Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

Opinion

Now’s the Time to Invest More, Not Less, in New Yorkers’ Mental Health


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New Yorkers in need (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


Governor Andrew Cuomo has long-championed himself a progressive criminal justice reformer, committing his administration to “creating a fairer, safer, and more just system for all New Yorkers.” Yet his proposed 2021-2022 budget sharply contradicts this vision.

Not because he plans to continue closing state prisons as the incarcerated population drops. Though, we oppose his request for the ability to shutter correctional facilities with far less notice than the existing one-year requirement. When a closure looms, communities, inmates, and inmates’ families need ample time to make life-changing decisions.

Cuomo’s proposed budget is counterproductive because it would slash state-sponsored mental health and at-risk youth services, the very alternatives to incarceration needed to further reduce jail and prison populations. He wants to cut a whopping 446 positio ns at the Office of Mental Health due to attrition and nearly 300 inpatient beds for those with severe mental illness.

If anything, we should be investing more in these public services, especially during the pandemic and its aftermath. Rather than forcing the most vulnerable New Yorkers to shoulder the brunt of a sputtering economy, we should be leaning on those who can afford to pay more in taxes.

One of us is a parole officer and the other a licensed social worker. We’ve seen firsthand how our criminal justice system is deeply intertwined with our mental health system. 

This is no exaggeration: Jails have become New York’s biggest mental health institutions. Rikers and other New York City jails have more patients with a mental health disorder than all the city’s hospitals. Statewide, some 15% of state prison and 26% of municipal jail inmates and detainees suffer from serious psychological distress, numbers far exceeding the non-incarcerated population (5%).

The proposed state cuts are the latest in a decades-long trend that has left people living with mental illness more likely to be arrested and incarcerated than receive the care they need. Between 2010 and 2016, New York’s public psychiatric beds were cut by 35%. Since 2010, staffing at the state’s Office of Mental Health (OMH) has been cut 17%, while staffing levels at the state’s Office for People with Developmental Disabilities has  been slashed 15%.

The recent subway attack in New York City put human faces on these abstract statistics. Rigoberto Lopez, who allegedly stabbed and killed four people, was believed to be suffering from a mental illness when he was arrested multiple times in recent years. One of his victims in the stabbing had recently been hospitalized in a psychiatric ward.

One of the more worrying cuts is the proposed closure of Rockland Children’s Psychiatric Center in Orangeburg. This would force children and youth who require intensive, inpatient care for severe illnesses such as bipolar disorder to be relocated to the Bronx. It would also force families to travel further to stay involved in their child’s care. 

Shifting to “brief, intensive, community-based care” sounds promising on paper. But the experiences of other states show that privatization of mental health care is a fool’s errand.

In 2015, then-Iowa Governor Terry Branstad drew fierce criticism for closing two state psychiatric hospitals, forcing elderly patients to move to private nursing homes. The criticism was warranted. Three longtime patients from one of the hospitals died shortly after being transferred. 

When Utah considered privatizing forensic psychiatric care in 2010, its state legislature determined that cost savings may only result from reducing staff compensation, which could lead to high turnover rates and increased harm to patients.

In 2017, Alaska commissioned a study to find out whether privatizing a psychiatric facility would save money but concluded: “Our findings demonstrate that continued state management is not only the most advantageous route for generating overall cost savings, but that it also avoids many of the risks involved in contracting out the management of critical public infrastructure.”

Relying on our already-strained criminal justice system for mental health care isn’t working. We should invest in and expand services for our most vulnerable.

And we can afford it. Middle-class and low-income New Yorkers currently pay higher effective tax rates than billionaires and multi-millionaires. Let’s fix that and fund the important public services that keep our state safe, healthy, and thriving.

Governor Cuomo quoted himself at the top of his pandemic poster: “Wake up, America. Forget the politics, get smart.” Let’s wake up. Cutting and privatizing mental health care isn’t the smart thing to do.

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Wayne Spence is a parole officer and Randi DiAntonio is a social worker. Spence is also the president of the Public Employees Federation (PEF), a union representing more than 50,000 New York State employees, including almost 6,000 at the Office of Mental Health. DiAntonio is a vice president of PEF, which is part of NYS Fund Our Future: A coalition of union, community and thought leaders building a thriving New York by making the case for government in the public interest. On Twitter @NYSPEF.

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New York Leadership Must Continue Supporting Pro-Immigration Policies While Washington Works on a Path to Citizenship


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Statue of Liberty (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


New York has long been recognized as a starting place for immigrants to discover new opportunities. However, we have strayed over the years from our nation’s values — especially as it relates to immigration policy. 

