in that facility on the day they visit (this year, the SBE was slated to run between March 30 and April 1, but has been postponed).

Since 1981, homeless New Yorkers have had a legal “right to shelter,” which has meant that the vast majority of the homeless population is in sheltered as opposed to unsheltered situations, with the street population estimated at a comparatively low 3,600. (In terms of the overall homeless population, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has estimated a higher number than the city, closer to 80,000, which accounts for a wide variety of shelter settings, not only those run by the city’s Department of Homeless Services.)

This makes the SBE particularly important for getting an accurate count of the city’s population and its demographics and living situations. However, recent events have presented a cascade of complications, starting with the Trump administration’s general posture of hostility to immigrants and its very public attempts to add a citizenship question to the census questionnaire, which were ultimately blocked by the courts.

Paired with initiatives like the public charge rule and the administration’s attempts to cut food stamps and other social service programs, city officials came to believe last year that federal employees of any stripe might be viewed with suspicion in the shelters, and they wouldn’t be able to get an accurate count.

“The very notion that federal officials would be able to have access to our shelter sites was essentially a non-starter for all of our providers,” said one city census official speaking on background. “We knew for a fact that the Census Bureau's proposed approach was not actually going to yield them the results that they wanted.”

Shelters are operated by nonprofits under contract with the city to provide services to distinct populations, such as families with minor children or single adult men or women. Intake is handled centrally by the Department of Social Services (DSS) and its component Department of Homeless Services (DHS), which then refers applicants to particular providers. As such, the city possesses pretty granular and real-time data on the shelter population, including all the data points that form the basis of the census count.

Ian Hull, the deputy regional director for the Census Bureau’s New York region, said that the Bureau had been very open to the idea when city officials broached it last year, in part because they agreed that it would yield better data. “Oftentimes, when we go to shelter, people are not interested in doing a one-on-one interview, which is one of the enumeration methods… in that case, we just do headcount,” he said. “[DSS/DHS] actually have more data, and so they should be able to provide us things that we're normally seeking, such as age, date of birth, race and ethnicity, things such as that.”

The agreement now proves particularly opportune as the Bureau, and society at large, contends with the global pandemic set off by the novel coronavirus, an aggressive pathogen that spreads primarily through person-to-person contact, including through infected but asymptomatic people. The virus has spread quickly in New York City, with over 3,600 confirmed cases as of Thursday morning even as testing has lagged.

On March 15, the Bureau announced changes to the way it would conduct Group Quarters counts, which include sites like college dormitories and nursing homes; on March 18, Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham announced that all field operations would be suspended until April 1, including the SBE. The original snapshot date for the city’s data transfer to the Census Bureau was March 31, but the postponements mean it will be pushed back. Hull said that the SBE had to “count everyone nationwide on basically the same three day period,” and it was unclear when exactly that would take place.

Census employees moving across shelters and interacting with large numbers of people who are themselves occupying shared spaces with dozens of others could be a perfect storm for disease propagation. However, under the agreement, enumerators would never have to enter the shelters at all, and could simply rely on the city data.

The fact of such a data transfer occurring isn’t itself unprecedented. “Other cities and other shelters have the ability to provide the data to us administratively,” said Hull, and some number of them do every count. However, this appears to be the first time a city, and certainly the largest city in the nation, has reached a specific bilateral agreement with the Bureau outside of its standard data transfer systems, partly on account of the sheer amount and complexity of the transfer. “From those standpoints, it’s definitely a one-of-a-kind of agreement, but I think it's important to note that the actual enumeration method, if you will, is not,” he said.

While the model is promising in some ways, under current circumstances the precedent is of somewhat limited applicability. By and large, the Census Bureau attempts to gather information for every American household, and only attempts group counts in limited circumstances, like for homeless populations and senior homes. Enumerators will still have to go apartment-to-apartment for households that don’t respond, presumably once the extant threat of the virus has abated. This is the first year the Census is being conducted online-first, with most households encouraged to go straight to the internet to fill out the questionnaire, and more than 10 million across the country have done so already.

The agreement between the city and the Bureau on the homeless shelter population could set a precedent other municipalities could attempt to follow. Amit Bagga, the deputy director of NYC Census 2020, told Gotham Gazette, “we found that the process of working with the Census Bureau to be incredibly collaborative and productive,” largely because, at a time when New York and the federal government are locking horns over all sorts of public policy issues, the interests of the city and the interests of the Census Bureau aligned.

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by Felipe De La Hoz, Gotham Gazette
     

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