City of New York, NY
10/21/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/22/2024 11:31
Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts Community Conversation
October 21, 2024
First Deputy Commissioner Valerie Vazquez, Community Affairs Unit: Good evening. My name is Valerie Vazquez, and I'm the first deputy commissioner for the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit. The Adams' administration is excited to be here in East New York, Brooklyn. We want to thank Junior High School 218, as well as Principal Lee Ann Hermann for hosting us. The Talk with Eric Community Conversations series provides an opportunity for the mayor and his commissioners to hear directly from New Yorkers. We aim to bring these town halls to every neighborhood in all five boroughs. I'm proud to report, this is our 32nd town hall.We are proud of these accomplishments that we have achieved, and City Hall is eager to work in partnership with New Yorkers to continue address issues and get stuff done. Without further ado, I would like to introduce the Mayor Adams administration leadership at the desk, who are here to hear directly from you. I do ask that you wait until we've gone through introductions, so hold your applause.
To my left is the man that needs no introductions, the 110th mayor of the City of New York, Mayor Eric Adams. Deputy mayor for Health and Human Services, Anne Williams-Isom. Deputy Mayor Ana Almanzar. First deputy mayor's chief of staff, Reggie Thomas. Deputy mayor of Operations senior advisor, Neg Lakew. NYPD deputy commissioner, Mark Stewart. DYCD commissioner, Keith Howard.
Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs commissioner, Manuel Castro. DSS commissioner, Molly Park. End Gender-Based Violence commissioner, Saloni Sethi. H+H CEO, Dr. Mitch Katz. Department of Health and Mental Hygiene chief of staff, Jenna Mandel-Ricci. The Office of Community Mental Health, deputy executive director, Laquisha Grant. ACS deputy commissioner and general counsel, Joseph Cardieri. CCHR chief of staff, Jose Rios Lua. The first deputy commissioner of DWCP, Kenny Minaya. The New York City Emergency Management deputy commissioner, Herman Schaffer. EDC vice president, Gregory Vayngurt.
NYCHA E.V.P. for Property Management, Daniel Greene. FDNY assistant commissioner, James Harding. We are joined by New York City's Public Schools chancellor, Melissa Ramos. HPD commissioner, Adolfo Carrión. Department of Buildings first deputy commissioner, Kaz Vilenchik. deputy executive commissioner, Ryan Murray. Department of City Planning executive director, Edith Hsu-Chen. SBS commissioner, Dynishal Gross. DOP commissioner, Juanita Holmes. The Office of Rodent Mitigation director, Kathleen Corradi. The Mayor's Office of Climate Environmental Justice executive director, Elijah Hutchinson.
DOT chief of staff, Ryan Lynch. The Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice director, Deanna Logan. The Office of Asylum Seeker Operations chief operating officer, Peter Flynt. DEP borough commissioner, Alfonso Lopez. Department of Sanitation assistant chief, Joe Rainone. DPR Brooklyn commissioner, Martin Maher. MOPD, Mayor's Office of People with Disabilities commissioner, Christina Curry.
Not on this dais, but joined here by NYPD deputy commissioner, Kaz Daughtry. The NYPD 75th Precinct commanding officer, Inspector Mark Vazquez. NYPD 73rd Precinct commanding officer, Captain Odelle Despot. chief of Brooklyn North, assistant chief, Scott Henderson. Andrea Orlando, the deputy borough chief rep for the Brooklyn DA. Councilmember Chris Banks has joined us as well. As well as Jennifer Hosford of Senator Persaud's office. Now, without further ado, I turn it over to your mayor, Eric Adams.
Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Great to be here. Chris's district, good to see you here, Councilman. It's so important, some of these important issues. It was great to join you when we put millions of dollars into the Brownsville Rec Center. Wanted to make it a state-of-the-art location. Folks, listen, so much is happening in the city. You read about it, you hear about it. My job is to make sure that the city functions. My lawyers will take care of any legal matters. I'm going to stay focused on running the city, which I committed and which I was elected to do.
Go back to January 1st, 2022, when I got elected. What was happening in this city at that time? No one was on our subway system. We were being impacted by COVID. It was unsure if our children were going to be in the schools or not. We were dealing with real issues in our public housing. When I was borough president, knocking on doors, giving out masks, I was speaking to the parents in public housing, that stated, "Eric, we don't have high-speed broadband for our children to do telemedicine, or our children to be able to do remote learning."
Jobs were not in the city. Black and brown unemployment was four times the rate of white unemployment. We were not going into the communities dealing with hands-on. Crime, 40 percent increase, when we came into office. Guns were proliferating in our city. Foster care children were not getting the support that they deserved. They were aging out from 6,700 a year, knowing what was going to happen to them. Mental health issues, homelessness, victims of crime, participating in crime. Small businesses were hurting in this city.
MWBEs, Black and brown-owned businesses were having a difficult time navigating the complexities of having procurement contracts in the city. Two years later, two years later, we financed more affordable housing in year one and in year two in the history of the city. We moved more people out of homeless shelters into permanent housing in year one and two in the history of the city. More people who had FHEPS vouchers were able to utilize those vouchers in the history of the program. We're now investing in foster care children. Paying their college tuition, and giving them a stipend, and giving them life coaches until they're 21 years old.
We decreased Black and brown unemployment by 30 percent. We made the subway system at the capacity of safety. Robberies on the subway system is the lowest in recorded history. Remember when they would always say in August, what happens in gun violence in places like Brownsville, South Jamaica, Queens, East New York? August was the safest shooting numbers in the history of recorded history in this city because of what we've done in this city. 30,000 ghost cars and illegal scooters removed off our streets. Over 9,000 guns removed off our streets.
We have more jobs in the city's history right now. More small businesses are up and operated in the city's history. Billions of dollars were placed into women and minority-owned businesses because of the methodologies we have been using to go out and expand who's going to get the procurement contracts for goods and services. The people who are making money and delivering these services should look like the communities that they come from. That has been our action. No one thought we can do it. We turned around this city in two years and we will continue to do so. There's so much more to do.
The reason we're capable of doing it, because we've had over 30 town halls throughout this city with this prestigious group of people who are dedicated to serving you and hearing from you and coming back, listening to the ideas that you have given us. NYCHA, by the way, remember that high-speed broadband issue? NYCHA residents now have free high-speed broadband for their children. We dropped the cost of childcare from $55 a week to less than $5 a week. We increased the earned income tax credit. We are paying off medical debt. The number one cause of bankruptcy is medical debt. We are paying off medical debts of New Yorkers every day.
We're putting pocket, $30 billion back into the pockets of everyday New Yorkers. Most importantly, we made sure that we could have one of the best assemblywomans we know, and we're going to have her greet the folks, Nikki Lucas, who just came in. Say hello to your constituency.