Thankfully, members of New York’s congressional delegation — especially Reps. Nydia Velazquez and Yvette Clarke — are leading the charge to ensure a key group of undocumented immigrants have a pathway to citizenship. This is, however, just one step toward getting our broken federal immigration system back on track, which will take some time. In the short term, it is imperative that state elected officials and policy-makers continue to protect this vulnerable population.

Years of the Trump administration’s anti-immigration policies and rhetoric exacerbated immigrant communities’ many vulnerabilities, especially for undocumented immigrants who comprise about 15% of New York’s immigrant population. The coronavirus pandemic only made matters worse, resulting in a troubling increase in incidents in which vulnerable individuals required legal representation, from domestic abuse to housing evictions. 

While some programs, policies, and initiatives were established to prevent the exploitation of New York immigrants, many undocumented individuals were continuously marginalized and often afraid to see k help due to fear of deportation. 

New York’s state budget, due April 1, is on track to include $10 million to continue a critical program – the Liberty Defense Project, which provides free legal services to immigrants in need. This first-in-the nation initiative was created in 2017 as immigrants were facing four long and difficult years with Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House.  

This program remains important as undocumented individuals have been largely excluded from state and federal aid packages throughout the pandemic, resulting in a host of legal challenges – from eviction and deportation to bankruptcy and domestic incidents.

But the Liberty Defense Project and similar efforts are merely a temporary fix. We need a permanent solution in the form of a pathway to citizenship for the millions of immigrants who serve our communities and keep our economy running.

The nation has begun to turn the page on immigration reform. Recent passage by the House of Representatives of two bills that would establish paths to citizenship or legal status for millions of undocumented immigrant — including the Dreamers, those brought to the country unlawfully as children, as well as farm workers – indicates progress.

One of these bills, the American Dream and Promise Act, would help about 28,180 young immigrants across the nation currently protected under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. That includes 9,200 workers deemed essential during the pandemic, including health-care providers, teachers, sanitation and food industry workers.

These same essential workers would receive additional on-the-job protections through the state-level NY HERO Act. This legislation, which recently passed the state Senate, requires employers to establish health and safety standards for COVID-19 and other airborne infectious diseases in the workplace. 

This is one example of a concrete step state lawmakers can take to protect vulnerable New Yorkers – including immigrants – while we await further action in Washington. The Assembly should quickly follow the Senate’s lead and pass the NY HERO Act without delay.

It is imperative that members of the U.S. Senate, especially Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, New York’s senior senator, finish what the House has started and approve the American Dream and Promise Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. While these initiatives make their way through the legislative process in Washington, New York must continue to live up to its reputation as a progressive leader by protecting the more than 4.3 million immigrants who call the state home.

Until a federal path to citizenship becomes a reality, state lawmakers must continue working to protect undocumented immigrants while also benefitting all New Yorkers. The hardworking men and women who have kept us safe throughout the pandemic and contributed for years to our economy deserve nothing less and cannot wait any longer for action.

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Camille Mackler is executive director of Immigrant ARC, a nonprofit organization that mobilizes New York’s network of legal service providers by facilitating communication and information sharing to better support immigrant communities.  On Twitter @cmackler and @immigrantarc.

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The State Can’t Again Take Federal Funding Meant for New York City Schools


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


Here's the deal: This time last year, the New York City Department of Education closed schools for in-person learning because of the early devastation COVID-19 was causing in New York. While we all understood this was necessary, what happened next was a completely inappropriate and very unnecessary response to that closure by the State.

The New York City public school system closed for in-person learning during the home stretch of negotiations over the 2020-2021 New York state budget. These negotiations are normally a hectic time for legislators, the Governor, and communities alike. But with a closed New York City school system, hundreds of schools and over a million students and families were anxious to know what education was going to look like for the foreseeable future. The State Legislature and Governor Cuomo were also desperately trying to figure out how to fund the shift to remote learning.

In that context, the federal government stepped in with the CARES Act to lessen the burden by allocating emergency funding for states to transition to remote learning. That relief, however, came with a caveat: new funding was supposed to be used to supplement education. It was supposed to be used "in addition to" and not "instead of." The result? Something called a "pandemic adjustment" that supplanted normal education funding with CARES Act funding — essentially, the state took education funding intended for the city.

This pandemic adjustment coupled with the "20% withholding" stunt the governor pulled right before schools reopened resulted in very real resource challenges at the Department of Education. The "furloughs” that followed for managerial and nonunion Department of Education employees caused financial hardships on some district staff like Education Council Administrative Assistants that had to go unpaid for a week at a time when none of us could afford to.

As the State Legislature and Governor Cuomo consider the 2021-2022 state budget, which is due by April 1, and funding priorities for a new round of federal relief are on the horizon, we must not repeat recent history. We must not repeat adjusting the budget on the backs of our children and families. The final New York state budget must not take hundreds of millions of dollars in federal education aid meant for New York City.

