(photo: NYCHA)
Another Democratic presidential primary debate is now behind us, and once again not a single question has been asked about how our next President will address one of the federal government’s biggest failures of the last half-century – the neglect and divestment in our nation’s public housing.
Candidates across the board are developing new and exciting progressive policies that have energized the Democratic electorate (including many around affordable housing). But this central issue of restoring public housing, once a glowing achievement of American civic life, has remained notably absent from the debate stage, not to mention federal budgets as well.
That’s why we want to bring attention to real solutions, like H.R. 4546, the Public Housing Emergency Response Act, which is federal legislation to invest $70 billion to make emergency repairs across public housing in the United States. This includes funding that would finally meet the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA’s) $32 billion need for capital repairs.
Every presidential candidate should be supporting this bill. Every major paper in the United States should be endorsing it. And that’s why we are kick-starting the conversation here in New York with a new Resolution in the New York City Council calling for the bill’s passage.
The ceding of federal responsibility over public housing has led to too many petty fights between New York City and State over funding the nation’s largest municipal housing authority. While NYCHA lost a cumulative $1.34 billion in federal capital grant funding since 2001, it took years of activism to release just $450 million in promised state funding this year. And that only represents roughly 1/64 of the capital dollars needed to fully address repairs.
We often remember Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and ask why our leaders today aren’t making the same impact on our city’s affordable housing stock. Yet, we too often leave out LaGuardia’s partner in that effort – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose Housing Act of 1937 provided for subsidies from the federal government for local public housing agencies.
We need real federal involvement again if we’re ever going to restore public housing to its former glory, and that will only happen if this crisis is addressed and discussed on the national stage in the manner it deserves, including at presidential debates.
That doesn’t mean we should give officials in City Hall or Albany a free pass either. The City and State must step up this year and contribute billions more dollars in their own budgets, and we will be calling on our colleagues in the Council and State Legislature to fight for this as well.
In the meantime, public housing advocates must be ready and waiting for a Democratic presidency, where this bill could finally fix the leaks, mold, and inhospitable living conditions that many of our nation’s 1.2 million public housing residents struggle with every day. That means starting the conversation now -- and what better place than the primary debates.
We have to have a dialogue about the thousands of residents at NYCHA’s Gompers Houses in our districts, who spent Thanksgiving and almost certainly will spend Christmas and the New Year without gas for cooking holiday meals.
We need to listen to the countless families who flood elected officials’ phone lines from October through April with fears of lost heat on a cold winter night.
While our offices will always be there for our NYCHA residents, whether it’s by distributing thousands of meals like we did on Thanksgiving, or working to get spot repairs made and mobile heaters brought in, these are simply band-aids on an ever-growing infection.
And in a worst case scenario, that $32 billion infection could rapidly metastasize to nearly $69 billion in unmet capital needs in just nine years, according to the new 2020-2024 financial plan just approved by NYCHA’s board.
It’s time that the federal government stop ignoring public housing. NYCHA and other housing authorities need to be fully funded so that residents receive their basic human right to safe housing. We know our current President, with his long record of violations of the Fair Housing Act during his time in real estate management, is unlikely to do anything. But we need this presidential primary, and the candidates running in it, to be held to a higher level of accountability, and we must ensure they fight to fix this public housing emergency once and for all.
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Carlina Rivera represents District 2 in the New York City Council and has authored a Council resolution supporting H.R. 4546, the Public Housing Emergency Response Act. Nydia Velázquez represents New York’s 7th Congressional District and is the author of H.R. 4546. On Twitter @CarlinaRivera & @NydiaVelazquez.
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(photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photo Office)
As a small business owner of a toy company in Brooklyn, and a working mother who employs a nanny and a house cleaner, I am standing up in support of the Paid Personal Time bill under consideration in the New York City Council. This piece of legislation would ensure that over a million New Yorkers, including domestic workers and other workforces, would have the right to paid vacation time, something I take for granted as an employer.
One of the biggest motivations I had to be self-employed, was to have “the right” of having paid time off. I knew that by working for someone else, the right to paid vacation days wasn’t secured. As an employer and working mother, I can take the time I need to care for myself and be present for life’s special moments – taking my kids to their first day of school, seeing them graduate. I wouldn’t miss these moments for the world and it’s inhumane to think that some of the hardest working people in our city who need a break the most are denied this right.
I know firsthand how an investment in workers pays dividends for employers. The success of my business and the caring environment at home for my children both depend on the hard labor of all my employees.
At home, I provide my nanny almost six weeks paid vacation per year. I am also considering providing paid time off to our house cleaner in 2020 and have already started the conversation with her about signing up to Alia, a benefit program that provides paid time off to house cleaners.
At work, my business provides 16 days of paid vacation time and sick days annually to nine full-time employees. Additionally, my business partners and I are in talks to offer paid personal time to our two part-time employees next year.
While these high-road practices definitely impact our bottom line, it pays off in the loyalty and dedication of our workforce. I know that having a happy and well-rested team contributes to the successful and productive results for my company. We all win.