State Assemblywoman Nikki Lucas: How's everybody doing? Good evening to everyone. Wow. That's what y'all giving me? Come on now. Y'all embarrassing me in front of the mayor. We going to try this again. How's everybody doing tonight?
All right. That's a little better. We alive. Thank you, mayor. I appreciate you for coming out.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you. I like that. You sound like the pastor when he stands in the pulpit. He would get quiet and tired and offering. Also, I just really want to welcome our new school chancellor, Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos, who has been a lifelong educator.
Y'all going to be really excited as she continued the great things that Chancellor Banks has done. Everything from healthy food in our school, teaching our children mindfulness, meditation, improving our math scores. We have outpaced the state in reading and math. All the things that Chancellor Banks has put in place. This was his hand-picked successor, and we're excited about how she'll take the school system to the next level. Why don't we open up, take some questions from the floor, and we look forward to a good dialog tonight. How are you doing?
Question: Hey, what's going on?
Mayor Adams: Okay.
Question: How can we enhance lighting on current light posts to create stronger visibility to improve public safety in the following ways? A, crime, B, homeless havens, C, gang violence, and D, ensuring community confidence. Possible solutions that we discussed, increasing wattage, lower lighting poles, as well as pruning trees.
Mayor Adams: Ryan, you want to talk about that? Ryan's representing the commissioner from DOT.
Ryan Lynch, Chief of Staff, Department of Transportation: Good evening, everybody. My name is Ryan Lynch. I'm the chief of staff of Department of Transportation, representing Commissioner Rodriguez. We are happy to take a look at any particular locations we have.
As part of the Every Block Counts effort, we've already begun surveys on about a dozen locations, and that we've installed recent lighting improvements in a dozen locations throughout East New York, but we're always eager to be identified. We can't be on the ground every single day, or every single evening for that matter.If you have specific locations, don't hesitate to reach out to me. I'll leave my card with the table, and I'll get you connected to the right folks at the Department of Transportation.
Just to manage expectations though, it's really important. There are two types of really lighting problems. One is the lighting problem with just the light bulb, and you can change it, but a lot of the times the lighting problem results in us needing to coordinate with Con Edison. That takes generally a little bit more time, but we're trying to break through the barriers and fast track those repairs as fast as we can. Again, happy to take any specific locations, and we'll get our teams out there to take a look.
Mayor Adams: Are you saying lack of light, as Ryan was just pointing out? Are you saying the lights are not broken, or the lights are not bright enough? What are you identifying as the problem? Where's the mic at? What are you saying? So we'll understand.
Question: All right. Some of the problems is that you have, correct me if I'm wrong. This is specific amount of yardage for each light post, right? Typically like 30 yards. What happens is that trees are in between, so that decreases the visibility because the trees are in the way. Since the trees are getting in the way, what we discussed is we could probably, on the post that currently exists, have light that is halfway, so that it could still extend and work around the trees.
Mayor Adams: That's why it's important to look at the, we got Marty here. Hand the mic down to Marty, because a tree problem is also a pruning problem. We need to look at that. Marty, you want to touch on that?
Borough Commissioner Martin Maher: Yes. Last year in CB5 we pruned over 18,000 trees, which is a pretty high number. We have a great relationship with DOT. Keith Bray calls me up and says that 123 Main Street, or whatever, we need to get a tree pruned. We'll get that pruned within 30 days if it's blocking the lighting up the sidewalk. We'll prune to the health of the tree. We're not going to cut it all the way back. We want the tree to survive, of course, but if it's blocking light, we'll take care of that. We'll work with DOT on it.
Mayor Adams: As Ryan just stated, why don't you assist us, someone at the table, let's assist in identifying the locations. The specific locations where you're seeing lighting issues in corridors, let's make sure the trees are pruned, and let's make sure the lights are operating at the same time. Ryan, can you coordinate? Okay? All right. Lighting is crucial. Lighting is crucial because if you don't have the proper lighting, it does attract a lot of bad things.
Assemblywoman Lucas: Hi, mayor, can I make a comment real quick?
Mayor Adams: I hear somebody's voice.
Assemblywoman Lucas: Right behind you.
Mayor Adams: Yes.
Assemblywoman Lucas: Part of the other challenge is that there's not enough staff to go out and prune the trees. I think you only have a couple of trucks and stuff that come out, because we do have a lot of areas, and I'm sure it's not unique for the entire city. We have areas, as I did a walkthrough with you in one of the areas, as well as Commissioner Marty, and on Louisiana Avenue. Those are areas that are consistent in some spots throughout the district. The challenge has become that we might want to consider how we can bring in more staffing that can go out.
Mayor Adams: Yes. No, two things. Number one, we just increased the number of staffing and Parks hours. Number two, folks, we have thousands of jobs that are open. We need folks to apply for these jobs. We have thousands of city jobs that are available. We've done hiring halls right in the community. We've been able to hire up, but we have thousands that are still available.
We are managing the park's budget. We did increase, particularly in the area of cleaning, but we'll do analysis around the pruning as well. Marty just gave us some impressive numbers of how many prunings we've done in this area. I think if we look at specific corridors of that I was hearing from you, then we could attack those corridors and maximize the manpower that we have. Okay. How you doing?
Question: Good afternoon, mayor.
Mayor Adams: Good to see you.
Question: It's always good to see you. Thank you for coming here to East New York. I am the first graduating class in this school with this young lady here. So the two of us. We're East New Yorkers.
Our question from this table is, we know that there's a lot of youth that still need jobs. We know that you've been working very hard, with Michael Garner, and you've made him the czar for the MWBE programs. That still needs to be able to see, how do we get that to filter down a little bit more to some of these MWBE? Like myself, I'm a minority-owned business. I own a security guard business.
With that being said, we want to know how that we could get these jobs to the youth, so that shall help reduce the crime that's going on, because we know if we give them a paycheck, they'll have hope.That hope is what we need to give back to our youth in this community. We want them to put down these guns. We want them to go and be able to buy a house. This is what East New York is about. We have these houses that are being developed in East New York.
We need people that could get a sustainable income, that they could help get a job and give them hope. We also want to reduce the prostitution, and all the different crimes that are on the subway. If we circumvent all that, it all comes back to jobs. How can we know that more MWBEs will be going down and filtered down to minority businesses like myself, so that I could be able to be a helpful hand for you?
Mayor Adams: No, thank you. Thank you so much. You're right. Commissioner Howard, can you talk about what we've done around youth employment, and chancellor, can you talk about what we are doing in the school to get our children ready? Michael is not here for MWBE, but we have broken records on MWBEs.
We're reaching our goal on what we want to accomplish. Historically, the numbers were dismal. We went in with a real clear focus of doing that. Particularly in your business, you're talking about a security guard. We need security guards, capable security guards, in many of our HERRC, our shelters, and other governmental buildings.
We need to put you in contact with Michael Garner to get access to some of those requests for proposals that we have out there. Why don't we have Commissioner Howard, and then the chancellor.