Instead, we must have access to the full state and federal education funding in order to build on the long-term investment made to bridge the digital divide with 500,000 iPads and provide additional access to technology and broadband for low-income students and families to support them in remote learning environments, not to mention the fact that every child and family needs such access even when students are in school five days a week.

We must expand funding for language access for English language learners who have had difficulty receiving comprehensive technical support in their native languages. We must provide additional funding for students with disabilities who have been unable to receive continuous in-person access to the therapy and related services they need. We must provide additional funding to help Black and brown communities across this city who have disproportionately suffered extraordinary trauma and loss due COVID-19. We must provide additional resources to support education for incarcerated minors who have languished in jails during this pandemic. We must also provide additional resources for all our parents to support our children's education, especially but not only due to our new roles as remote educators.

In addition to an investment in people, we must also make a massive investment in our education infrastructure. We must invest in the wholesale repair, upgrade, and modernization of our aging school buildings. We must invest in new school buildings that can safely accommodate students with disabilities. We must provide our children return to spacious classrooms, modern facilities, clean drinking water, and contaminant-free air. And we must invest in infrastructure that ensures that we never disconnect any child from the education to which they have a right.

Our children and families need additional resources, especially as this pandemic's long-term impact on our system becomes more evident. As we consider the different supports that our students, families, and school communities need, we must do so with an understanding that this is a long-term process. Given the recently-offered one-house budgets released by the State Assembly and Senate, we see that the New York State Legislature is with us in our fight, but it must be made clear: it is time for the Governor to do his part. He must not supplant federal funding at the expense of our students’ and families' futures. No more schemes or "pandemic adjustments." The new state budget must fully fund our schools and provide the additional resources necessary so our children may have access to a high-quality education.

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Thomas C. Sheppard is the Community Education Council Presidents’ Appointee on the New York City Panel for Educational Policy (PEP). On Twitter @TomCSheppard.

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A Key Step the State Must Take for New York’s Renewable Energy Future


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Solar panels (rendering: NYC Mayor's Office)


In order to rebuild our economy and bring large-scale job creation back to New York in a post-COVID-19 world, we must turn our focus to renewable energy projects. These projects are the future; they are critical to building back up the state and delivering on New York’s nation-leading climate goals.

New York spearheaded national climate leadership by passing the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) in 2019, setting ambitious goals of net zero emissions by 2040 and 70% renewable electricity by 2030. In order for us to achieve these goals, New York must pass a standard tax assessment model for renewable energy projects.

What is a standard tax assessment model? As renewable energy projects like wind and solar are built, host communities negotiate property tax agreements through multiple jurisdictions like towns, counties, and school districts. The negotiations can take as much as two or more years.

By providing a standard methodology for assessing wind and solar projects, as proposed in Part X of the Revenue Bill in this year’s Executive Budget presented by the governor and included in the New York State Senate one-house budget last week, New York’s local communities and Industrial Development Associations (IDAs) will have a consistent framework on which to make decisions about taxation – all while ensuring local communities have the authority to support these types of renewable energy projects, opening the doors to achieving New York’s CLCPA goals.

That’s to say: New York State can unleash its pipeline of permitted and approved renewable projects and get them built. And at a time like this, the economic investment and job creation generated by renewable energy projects are imperative to rebuilding our economy and supporting the livelihoods of New York families. 

With the governor and the State Senate on board, I urge the State Assembly to pass Part X. A standardized tax assessment model is critical to expanding wind and solar projects that will create thousands of prevailing wage-paying, union construction jobs—the kind of jobs that allow families to feel secure by earning consistent, fair wages and safety and health benefits.

Part X creates a win-win-win scenario for New York: it helps to facilitate the state’s nation-leading carbon reduction goals through the timely construction of solar and wind energy projects in the state; it promotes economic development through the creation of thousands of good-paying construction jobs; and it provides local gover nments with a uniform revenue stream.

Union labor has built New York to where it stands today. And we’ll keep building our great state into the future — a future that now revolves around renewable energy. Now it’s on the New York State Assembly to do its part to pass a standard tax assessment model for renewable energy projects. Doing so will put New York on track to meet our climate and clean energy goals while reinvigorating our economy – there’s no time to wait.

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Vincent Albanese is Director of Policy and Public Affairs at the New York State Laborers’ Organizing Fund.

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Four ‘Simple’ Things We Can Do Now for a Greener, More Livable Community


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Prospect Park (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


Recently, reading a book to my kids, we reached a point where the protagonist felt overwhelmed by too many challenges. “Cut it into smaller slices,” one of my twin six-year-olds wanted to suggest to the story’s hero, “like you do to my apple.” 