Passing paid personal time, we are also advancing women’s rights. From my 11 employees, 10 are women. As women, we know what it feels like to not be respected as a worker. For example, in the United States we don’t have a law to ensure paid maternity leave, affecting millions of working mothers and their children. My company, however, provides 12 weeks of paid parental leave for full-time employees.
With Paid Personal Time we have an opportunity to set standards for gender equality. All employees should be treated as full human beings who have lives outside of work. For example, in November, which is the beginning of the high season for our business, one of my employees took paid personal time for her wedding. Our team came together to make that possible by preparing our strategy in advance and making sure other employees could cover her daily tasks.
As an employer, I strongly believe we can be good employers and have a successful business. I want my employees to balance their job with showing up and honoring the other aspects of their lives. If my employees feel treated with dignity and respect, they will be happier and more fully themselves. My family and business benefit from it too.
I understand that passing Paid Personal Time would demand that we add more vacation time required by the law, and that it might create an additional financial cost. However, it would also mean that families will take time off to eat in restaurants, go shopping, travel, and provide an injection to our local economy. I want my business to reflect my values in treating people with respect no matter what. I accept that this is the ethical cost of doing business and know that at the end I am building a strong and loyal team of employees.
When I became an employer I knew I wanted to do the right thing for my employees.
For all of these reasons, I urge the City Council to pass Paid Personal Time and bring our city up to the standards of London, Paris, Tokyo, and other places that already guarantee this right for all workers. Let’s all make the necessary commitments recognizing equality and fairness for all workers and employers.
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Emma Katz is a member of Hand in Hand: The Domestic Employers Network since 2018, the CEO of Hazel Village, a toy company located in Brooklyn, and a resident of Jackson Heights, Queens.
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(photo: the Governor's Office)
Rates of youth suicide are climbing across the country. New York State, where youth suicide is the second leading cause of death for adolescents, is no exception. With adequate investment in mental health and substance use services for children and adolescents, many of these deaths could be prevented. Yet, New York is planning to further reduce access to these kind of behavioral health services for children, even as more than half of children across the state with a mental or behavioral health condition do not receive the treatment they need.
At the end of 2019, New York State plans to cut reimbursement rates for behavioral health services for Medicaid-eligible children and families offered under Children and Family Treatment and Support Services. These critical and sometimes life-saving services include community psychiatric supports and treatment, family peer support services, crisis intervention, rehabilitation from substance use, and more.
At a time when children and families are chronically underserved and unable to access needed mental health treatment options, the state must place an immediate moratorium on any cuts to children’s behavioral health services to ensure they can receive the high-quality care they need and are legally entitled to.
Under federal and state law, commercial insurance companies and Medicaid programs must provide mental health and substance use benefits that are equal to coverage for physical medical treatments. But the reality looks far different for New York children and families.
In the 2016-2017 school year, roughly half of children in New York State with a mental or behavioral condition who needed treatment or counseling did not receive it. One study found that 55.1% of youth with major depression did not receive any mental health services in New York.
These numbers are less surprising when you consider that for every 10,000 children in New York, there are only two child psychiatrists. In rural areas, that number is often zero.
There simply aren’t enough trained medical professionals or public investments to meet the need, in part due to low pay for staff and the subsequent issues of high turnover and recruitment challenges.
When an overworked staff member quits or an agency is forced to no longer offer a service, it is children and families who suffer.
What do we do? Where do we go? The state must answer these questions and one more: how can we justify moving forward with these cuts while our children and family suffer? We are talking about an entire generation of our most vulnerable children who won’t get the help they need.
The data alone makes this clear. But in our work at Families Together in New York State, we see the individual children and families behind each statistic.
We see school counselors and social workers without the resources to meet the mental health needs of their students. We see students unnecessarily hospitalized or pushed into the juvenile justice or child welfare systems because they did not get the care they needed when they needed it. We see families struggle to find the quality services their children need to thrive.
As part of the rollout of Children and Family Treatment and Support Services (CFTSS) in 2019, the state estimated that 200,000 children would be eligible to receive behavioral health services under the program. However, only 7,800 children are currently receiving CFTSS, which is less than 5 percent of eligible children.
This under-enrollment is due to a number of factors, including under investment and a delay in start-up funds, which lead to issues like entire regions of the state lacking a designated provider of any of these services and families traveling several hours just to get an assessment. The bottom line is that we are not reaching nearly the number of children the state promised to serve, and the state is about to move ahead with its plan to reduce rates for these services.
Reducing access to mental health care services at a time like this moves New York State in the wrong direction for children’s mental health. That’s why Families Together is one of 40 leading behavioral health providers and child advocacy organizations across the state calling on Governor Cuomo to place an immediate moratorium on all cuts to behavioral health care for children. The current reimbursement rates for CFTSS services must be maintained to ensure children and families can receive the quality mental health care they need.
Mental health is a right for every child. New York State can and must do better for the children and families struggling to find adequate, high-quality mental health and substance use services. With the wellbeing and safety of our youth in the balance, we ask that the state do its part and stop these cuts.
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Paige Pierce is CEO of Families Together in New York State.
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