Commissioner Keith Howard, Department of Youth and Community Development: Thank you. Thank you for the question. We've increased the Summer Youth Employment. When the mayor took office, we went from 75,000 to 100,000 young people having jobs during the summer.
In this district alone, for Summer Youth Employment, we have 3,600 young people having gainful employment during the summer. We focus specifically on the 73 Precinct and the 75 Precinct, because we wanted to target those young people, to make sure that they were enrolled in job and job opportunities. Man Up, who is the crisis management team out here, they actually hired 100 young people during the summer to actually work in local neighborhoods in some of the stores. We have a robust investment in this community when it comes to employment, employment opportunities.
All I can say is that when we tailor and we be precise, then we see a different and a transformative opportunity for young people. Now, in terms of minority vendors, we would love for you to go to the hiring halls. We would love for you to go to the hiring halls. We have opportunities for you to showcase your business and hire young people specifically in the hiring halls. We've had hiring halls here in this community, too. Look out for the next one. We can definitely get you information on that.
Mayor Adams: What we're doing is we were successful in some of our local hiring legislation. We're now telling certain businesses that receive procurement contracts from the city, that you have to hire within the community. Things like security guard, other fire enforcement, there's specific businesses that we're going to start tailoring up even more. We started with a few business types where you have to hire locally within the community. You want to talk about it, chancellor?
Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos: Good evening, and thank you so much for your investment in New York City. As the mayor says, that bench is deep, and we need to continue to deepening that bench. What better group of people to focus on than our young people? Our Pathways program, this is a hallmark program that we launched since the mayor came into office in 2022. We have put $8 million in the pockets of young people who still have not graduated from high school. We have made sure that we have focused on career-connected learning. What does that mean?
It means that school has a purpose. It means that you're not just sitting in a class learning algebra and living environment, all the things that are important, let's not say they're not, but what does it actually mean for when you go to get a job. That economic stability that you were talking about, we have to start now, in high school, not when they graduate, not when they enter into college. A big part of that is also financial literacy. What do you do with your money? We need to stop building generational trauma in our Black and brown families and wrap our arms around them and build some generational wealth.
That is what this administration is about. I am very excited to partner with you, and with my good friend, Commissioner Howard, because we do all these things together for our young people, but we're going to talk about how to make sure that our young people have access to MWBE vendors, where they can earn lived experience and start building even deeper. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Commissioner?
Commissioner Juanita Holmes, Department of Probation: Hi, can you hear me? I'm Commissioner Holmes from the New York City Department of Probation. I just wanted to just tag in and say, we have a location at 400 Liberty, 1958 Fulton, and I believe it's 1709 St. Marks. You can walk in at any time. When I started doing the probation, instead of us checking a box and referring people to establishments to look for jobs, we started hiring vendors. Including, I think you're familiar with . They teach EMT. He's one of our vendors. He has about 20 kids in the community now, and every class will be 20 young men and women, including welding.
We have certified plumbing. We have a barber business. So you can walk in any time, any day, and ask any of our probation officers or anyone there about these opportunities. We are giving the training actually at our locations. It's not a referral, check the box, send you somewhere and speak to someone, walk in. These are meaningful jobs, vocational training, and like you said, you may not be able to take your children to the French Riviera, I say, but you can take them to Ocean City, Maryland, put a roof over your head. That's what we aim for. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Right. Well said. Probation. Not just trying to violate people. That's the same thing what we're doing in the NYPD when you talk about young people. Commissioner Stewart is teaching our young people to get their real estate license. I think you just graduated a class. Teaching our young people how to play golf, how to fly planes, a whole list of things that you traditionally see the police department not being forward-thinking on, that's what Commissioner Stewart is doing. He's taking out young people from the inner cities and showing them how to have access and how to be exposed to different things.
When you look at Probation, and NYPD, and DOE, we are zero focus on our young people. We did over 100,000 Summer Rising. Where they had full school throughout the year. Every child that was part of our Summer Youth Employment Program, they all had to go through financial literacy. To learn how to manage their money. By the time our young people graduate from college, they're so far in debt. We need to teach a better understanding of managing the money, as it was indicated, to build institutional wealth.
We're with you. We've been zero in. It's not about just responding to criminal behavior, it's preventing criminal behavior, and we've been on the forefront of doing that. Thank you so much for your question. How are you?
Question: I am great. Greetings, Mayor Eric Adams. First of all, I want to say my God and the ancestors continue to bless you.
Mayor Adams: Yes, thank you.
Question: My name is Essence Meraldo. I've been living here in East New York for 30 years. I have an office on Wall Street, and I work with some of the council people in this area, because I want to give back, right?
The question that we have here on table three is, what can you do to help ensure that the residents of East New York are protected against the sheltering of individuals in scattered-site housing? In other words, what resources are available, or will be made available, to help create the services for them that they need to help the dispel expanding quality of life issues like prostitution, sex work, illegal dumping, drug use, and et cetera?
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Matter of fact, Kaz, can you talk about the, deputy commissioner of Operation, Kaz Daughtry, about the sex workers on Pennsylvania Avenue and what we're doing over there? Then who do I have from homeless services? Oh, Molly's here. Molly, can we talk about the homeless issue?
Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry, Operations, Police Department: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. My name is Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry. I'm the deputy commissioner for Operations.
Last week about, I think it was Thursday, we launched the multi-agency task force, which consists of multiple agencies. I'll just give you a few of the name. For example, the NYPD, obviously, DHS, DOB, New York State Police, FDNY, and DSNY. We're focusing on, we're targeting the illegal brothels. The brothels that we have information on, that we know are operating illegally, and they're performing sex acts inside. Starting from Thursday until now, we have closed down so far four brothels, and we're working with the DA's office so they can't open up in another name.
We are laser-focused and targeting on the locations from Roosevelt Avenue, from 74th Street, all the way down to 111th Street. Tonight, when I leave here, we're going to meet the team. We're going to go out and do borough inspections with the State Liquor License Authority. I believe Governor Kathy Hochul will send some state police down to help us. They're going to be partnering with us tonight, and we're going to be inspecting a lot of the clubs and establishment on Roosevelt Avenue.
The one unique thing about this task force is that this is not a one and done. We are here, we planted the New York City's flag on the ground for the next 90 days. So we're not leaving. I know I was sitting at this table here, table two, and they were explaining to me that Pennsylvania Avenue is back up again. Now, I remember last year, and I think I spoke to you, Mr. Mayor, we have identified over 487 pimps that live and work around the area. Pennsylvania Avenue is one of the most prolific Penn Tracks in the country.
When we finish with Roosevelt Avenue, we're going to start shifting some of the resources to Pennsylvania Avenue and putting out command posts there and going after the Johns. We're not looking to lock up the females, we're looking to rescue them, but we do understand that when we shut down a brothel, that they may come back the next day. We're working with the DA's office for alternatives.