From confronting our climate crisis to imagining how to reinvent our streets to be safe for my kids and all New Yorkers, the challenges can feel overwhelming. But what if we slice up this apple? 

Greening our city — from livable streets to a sustainable future — can and must begin immediately. Big ideas that I strongly support such as the Green New Deal for New York City, require big, citywide policy changes, including state approvals; and areas of work close to my heart like investing in our parks and playgrounds, require citywide efforts. Yet there are plenty of actions we can start now at the neighborhood level.

The apple has already been sliced for us by dynamic and impactful non-profit groups in communities in Brooklyn, and around the city — and building on ideas from these groups, we’ve compiled a set of actions that, as I run for City Council in Brooklyn’s 39th District, I am ready to act upon to help create change at the neighborhood level: going big on rooftop solar energy; safer streets and pedestrian-first zones; reducing the carbon footprint of our food and waste; and accelerating the cleanup of toxic legacies in our backyard. These are actionable items to help those who call Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Kensington, Borough Park, Gowanus, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, and the Columbia Waterfront District home or who work, visit, or go to school there.

Solar roofs present a straightforward, win-win opportunity. The cost has been dramatically reduced, the technical issues have been solved, and we now have a number of installers with deep experience with New York buildings (including at least one company based in the 39th Council District).  

What is now missing is an effort to put rooftop solar right in front of people’s noses. Big, transformative ideas like public renewable utilities and large-scale offshore wind are worthy, but will take time and require state approvals. All the tools to dramatically increase rooftop solar are available but need to be taken to scale: a door-to-door campaign to sign up for solar, a “public option” for community solar for renters, and financing tools to eliminate upfront costs. I’m especially excited about job training programs for solar installation as a pathway to the middle class.

There are just as many actionable ways to move forward on safer streets. I walk and bike with my kids around Brooklyn. My picture of a cyclist isn’t a super-athlete, it’s a parent ferrying kids, a delivery person, or my 76-year-old father who still criss-crosses the city on two wheels, with his new hip. 

We need to transform how we protect our cyclists, strollers, seniors, and pedestrians—and how we reimagine public streets as public spaces. Our term-limited Council Member Brad Lander has shown that a local Council member can make a difference. 

I’d build upon that track record by focusing enforcement and design solutions on the most dangerous intersections. I’d be a champion for going further to create and sustain public spaces for play, outdoor schooling, restaurants, culture, retail and community gatherings. In 2022, I’d work to make sure there is an on-going “open street” in each neighborhood and pilot a multi-block “pedestrians-first zone” in one neighborhood.

And let’s make it easier, more accessible and more affordable to get around our city—expanding Citi Bike throughout Kensington, each year rolling out a neighborhood bike network safe for ages 8 to 80, and invest in programs that make it easier for everyone to have and safely secure a bike.

We can immediately do better on waste and our food systems, areas where the last year has seen our city going backwards. It was a real blow to lose curbside collection of composting. I am grateful that community-based composting organizations rallied to preserve drop-off sites. But we can get the municipal program back on its feet in a cost-effective way through block-by-block outreach and complement it by making textile and e-waste recycling available to every block. At the same time, let’s pilot a containerization program on a commercial corridor to eliminate trash bag piles. 

The cooperative economy also offers solutions. Food coops, mutual aid networks, and “buy nothing” groups provide a growing constituency to go to scale on reducing our consumer carbon footprint. I’ve spent two decades creating organizations that use social capital and collective effort to create big change and would help support and connect these newer and more established cooperative models to see what we really can accomplish together.

Finally, this isn’t limited to our district but there is a unique opportunity for us to go big on accelerating the cleanup of toxic legacies in our own backyard. The Gowanus Canal has been burdened by a historic legacy of toxic industry, with added pollution from combined sewage overflows (CSOs) into the canal from the city’s sewers everytime it rains. The work led by Rep. Nydia Velazquez and the EPA under the Superfund program deserves to be done as quickly as possible. Together we can move quickly on the city’s commitments to reduce CSOs and ensure sites are cleaned up to appropriate standards safe for residential uses.

And I recommit to the deal-breaker conditions for investment in NYCHA and environmental justice goals set by the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice for any forward movement on the Gowanus Rezoning. Regardless of what happens with the rezoning, cleaning the Gowanus and supporting it as a vibrant, sustainable, and mixed-use neighborhood is a generational project that requires ongoing engagement and leadership.

As we’ve seen even in the worst of this pandemic, local partnerships can have impact faster than waiting for broader policies. One example: A group of neighbors and I came together to establish and expand the Camp Friendship Food Pantry last May, and we now serve hundreds of families each week.

As a City Council member, of course I would use local laws, land use review, and oversight as powerful tools — but to be truly effective, Council members also must use the soft powers of the office: convening local groups, providing a base for organizing around solutions, and bringing people together to solve problems. I’d build on my 20 years of experience as an organizer and institution builder to convene, innovate, and empower to make real headway on climate and safe streets in 2022, and contribute to greening our district, our city, and our future.

When the city began the curbside composting pilot, our building didn’t immediately qualify. I had to research the program, bring it to the co-op board and get buy-in. People were hesitant: Would it lead to more rats? A cluttered garbage area? What if we didn’t compost correctly? With the help of the organics program of the Department of Sanitation, we answered all these questions and opted in as a trial run.

Years later, when the city ended the program, several neighbors who had initially been hesitant came to me: “Justin, you know city government. How do we get composting back?”

The only way we do anything worthwhile: Together.

*Ideas in this column have been drawn from the tremendous work of a range of local organizations — culled from the public reports and programs and numerous direct conversations — including the Gowanus Neighborhood Coalition for Justice, Solar1, the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, BIG Reuse, The HOPE Program, Families for Safe Streets, Transportation Alternatives, the Riders Alliance, the Pratt Center for Community Development, Park Slope Neighbors, Sustainable CUNY, Lower East Side Ecology Center, and more that tackle these issues everyday.

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Justin Krebs is a progressive organizer, leader of National Campaigns at MoveOn, and a Democratic candidate for City Council in Brooklyn’s 39th District. On Twitter @justinmkrebs

The State Assembly Must Step Up for At-Risk Families Like Mine


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New Yorkers need housing (photo: Emil Cohen/City Council)


[Update: not long after this op-ed published, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie tweeted the Assembly's support for the HAVP rental subsidy and indicated the Assembly majority he leads would be fighting for its inclusion in the state budget due by April 1]

I am the proud mother of an 18-year-old freshman at John Jay College, who is studying to become a criminal justice lawyer. It breaks my heart that he has to limit his opportunities and turn down potential jobs to prevent us from becoming homeless. That is the twisted logic of our state’s current rental assistance program — but it does not have to be this way.

This week I was heartbroken to see that Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie failed to include critical resources for homeless New Yorkers — namely the Housing Access Voucher Program (HAVP) — in the Assembly one-house budget. With over 92,000 New Yorkers homeless and dying from COVID-19 at astonishing rates, there is really no excuse. 

I currently live in a two-family home on Staten Island with my children. We moved to Staten Island from New York City’s shelter system after fleeing a domestic violence situation that put me and my childrens’ lives at risk. I pay rent with what is called a “Family Homelessness and Eviction Prevention” (FHEP) voucher. My daughter and I both receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and we are eligible for rental assistance because of my son’s public assistance case. We are dependent on this income to pay our $1,534 monthly rent. My son wants to work and is able to work, but if he works more than 20 hours per week, his public assistance case will close, and we will lose our voucher and become homeless again. 

Our landlords live below us, and our relationship has gotten worse over time. I am a constant target of their harassment and they have been trying to push me and my kids out onto the street in the middle of a pandemic. I am under incredible stress every day and it has taken a serious toll on my mental and physical health. I never feel safe – in fact, I feel like I am back in an abusive relationship all over again. 

I have been trying desperately to move out of my apartment into a new place for the last 13 months, but the City will only cover $1,580 in rent for a family of three. This is what a studio apartment costs in New York City. I feel trapped: stuck in an unsafe apartment with rent I can’t afford; if my son gets a job I will lose the meager assistance I have but we want him to succeed. 

My story is not unique. The alphabet soup I just described -- FHEPs, SSI -- might seem alienating to the average New Yorker. It’s alienating to me, too. But this is the cruelty of being homeless in New York: in order to get and keep public benefits, families like mine are forced to turn down opportunities, struggle in unsafe housing, and face byzantine processes that stop us from living a life with dignity every single day. And the vouchers still don’t cover rent to allow families like mine necessary flexibility.

HAVP is a stable rental subsidy that would help families like mine find permanent homes instead of moving from one bad situation to another. A program like this would change my life and the lives of tens of thousands of other people across New York State. It would pay fair market rent and challenge the status quo of current welfare programs that limit upward mobility by allowing my families’ income to increase until we are able to pay our rent independently. It would also cover undocumented people, as well people on social security and other fixed incomes — communities who currently have no rent support options. 

There were 92,000 New Yorkers homeless before COVID-19 and if nothing changes that number is sure to grow. The New York State Senate has acknowledged that crisis, and included HAVP in their one-house budget proposal. But once again, the Assembly is leaving us behind. Without HAVP, the Assembly is leaving thousands and thousands of New Yorkers who have been at increased risk of exposure to COVID-19 and dying since the beginning of the pandemic. It’s shameful.