I have spoken to one of the elected officials in a couple of the business districts this morning, and they told me since we've been there since Thursday, that there's a scene of substantial change, where the women are not as prevalent as it was before we came here. It is working, we're not going anywhere. Once we finish Roosevelt Avenue, we're going to shift some of the resource over to Pennsylvania Avenue, and we're going to tackle Pennsylvania Avenue, too, Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Adams: Now, you were there last year. You did an operation there last year, because Pennsylvania Avenue is nationally known for their prostitution. Nationally known. That's part of the lighting issue that you were talking about, brother. So we need to get over there and have a real presence there to go after the sex trafficking that's happening in that location.
We partnered with some of the advocacy groups to get these women off the street and give them the support that they deserve, but it's a huge problem that we're seeing the prostitution over there. Last year, what was the initiative that you did last year?
Deputy Commissioner Daughtry: Last year we did operation rescue, I forgot the name of it. We rescued about six or seven women. One was being trafficked all the way from Florida. Then we also had a take down with a couple of the pimps that we identified as some of the most prevalent pimps in the city and in the country also. I will say this. Just because you don't see the police as much as you want to see them on Roosevelt Avenue, we are still doing some work there.
I'm not going to go into details, because we have some stuff in the oven. When we finish Roosevelt Avenue and we start to scale back some of the resources, we're going to relocate them and we're going to put them onto Pennsylvania Avenue, and that's operation number two.
Mayor Adams: Commissioner, can you talk about the shelters?
Commissioner Molly Wasow Park, Department of Social Services:Good evening. I'm Molly Park. I'm the commissioner for the New York City Department of Social Services, which includes the Department of Homeless Services. In a city like New York City, we need homeless shelters, right? We have a 1.4 percent vacancy rate, and there's literally a million households in New York City that are rent-burdened. Those shelters have to be high quality places where people can stabilize, get the services that they need, and get back to permanent housing. We have closed all of what we used to call cluster sites, which were buildings that had a few units that were being used as shelter.
We absolutely still, and will continue to operate a robust network of shelters, but every single site has onsite caseworkers, housing specialists, security guards, operation people, and some other kind of service. In some cases it's employment, or childcare, range of different things. We don't stop there. Our focus really is on permanent housing. The goal for everybody should get into permanent housing. As the mayor said, we've had record-breaking years of connecting people to permanent housing. Last year it was about 18,500 households moved out of shelter and into permanent housing.
One of the things that we're really trying to focus on at DHS is making sure that that permanent housing has services when people need it. For many, many people, what they need is some help with rent, and a city FHEPS voucher is what it's going to take, but some people need supportive housing, and we realized that some people need something in between.
I was at a ribbon cutting for a building recently, where a young man, he was 21 years old, he'd been in the shelter for a couple of years. He didn't need supportive housing, but I wasn't ready to be on my own when I was 21, and neither was he. We're now able to provide some of that on an ongoing basis.
Mayor Adams: Very complicated. Then when you add the facts, folks, we had 217,000 migrants and asylum seekers that came into the city. We already had 65,000 people, of long-term New Yorkers who were in care. We were able to take that 217,000 and put in place real initiatives that Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom put in place, a 30 and 60-day program. 70 percent of the people who came through the city, who are migrants and asylum seekers, are now taking their next step on their journey. Instead of permanently being in our housing capacity.
We don't have the authorization to stop the buses from coming in. We don't have the authorizations to allow people to work. The federal government makes that determination. We don't have the authorization of saying, "No, you're not going to get three meals a day. You're not going to have a place to sleep." We are required by city law to do so. We had to educate, which we should do, 40,000 children. We incorporated into our school system. Because of law, we have to follow that.
We've done this and it cost us $5.6 billion. We got 138 million from the federal government. This should be a federal problem, not the problem for cities and local municipalities, but we have to do our job. That has had a real burden on our housing population initiative.
Commissioner Saloni Sethi, Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence: Mayor Adams, let me just add something. While we're on the topic of sex work and trafficking, as y'all have pointed out, these are often folks that end up here because they lack other choices, and they're vulnerable, and it's really on us to help connect them to the resources and supports that you need. I'm Saloni Sethi, from the Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence.
I think one thing I'd love for all of you to know is that our office is here as a resource to you and community. We're happy to come offer workshops, resources, training for you all to understand the issue, understand how people end up here, and what you could do, whether you're a small business or a faith group, to maybe help folks and outreach to them beyond the operations that that PD will do.
Mayor Adams: Well said. Thanks for the work you're doing. Great work.
Question: Peace and blessings, everyone. My name is Orisa Cameron. I sit on the Community Council for the 75th Precinct as their V.P., and I'm also a member of CB5, on the education committee. Group number four is more so a statement. We need access to spaces with better lighting for programs to be run during the evening time for our youth. East New York, we don't have a rec center. A lot of our children are not going to leave East New York to go over to Brownsville, to their rec center. We don't have a Parks Department's recreation center where they have access to swimming and all those other great things.
Yes, we do have the NYPD Community Center, but a lot of our children aren't comfortable going there. Let's be honest. It's on the other side of East New York. We're a pretty big area. 75, we're a big area. To name the spaces, that as far as the lighting, Cypress Hills Park, there's a youth football program that practices there, and they have to cut practices because now it gets dark. Thank you to Chief Henderson, though, we did get one generated light out there, to help that one organization.
Linden Park. I passed there yesterday, on our track. The entire light is out on one part, and our basketball court lights were off at 7:30. I'm not understanding why. They usually go off at eleven o'clock. Thomas Jefferson High School. A new field was built, I don't know how the architecture was done, without lighting. Again, besides the football team for the high school, there's a youth team that practices in the evening, after school hours, that have to cut short because it gets dark early. That's the concern.
Mayor Adams: Why don't we have a plan, because as long as I can remember, Thomas Jefferson Field, when did we redo that field? Yes, for years. When I was borough president, they were trying to get that field done. The football players always had a good school, but there were dips and curves, and they were getting injured just running on the darn field. We were able to get it done.
Now, let's move to the next level. You gave us a list of three locations. Let's put a plan together to get lights in those locations. Where we have lights, let's find out, because you said it goes off at 7:00, let's find out why. Any reason, commissioner, it goes off at 7:00? This is from Linden Boulevard. The park on Linden.
Borough Commissioner Maher: At Linden, the large field, the lights stay on longer. On the basketball courts, it's only if there's a permitted event that they go on for that. We can adjust that if we need to.
Mayor Adams: Right. Why don't we have a conversation. If the need is there, and it's going to be used properly, and not used to attract negative energy, there's no reason it shouldn't be on to keep -
Question: Oh, I'm sorry. He was like, "Oh, the lights are going off at seven o'clock on the basketball court. We've been getting pretty nice weather, so you still got some young people that want to play ball."