In order to recover from the pandemic, we need rental assistance for the homelessless. Along with it, we need to tax the wealthy (by passing the Invest in Our New York Act), make eviction protections like ‘good cause’ permanent, and forgive back rent. As homeless New Yorkers know best of all, Governor Cuomo is no friend. But Speaker Heastie must negotiate with Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and stand with us during final budget negotiations. Both houses have a supermajority. They should use it to create a budget that will sustainably fund our state out of this crisis and into a better future, making sure to finally take steps needed to address our homelessness crisis and help thousands of families like mine. 

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Gizel Garcia is a mother, and a young, ambitious, and disabled New Yorker. She is a leader in the Community Action Program at Neighbors Together, a community based organization located in central Brooklyn that organizes homeless and formerly homeless New Yorkers. She is an active leader with the Housing Justice for All campaign.

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Leading Mayoral Candidates Show Yeshiva Ignorance


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A Brooklyn scene (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


In his new book Think Again, psychologist Adam Grant discusses the art of rethinking our ideas and beliefs and how vital this is towards progress. He explains how politicians are particularly prone to falling into a Politician Mode. It’s where one seeks approval and support from an audience with the goal of winning them over. 

Grant’s theory was top of mind as I have watched several of the New York City mayoral candidates go into full-blown Politici an Mode in their effort to win over the highly sought-after Hasidic bloc vote. One issue, in particular, stands out: secular education. 

As a graduate of Hasidic yeshiva that did not provide me with a proper secular education, it’s astonishing to see how ill-informed two of the mayoral candidates are on the issue of yeshiva education. 

This week, Eric Adams posted a video of himself on Twitter filmed during a brief visit to a Hasidic elementary school. Adams makes a series of inaccurate statements. He labels critics of Hasidic yeshiva education as “outsiders” when, in fact, the complaints against yeshivas were made by a group of parents and former yeshiva students, such as myself. While attending a Hasidic high school we never received any secular education (i.e. basic writing and reading of English, science, history, etc.), and in elementary school, we received just under 90 minutes of secular studies per day. 

Adams also makes strange comparisons between the effort to improve secular curriculum in Hasidic yeshivas and the problems African-American and Hispanic students face due to a lack of culturally-competent education in their schools. We never devalued or attacked cultural or religious education—we merely proposed having a robust dual curriculum as they have in the majority of non-Hasidic Jewish schools.

At a mayoral forum on February 18, Andrew Yang also stated that he wouldn’t “interfere” with “faith-based learning”—essentially offering assurance to the Hasidic community that their schools will be allowed to continue breaking state law and not properly educating students. In a bizarre anecdote, he mentioned how he valued his one month of bible education back in high school, where he said he studied it as “literature,” proving that he was misinformed on this issue.

In reality, over 50,000 children within the New York Hasidic (a.k.a ultra-Orthodox) school system were found being not educated as required by state law. In December of 2019, the New York City Department of Education released a long-awaited and much-delayed report on some of the problematic Hasidic yeshivas. Of 28 yeshivas reviewed by investigators, only two were found to be providing students with an adequate education in accordance with state law—confirming years of allegations against these problematic yeshivas.

Although this impacts the curriculum at a very specific group of Jewish schools, this issue is of true concern to all New Yorkers. According to the 2020 Census, the towns of Kiryas Joel and New Square in upstate New York are listed as having the highest population growth rates within the state. They are also the poorest towns in the country. Both towns are almost exclusively Hasidic. Growth rates within the Hasidic community of New York City have also been astounding. Data suggests that by 2030, up to one-eighth of New York City’s schoolchildren will be Hasidic, including up to 30% of Brooklyn’s schoolchildren. Unfortunately, the lack of secular education dooms most young Hasidic graduates to lives of poverty and dependence on government aid. It's not hard to imagine the economic stress the State and City may face if this isn’t acted upon soon.

We aren’t expecting a new mayor to come in at the beginning of next year and overhaul the Hasidic yeshiva curriculum overnight. But we do need a mayor who understands and acknowledges an issue of this magnitude and prioritizes the education of these children. We need a mayor who will create change for the betterment of all children, not only try to appeal to adult voters. 

Grant discusses another mode of thinking, the Scientific Mode, in which one is aware of the limits of their own understanding, remains curious, and updates their views based on new information.  

We need a mayor who will adopt a scientific frame of mind to solve this issue—a mayor who is only focused on being a politician won’t do.

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Shlomo Noskow attended Hasidic yeshivas in Brooklyn. He is a member of the board at Yaffed, an organization advocating for improved education in Hasidic yeshivas. On Twitter @yaffedorg.

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Mayoral Candidates are Talking Smart About Housing. That’s Only the First Step


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Housing (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


While there have been no shortage of Zoom forums and candidate discussions, it is fitting that the first televised gathering of mayoral hopefuls focused on housing and homelessness. The city is in the throes of a housing emergency that the pandemic has only exacerbated. One million households were rent burdened before the pandemic and now hundreds of thousands of households are at risk of eviction, with tens of thousands more at risk of foreclosure. This is just one way to quantify the scope of the problem facing the next mayor, who will likely be tasked with providing immediate housing relief to pandemic-impacted households while also addressing the crisis’ underlying conditions.

My organization, the New York Housing Conference, organized a broad coalition called United for Housing – comprising 90 policy experts, practitioners, and advocates from a diverse range of backgrounds – to lay out a policy vision to help combat this challenge. And last week, our coalition was proud to partner with the NYU Furman Center and NY1 to host a mayoral candidate forum that fostered a meaningful policy conversation among frontrunners in the Democratic primary. The fact is that New Yorkers should be encouraged by what they heard – but this is only the first step.

The most encouraging sign is that each of the eight candidates have promised to meet United for Housing’s goal of doubling city capital spending on housing to $4 billion annually. This is a significant promise that reflects the seriousness with which every candidate is treating housing – a spirit we have seen as we’ve briefed candidates on the vision laid out in our report, United for Housing: From the Ground Up, throughout the campaign.

This carried over into the forum, where candidates were pressed on issues ranging from COVID-19’s impact on the housing emergency to the affordable housing and homelessness crisis to home ownership to NYCHA to racial equity. And while there is some disagreement on the best path forward, there is broad consensus on the scope of the problem and even some of the most important solutions.

For example, every candidate agreed to make rental assistance vouchers available to youth aging out of the foster care system – a smart, targeted way to prevent young New Yorkers from experiencing homelessness at a key moment in their lives. Candidates also agreed on the big questions, highlighting that we need to build more deeply affordable housing, that housing, eviction prevention, and rental assistance are essential tools in the homelessness crisis, that NYCHA residents need to be better involved in the future of their homes, and that we need to take an active approach to end systemic discrimination and segregation in housing.

The broad agreement coupled with the fact that so many candidates have boldly committed to such a robust ramp-up of city expenditure on housing is the most significant development of the campaign thus far from a housing perspective. But it alone will not be enough: key differences on the details remain among the candidates, including how they will use that money, where it will be targeted, and even what each means by the term “affordable housing.”

Over the next several months, it will be incumbent on every New Yorker to continue pushing candidates on the details. New York City cannot afford anything less than a real plan that will meaningfully address the problems we are all facing. And it will be incumbent on the next mayor to take the lead: while there are promising signs of new support from Washington, it is essential for every level of government to make a historic commitment on housing to actually move the dial.

This is only the first step. When the next mayor takes office, we will need to ensure that the proper resources are made available and fight for a more affordable New York. After all, the next mayor’s choices will shape not just our COVID-19 recovery, but also the next decade of housing policy – and it is crucial that they get it right.

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Brendan Cheney is the Director of Policy and Communications at the New York Housing Conference, which convened the United for Housing coalition and authored the From the Ground Up report. On Twitter @brendancheney of @thenyhc.

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New York Must Give Criminalized Trafficking Survivors Like Me a Fresh Start


exp dev rem

Police lines (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


In the back of a police car after my arrest, I remember thinking: at least I am going somewhere my trafficker can’t hurt me. 

It was 2010, and I had met a man who trafficked me into prostitution. At 23, I was a vulnerable target. I had fled an abusive home in Mexico for Brooklyn. I was undocumented and live d in fear of deportation. My family in New York had kicked me out because they did not accept my identity as a transgender woman. I stayed with friends who introduced me to a man who, at first, offered me the attention and affection I craved -- then turned on me.

Once I had come to trust him, he beat me, raped me, and forced me into sex work, setting up "dates" for me on Craigslist and taking the money. He threatened me with a knife and said he would call immigration on me. He gave me drugs and alcohol and then threatened to withhold them if I didn’t work for him. I had no idea how to get out. 

Perhaps worst of all, my trafficker used me as bait so he could commit knife-point robberies of the men he forced me to have sex with. I was arrested by an undercover cop and charged with one of those robberies. 

Nobody in the system asked what happened to put me into that situation. Even though I was being abused, I was afraid to tell the police what was going on. If they had known my trafficker made me do the robberies, would things have been different? I feared his continued abuse; I feared the police; I feared I would be sent back to Mexico. Because of my fear, I just stayed quiet, and it was the worst feeling in the world. I was already traumatized by the abuse I was suffering. When the police went through my personal belongings, swabbed my mouth, fingerprinted me, and laughed at me, I felt worthless.