Mayor Adams: Let's do that. Okay, so let's do that. Let's coordinate. Ken, instead of him telling Oh, tell him to tell the mayor, let's connect them, and let's see what we can do. Particularly, if he has an organized program there, we want to attract that and use it for that. That was super Jefferson.
Question: Thank you so much to our assemblywoman and also to our councilman. The construction has started on their new field, but there's a practice field where the football team is using currently, and the youth football team is using, and there's no lighting in the evening time.
Mayor Adams: Got it. Okay, let's look at that. There's a partnership between your councilperson, the assemblywoman, that we can put in our discretionary or capital funding to get permanent lighting in those areas. We won't have to use the police lighting. It just goes to show the police is trying to do their part, but we should have permanent lighting in those locations.
[Crosstalk.]
Dr. Tamra Collins, Superintendent, District 19: We are working with Assemblymember Lucas on that. Community Board 5, we appreciate all that you're doing and working with us. Jefferson, there's stages, and so we are in stages of it. Nikki, I don't know if you wanted to say anything about the work that we're doing collaboratively on doing that, but yes, we are well aware, it's gotten a lot done. We'll stay on it and make sure that we continue to work with it.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. I often hear people say that we don't have community centers or facilities, and I say over and over again, we do. These gyms. We need to open these schools up. We can't say to children, "7:00 AM welcome in, and then at 2:00 PM get out and come back tomorrow." Jefferson has a swimming pool. When I was borough president, we did extend the use where we picked up the costs for nonprofits using these school buildings. We want to go back to doing that.
If you're a nonprofit, you should not have to pay for the security guard, for the insurance, for the school safety agent, for the custodian. We want to pick up the tab, so that you can just use the space. We have enough school buildings that they should be open to these children. School buildings should be the focal points for communities, and it should be used as such.
Commissioner Howard: Mr. Mayor, we actually have a program in this building. We have after-school program in this building that serves about 248, that is registered in this building to serve in an after-school program. We have 29 after-school programs in this very district, in the various schools. The schools and the spaces are being utilized by our community-based organizations and they're running some really good programs, including Cypress Hills Community Center. Utility Plaza was also running programs as well. Unity Plaza. That's the Bronx side of me.
Assemblymember Lucas: Yes. Just want to add, I'm going to shoot my shot while we here.We did the walkthrough for Jefferson, which allowed an immediate attention, so I'm very thankful for that.
One of the things that we also talked about is developing some type of public-private partnership to develop a dome for that entire thing to do a sports and cultural complex. This is something I've already talked to the state about. Congressman Jeffries is also on board with this. I know you mentioned being on board, but we have to really identify the funding, and we're able to pull it together, and I'm sure our City Council member as well will be involved in that process as well.
We'd like to see a dome. Something that we can access 24 hours. I know that the governor had something going on for 600 million, they can only use it half of the year. We want something that we can use year-round. It will create a lot of jobs. It could satisfy the needs of every age group, every demographic within this district. I'd like to have a serious conversation about what that looks like.
I know we put it together, because that field meant a lot for a lot of these young people in this community, and it was a ground for neutrality, and really helping them and building their confidence and things for them to do to move forward. We need to have a real conversation about a huge investment in this community. I'd like to see that dome, and I'd like to continue that conversation.
Mayor Adams: I like that. I like that a lot. We just, this afternoon, we were in Councilwoman Louis's district, Farah Louis, with Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte. Last year, we put a shovel in the ground, and we went back there today, and we saw that project is about 50 percent to 60 percent near completion. Swimming pool, track, gymnasium. It's a beautiful place. The way to do it, and the way they did it, they first had a visualization. They did an artist rendering. Then we sat down and said, "What is everyone going to put in?"
We should take it from concept to actually happening. To put a dome there, in that community, with that field, the size it is, it could be a year-round opportunities. I'm all in. Let's sit down and map out how to get it done.
Question: Good afternoon.
Mayor Adams: How are you? I'm sorry, but in the interim, going back to what you were saying, sister, what I was saying to you, as Commissioner Howard stated, we have a lot of schools here, and they need to be open to these children. I'm happy to hear we have a number of programs here, but these schools should be open to these children to partner, where the school buildings cannot be closed during the hours when children need them. It's more than 7:00 to 2:00 PM.
Question: Hi, good evening, everyone. My name is Abolino. I've lived in this area for 41 years. I own my own home, so I've been to a lot of meetings, and a lot of faces. At our table, we discussed, and East New York is affected by quality of life issues. For example, homeless sleeping in the staircase in Cypress Hills. Of course, prostitution on Louisiana and on Alabama Avenue.
How do we address these situations with the prostitutions and with the homeless people sleeping in residential areas? Children are scared to come home, because people sleeping in the building, their mothers have to go catch them, and watch them, and they have to meet them at the stairs. This is unacceptable.
Mayor Adams: We were in Harlem, and we had a similar problem. After the town hall, we went out and visited the location. The resident was right. There were people sleeping in the stairway, on the rooftop. One person was sleeping outside her door with a knife under his chair. We went in and started doing what was called verticals. Do we have anyone here from the, a chief from the PSA that's here? Okay. What needs to be done, we have to go back and do good old-fashioned verticals. Where the police officers park the vehicle, walkthrough, and do a check of the locations in the buildings.
That is what we have to return to do. I'm going to speak with the chief, we're going to speak with the housing chief. It is about just going in and making sure we do those verticals, because it's extremely dangerous to have someone sleeping on your stairway, on your rooftop, or in the hallway. We saw it in Harlem. We were able to get there, and it was immediate reaction. We need to visit that here as well. Commissioner, can you pull together the PSA Chief and look about they have to do those verticals again.
Question: Good evening, everybody. My name is Shatisha Edwards. I'm a staff member upstairs with District 75. Our question here at table seven is, how can we increase programs for kids specifically with autism or disabilities? Low functioning and high functioning. A lot of the programs around here don't tend to the needs of our kids. I say our kids because that's how they look at us like we are different because they have different type of functions or disabilities. They don't say, "Oh, this is our kids. They're part of our community." They separate us.
Mayor Adams: Listen, first of all thank you for that question. Growing up with a learning disability, I hated walking in the classroom. They would have on the back of the chair, the dumb student. Children are cute and cuddly, but they could be mean too. Trust me, they used to do a number on me but what we did with Chancellor Banks, that we going to continue.
Can we go into what we're doing around the children with special needs? Behind every child with special needs is a special parent. It's a special parent. They want the same thing for their child that every other parent want. I know my mom wanted the same thing for me and because of her love nurturing and pushing and not allowing me to fall by the wayside, I'm now called the mayor of the City of New York. We need to give that care that you're talking about.
Chancellor Aviles-Ramos: First of all, I want to thank you so much for showing up every day for our babies and for doing this work. We are so proud of the Division of Inclusive and Accessible Learning. This is the first time that we have actually had a division dedicated to making sure that the needs of all our special populations are met. Our students with disabilities, I have visited actually on my first day as chancellor, I'm proud to have been able to visit a school with an expanded NEST program.
It is very important for us, and this is personal for me ladies and gentlemen, I have a niece with autism and she is 21 years old and we cannot find the right setting for her. She is not benefiting from the work that we are doing but moving forward, children will. What we call Tier 1 instruction, for some of you non-teacher folks, I'm going to break it down so I don't sound because I get, come on Melissa, calm down, you're doing a little too much teacher speak.
Our Tier 1 instruction is the instruction that everybody gets in the classroom regardless of where you are at. That's where our amazing teachers differentiate instruction and they figure out what Melissa needs versus what Michael needs. Sometimes that instruction is not that sound, and we start isolating different groups of students based on how we perceive what they can and cannot do and that is problematic.
This division that we created is about providing support to teachers and administrators, so we know how to deliver that instruction regardless of who is in the classroom. Then when we need additional support for students, we know that that additional support is targeted to move them forward. Ladies and gentlemen, this starts with a mindset shift. We cannot look at our babies and say "They cannot." I visited an early childhood center today where that community wrapped arms around the entire family, and those babies were joyful about coming to school.
Many of them had IEPs that are benefiting from early intervention, but we cannot take their joy away when they advance into school and tell them that they cannot. The Division of Inclusive and Accessible Learning is about giving everyone the tools they need, including their teachers on how to serve our children. We have our amazing superintendent of District 75, Ketler Louissaint, thank you so much for your support.
This is one of your amazing teachers here advocating for more inclusion. Between the PD, New York City Reads, making sure that we are paying attention to the science of reading and giving our youngest learners that bright start with literacy. All of this is in service of more inclusive learning and we are expanding more programs, so we will be working with you closely.
Question: I'm going to try not to go deep into it because like you said, for me it's personal also. What programs do you have for the parents? I have a parent who is a baker. Her daughter is very aggressive, nonverbal, but they keep rejecting her child because she's aggressive. Literally, the school won't take her, the bus won't take her because she's aggressive. As a parent, she's a single parent, she doesn't have no support because they're scared to come there because her daughter's so aggressive. Are there any programs or anybody that you can refer for her to get that support because now it's becoming a mental issue for her?
Chancellor Aviles-Ramos: We're going to exchange information so that way my office can personally reach out to that parent. That is a real issue. I will be brief because I certainly. can talk about this all night, but my commitment, we're going to continue to do the work that we did in Pathways and Bright Starts, all that great work that started. There were three commitments, ladies and gentlemen, that we have to make as prerequisites before we teach students how to read and write before get to those amazing careers.
That is teacher support and development. That is an overall sense of safety and wellness for all of our children. That is family empowerment, not engagement. There is a difference between the two. What you're talking about is empowerment. I got you. We're going to get that information and we're going to work directly with that family.
Mayor Adams: Just a direct information for that parent that you're talking about. There's an amazing organization, a very good friend called My Time Inc. Lucina Clarke. It is a support group for parents. It gives them an opportunity to navigate the system, the support they need. She has been doing this work from the days I was state senator. Her name is Lucina Clarke, and I'll give you her contact number. You could give it to that parent, and it's an excellent group. That is exactly what you're talking about, partnering with the DOE, we're able to move this needle forward.
Commissioner Howard: Mr. Mayor, I just want to highlight the investment that we've been working with our District 75 partner and the chancellor in terms of Summer Youth Employment and also with our workload and grow, which is actually our employment program was actually starting in the next couple of days and increasing our young people with disability. I also want to shout out NYPD for its Summer Youth Employment.
They are increasing in their numbers of young people with disability in some abuse employment, working with NYPD, and also the relationship that we have with Commissioner Curry in the Mayor's Office for People with Disability, just building out a real investment with young people and jobs and job opportunities.
Mayor Adams: With D.M. Almanzar, also what was done with our early childhood seats, being able to allocate early childhood seats for children with disabilities. We wanted to make sure that they were not left behind because we do separate our children, if they have an IEP or if they're dealing with some special needs and that cannot continue to happen.
Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, Community Affairs, Police Department: I just want to touch on that.Just want to touch on the Police Department. We don't leave anybody behind, like Commissioner Howard said, it's the first time the Police Department employed 32 deaf/hard-of-hearing kids in the Police Department. Never has it done before, but we did it.
We also go out to deaf and hearing schools and we read books. That's part of our curriculum in our communities. Just a week ago, with the blind kids, they did a presentation with our jazz band in the Police Department. It was amazing to see these kids play instruments with the Police Department and get a chance that we could get to know them and have a contact with them. That's something that we always do.
When I first came to the Community Affairs Bureau, I wanted to touch every community. We have a detective. He's in charge of our deaf and hard-of-hearing. He goes out to roll calls to our cops. He teaches in our police academy too, to make cops understand. What's an important part, a scenario that we always use, if somebody's walking away from you and you're giving orders as a police officer, "Stop, don't move," and they're not stopping, probably, they could be deaf. We have to bring that information to our police officers.
I praise police officer, detective now, we are doing the work. I even go out to all the schools too. We sit with kids. They're part of our community and they're part of the Police Department and we're going to invest in them.
Question: Come pay us a visit.
Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Come where?
Question: Come pay us a visit.
Deputy Commissioner Stewart: I'll come pay you a visit. Give me your number. All right. I'll pay you a visit.
Mayor Adams: Commissioner Stewart is everywhere. He does these baby showers, where young girls, new mothers who don't have the means to get those startup, if you're a mother, those first few months, the diapers, the playpens. How many you did this week?
Commissioner Stewart: We just did the Bronx and Staten Island. In the Bronx, you have to register to go to these affairs. We had 1,600 women that come out and they prenatal care, bassinets, diapers, strollers. My main guy who started this, Detective Washington, he's right there in the back. Raise your hand. This was his idea.
We only did this program. It was in the Bronx. Then he came to my office. I said, "Listen, we got to bring this citywide. We go to every borough." Year to date, we probably did over 40,000 expecting mothers and mothers to these events. It's a good program. You could go on our Instagram and look at it. We just finished up the Staten Island on a Sunday. It's good program. Like I said, we are here for the communities and Washington, great job. 1,600 expecting mothers in the Bronx and we took care of all of them.
Mayor Adams: Think about that. Think about that for a moment. 40,000 went through what this detective did. Anyone who is a new mother, you know how much it means to be able to take some of the costs of some of the items that you have to purchase.
This detective did this. I think a couple of months ago when I first learned about it, he was a police officer at one of these town halls, they talked about it, we promoted him right at the town hall because we need to be promoting those officers who are going beyond the call of duty. It's one thing to put your hand on someone, but it's another thing to give a hand and lift them up. That's the type of police officers we want and now he's a detective. Thank you for what you're doing.
Assemblywoman Lucas: Mayor, just really quick.