Victims are supposed to be protected by the law, but I wasn’t. It felt so easy for everyone in the system to treat me like garbage they could toss out. I am a good person but being in the courtroom made me feel like the worst person in the world. I ended up pleading guilty because I felt powerless, saddling myself with a criminal record. The conviction posed a new obstacle to my immigration process and served as a constant reminder of my trafficking experience – another way my trafficker had marked me.  

In 2009, New York became the first state in the country to allow human trafficking survivors to clear prostitution convictions from their criminal records. This law has provided some measure of justice to people forced into prostitution and arrested for it. However, it does not address all of the other offenses that traffickers compel victims to commit by using force, fraud, or coercion. As a result, it still leaves trafficking survivors like me with criminal records. 

Now the New York State Legislature is considering a bill to expand a trafficking survivor’s right to relief. The START Act, sponsored by Assembly Member Richard Gottfried and Senator Jessica Ramos, has been introduced in both houses this session, but hasn’t yet come to a vote in either house. It would empower courts to clear any criminal convictions resulting from human trafficking, and it could provide justice to the many people who found themselves in circumstances like mine. The Legislature should vote on it as soon as possible. 

Today, I have been granted asylum in the U.S., and I am working to restart my life as an activist. Fortunately, I was able to clear the robbery conviction from my record, with the efforts of my legal team and an agreement worked out with an understanding prosecutor. But under current law, most trafficking survivors are not able to do this, even though their offenses were entirely the result of being trafficked. Justice shouldn’t depend on where you live or where you were arrested. All trafficking victims in New York State deserve access to a clean slate.

I am sorry for what happened; every night I still pray for forgiveness. But I was under the control of my trafficker, and the law didn't understand that. 

Passing the START Act would mean that trafficking survivors can fully move on with our lives, get a fresh start and feel less alone. We need to be able to clear the criminal records that hold us back. New York must protect victims like me and pass the START Act now. 

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N.R. is an activist for immigrant rights and a member of the New York Anti-Trafficking Network’s START Coalition, a group advocating for passage of the START Act. Kate Mogulescu is the director of Brooklyn Law School’s Criminal Defense & Advocacy Clinic, which worked with N.R. to clear her record and on this column, and represents other criminalized trafficking survivors.

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It’s Time to Bring Joy Back to New York


stand up ny

Stand Up NY


Laughter brings people joy, something that we’ve been missing for so long in New York thanks to the shutdowns by Governor Andrew Cuomo. We need New York to heal. That’s why I convinced my friend Dani Zoldan, the owner of Stand Up NY, to sue the governor. 

Prior to this lawsuit, Dani was putting on shows in parks and subway cars. He was working around the mandates imposed on small businesses by the governor and other elected representatives. Dani skirted the law and put on comedy shows without a license, because the law was unjust. It was this injustice that left no choice but to take legal action. Dani said, “The comedy scene in New York City is the best in the world. The overall consensus is that comics want to perform again, New Yorkers want to laugh and venues want to receive guidelines so they can safely reopen.”

He’s right.

Getting this right required conversations with numerous lawyers, including Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians, among others, and they had different approaches to this case. Some were too expensive. Others didn’t have the right experience. Some had positive results in bringing suit, but didn’t come across as compelling litigators. After numerous consultations, we felt good about hiring James Mermigis, the “Anti-Shutdown Lawyer.” But, there was a problem.

Imagine being a comedy club owner on the Upper West Side like Dani—who considers himself an independent with progressive values, teaming up with Mermigis, who voted for Trump. Dani depends on the local community to put food on the table, and this might feel like doom for a small business. But that’s not the case.

Part of the healing process is bringing people together. After four years of heated debates and a year of social isolation forced upon us by the governor, it’s time to bridge the divide. Dani and James were a great match because they think differently, yet want the same outcomes.

Dani and James may not agree on everything, but they agree on enough. This team championed the arts, culture, and small businesses that are dear to our hearts. We announced the lawsuit on The Sharpe Way, and raised awareness with LegalizeComedy.NYC. The lawsuit was filed on March 1, and Dani went on a media blitz the next day. By March 3, Governor Cuomo announced that he would permit entertainment venues to open on April 2. Pushing him into a corner to make the right decision was a huge win for our wonderful city. With comedy and other entertainment come laughter and joy.

Dani was not just representing his club. He was representing the community of local comics and other artists in New York who could not work, because of these suffocating mandates. We went to battle with the governor, head on. We won. We’re bringing back comedy clubs, laughter, and joy. We have a chance to heal.

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Larry Sharpe is host of The Sharpe Way and was the Libertarian Party nominee for governor of New York in 2018. On Twitter @LarrySharpe.

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