Mayor Adams: Yes, yes.
Assemblywoman Lucas: I know I won't shut up.
Mayor Adams: No, feel free.
Assemblywoman Lucas: On a state level, also we're about to do a bill signing in East New York for a bill that adjusts the education law to require screenings for dyslexia and providing for intervention services for dyslexic children. That's going to be backed up by funding as well. The governor will be in East New York and we will be doing a bill signing for that right in East New York.
Mayor Adams: Excellent.
Question: Good evening, everyone.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: I'm an assistant principal at the District 75 School, the Brooklyn School for Career Development. We just want to know, a lot of our staff is here tonight, how, and our superintendent, the continual progress that we'll make to support our special education students in the field of pathways and also some youth and work, learn, grow and those opportunities for our students.
Mayor Adams: Well, one way to do it is to get feedback from you. We're going to continue what Chancellor Banks did about getting that feedback and really hearing from you on what we need to be doing. That is how we change the current program that we're doing now, by hearing the feedback, not isolating these children.
When you're dealing with the weight of being there for a child with special needs, the school system and government can do a lot, but communities can do so much more. We all must be engaged. We see Ms. Jones rush to her on the child the bus. We see some of things that are being done. We all have to be a part of this because I think as our sister stated, these are all our children, these are all our children. The women for the church would sit down and read with me, not knowing I was dyslexic, but they didn't give up on me.
We all have to be a part of, it's not Ms. Jones' problem, it's all of our concerns. We all need to be, how do I help her? How do I babysit one day so that she can have a moment just to rest for a moment because a child with special needs is continuous care? If we all just give back a little, we can make it a little easier. Chancellor, do you want to touch on anything.
Chancellor Aviles-Ramos: Absolutely. First of all, I'm looking forward to visiting. I have to make this my next visit because I've just heard so many incredible things tonight. I will just briefly add to what the mayor said. For us, it is imperative that we build these pathways for all of our students. We are not talking about one set of students. What we want is for our students to see themselves at the end of that successful road.
How can we also work with some of our graduates who have gone on to do amazing things so that way our students can see themselves in their future success? We are going to continue with that great work. I look forward to visiting you and hearing more about your ideas that are specific to your school and to your community so we could just push that work further.
Commissioner Howard: The Mayor went from 2,000 work loan and growth slots to 7,000 this year. Let's talk after this so I can see exactly how many slots that you can identify to put your kids in. I have my team over here. We're willing to work with you on it tonight. Okay.
Jose Rios Lua, Chief of Staff, City Commission on Human Rights: Good evening, everyone. My name is Jose Rios Lua. I'm the chief of staff at the Commission on Human Rights. I just wanted to stand up and say, we all know this. Children with disabilities become adults with disabilities, and so we have to teach them at a young age that discrimination because of their status as having a disability is not acceptable. Not at school, not at home, not at work, not in public places.
The mayor is right. The way we make solutions is by hearing from you. I wanted to share with you all that the Commission on Human Rights has a survey out that you can all fill out at nyc.gov/togethernycto know how you, your children, your family, are interfacing with discrimination and what kind of solutions you want when you do face discrimination. Sometimes it's just I want a conversation. Sometimes it's just I want a conversation. Sometimes it's I want an interview for this job that I want to apply for. The Commission on Human Rights can help move us in that direction.
I also want to share that in the mayor's priority of breaking down silos in the government, we've been working with DYCD to make sure that students who are part of SYEP go through a training from us to know you can't be discriminated in the workplace. You can't be discriminated at school. We're going to continue to work together to expand those, to make sure that all of our youth programs have trainings from these types of information so that they know their rights from a young age and can enforce them.
Mayor Adams: Well said. Thank you. Thank you. Is a team effort. Team effort.
Commissioner Christina Curry, Mayor's Office of People with Disabilities: Good evening, everyone. Commissioner Curry, Mayor's Office for the People with Disabilities. For Brooklyn, there's an independent living center. It's nonprofit, nonresidential. That's in every borough. They are here to assist you in disability-related issues, from birth until the time you stop breathing. As the mayor said, "You have my time," which is specifically for people on the spectrum.
As it was mentioned earlier though, we are here as the liaison between the disability community and all city agencies. I don't know if you've noticed, I have an interpreter. I can't hear. You can understand my voice. I do not hear. We are here to represent the disability community. If you have questions, if you have comments, if you need assistance, we're here.
We talked about jobs. The mayor has said that we, MOPD, must connect 2,500 people who are disabled with employment. I need you to contact us. We're looking for the jobs. We've been part of the job fairs. We are here to assist the community in becoming employed, gainful employment, as the mayor said we must do. We are doing that. We are in year two of a three-year project. Please, if you know anyone who's disabled and looking for employment, reach out to us.
Question: [Inaudible] I've experienced the turn away. I've seen them turn a face to ask for help. If I can get your number because maybe I was connecting with the wrong people, but the people that we were connecting with, they wasn't helping us.
Commissioner Curry: 25 years in the field, I've been around. You can contact us.
Question: Can I get your card?
Mayor Adams: Yes.
Commissioner Curry: Thank you.
Mayor Adams: We'll make sure you get it. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: Good evening, Mayor.
Mayor Adams: Good to see.
Question: How are you?
Mayor Adams: Good. Good.
Question: Before I ask my question, I just have to publicly, on behalf of over 1,300 families in Lyndon Plaza, private Development here in East New York, thank you. Thank you for your support. We appreciate you, your administration, for coming out to help us after being ignored by the last two administrations despite our cries. We want to thank you. We know Nikki Lucas has been our great assemblywoman, has worked with you, our incoming and new city council member. We want to thank you. And commissioner Carrión, thank you as well. We really appreciate you.
My question or our question at this table is, are you interested or would you consider forming a mental health task force? As you know, this city is plagued by mental health issues. Every day we see something happening, and it is crisis right now, We think we need something together, including the ACLU because my understanding, the ACLU has overcorrected mistakes that were made in the past, and now we are at a position where people that are mentally ill know how to work the system are actually getting back out on the street despite the cries of the community and their families. We need to get together and we need to address this yesterday. That's our question.
Mayor Adams: Well said. I don't think the team, I don't think we have attended any town hall where we have not heard about mental health. I'm going to come to you. I know you're ready. You're chomping at the bit. You said something that I think that many people didn't really pick up, overcorrection. What happened was we had psychiatric facilities that were abusive, didn't give people the care that they deserve. There were a lot of lawsuits that were put in place and with the lawsuits really closed down many of those facilities. The problem was we didn't have a net waiting for them and people went to the streets.
You and I both know, all of us know, that if you are dealing with severe mental health illness, that in many cases you don't know you need care. What we wanted to do and what we're continuing to do under Dr. Vasan and his team over at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, we've had a series of things that the leader, Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom is doing. Number one, we have to be honest about involuntary removals.
There are some people who can't take care of themselves and we need to give them the care that they deserve. It's not a one-size-fits-all, there's a combination that we must do to prevent people from harming themselves, to give families the support that they deserve of what they're doing in the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, with Teenspace, allow young people to have access using the methods that they're used to, to talk to a counselor 24 hours, seven days a week. We've done some innovative things. There's a lot more to do. I'm going to turn it over to you now so you can talk about some of those things.
Laquisha Grant, Deputy Executive Director, Office of Community Mental Health: Thank you, mayor. Thank you for that question. My name is Laquisha Grant. I'm with the Mayor's Office of Community Mental Health. We are a mayoral office that's dedicated to working with the community and coordinating with city agencies. We work with all of the city agencies that are represented here to do exactly what you just described and put together a little task force. We do community-specific task force because Just like the mayor said, it's not a one-size-fits-all all issue. The mental health-related needs that exist here in East New York are not the same as what exists in Harlem.
We bring organizations to the table. We bring the behavioral health providers, the providers who provide mental health and substance use services to the table, along with community members, along with folks from the Department of Homeless Services, et cetera, to address these issues. Yes, I'll give you my card and we're happy to connect with you about putting together a little task force for this community.
Mayor Adams: Yes, real issue.
Jenna Mandel-Ricci, Chief of Staff, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: Mayor, if I can, I just wanted to add one more thing. Good evening, everyone. My name's Jenna Mandel-Ricci. I'm the Chief of Staff at the New York City Health Department. I just wanted to add that we really like to think about good mental health as having housing, having health, and having community. That really shows, and you can see our whole team here as Laquisha just described.
We have housing, we do tons of work with the Department of Social Services around supportive housing. We work very closely with New York City Health and Hospitals and all of the other hospitals across the city around health and healthcare. For community, a really great example of that is our Clubhouse Program. This is something that we have expanded and are improving the quality of.
This year, there have been a number of new clubhouses that have opened. These are places where individuals with serious mental illness can spend the day, can have community, can have employment and education training, and a place to go just like all of us need a place to go to be social throughout the day. We really think with these pieces, we can help folks get the care they need to be stable and healthy members of our community. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Well said.
Question: Mr. Mayor, I wanted to say something. It appears that school-aged children are the ones that are being addressed which is true but this covers all ages and we have found that it's the older people and not necessarily homeless, a lot of them are living with families, torturing their families. There has to be a more comprehensive, thoughtful approach to deal with this as far as getting help.
Also, like I said, where it's no overcorrection and this is why we suggested that the ACLU, and I just want to be clear, even though I'm a resident of East New York, I'm first a resident of New York, so we would like to see a citywide major task force to deal with all of this and let it trickle down to the communities because if we start breaking off into communities, we'll never get it all together.
We need a major mayoral office task force to deal with this on the overall level deal with the attorneys, have the attorneys, the ACLU there, so they can be comfortable and guide us as the community because I'm telling you now, I want to be part of this task force. I have a lot to share with you about how it was years ago and how it worked. I had a family member that had to go into the hospital years ago, and it was much better then in the '60s than it is now in 2024, so we've gone backwards.
Mayor Adams: Yes. No, without a doubt, listen, I'm not too quiet. I wrote the song. I'm with you. What we are doing on the subway, Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom and her team with the scout initiative, identifying some of the people who have lived on the subway for years of the police department joining with mental health professionals and outreach workers in our PATH initiative that we just announced. I think we took 7,800 off the services …
Deputy Commissioner Daughtry: Oh, mayor, actually I got the numbers right here. Like the mayor was saying since he started the scout, it's called PATH, Partnership Assistance for Transit Homeless. Since January 1st to now, the department, NYPD offices along with mental health professionals have made 33,814 contacts. Out of those 33,814 contacts, 19,417 homeless individuals have been brought to a shelter.
Mayor Adams: You want to go into it, D.M.?
Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom, Health and Human Services: The thing that I'm struck by what you said was from the perspective of a person who has had a family member that has experienced this, and I think sometimes the mayor and I talk about all the time how people were resistance to involuntary removals or were resistance to our work.
I think the voice of community members that can work with us, so I actually really like this idea of the task force so that we can update you on all of the PATH and the SCOUT and the work. We got all kind of acronyms and all things that we're tying because we're not going to stop, but I think this piece of it coming people who are family members who are out there on the street and who haven't been able to be brought in is a very good suggestion. Thank you, mayor.
Mayor Adams: Yes. I agree because we got so much pushback. In January, February of 2022, when I got elected, I went into the streets and I went inside the encampments, the cardboard boxes, I saw just unbelievable things. Drug paraphernalia, stale food, human ways, schizophrenic, bipolar. People were saying to us, "Well, people have a right to live on a street like that." I just don't subscribe to that theory. It is inhumane. We have a system where you wait until they do something harmful to themselves or others, then we ship them off to Rikers Island.
You can't have a system where 51 percent of the people on Rikers Island have mental health issues. That's a problem. We close down the psychiatric wards and we open the jails for people with mental health. We need to hear from the voices of people who have lived through this and not people who are philosophical about this. When you seeing the erosion of your loved one or your family member and you can't seem to place them somewhere, that's hard on the family. Community, housing, and care is what we're looking to do to make sure that we can give people the support they deserve. They're clapping for you.
Question: Goodnight, mayor. Goodnight, everyone, community. I'm from East New York Community Partnership underneath Good Shepherd Services, and I also am a board member of Committee Board 16. One of the things that we brought up at our table was the empty commercial space within East New York up and down Atlantic, Gateway.
Myself, I personally work with more than 150 East New York businesses and they can't seem to afford what was supposed to be affordable rent and commercial space in these communities. I did hear the gentleman over here mention MWBE because some type of passageway or pathway program be moved forward to bring in those businesses to the community because we have so many community businesses with no space within our community.
Mayor Adams: Where's my SBS Commissioner? You want to touch on that?
Commissioner Dynishal Gross, Department of Small Business Services: Love to touch on that. Good evening, and thank you for bringing up that space. We are closely tracking the vacancy rates on commercial corridors around the city, and we have a couple of interventions. One, I'd like to congratulate the community on is the formation of a new Business Improvement District. Business Improvement Districts are amazing, unique, nonprofit organizations that are community-driven projects to support the vibrancy of a commercial district.
They support the small businesses. They provide supplemental sanitation, security services, district marketing. It arises from a community desire to have a thriving commercial district that provides jobs, great small businesses, places where community members can come together. We just passed a law. In fact, it just became law, creating the Cypress Hills Fulton BID, the newest business improvement in New York City.
If there are other groups of merchants or community members that are interested in organizing to create BIDs in this community, SBS would love to work with them. We teach all about the process to create a BID. You go through, first, an organizing process, then a legislative process. What's really amazing about these unique nonprofits is that they are funded through a voluntary property tax assessment, so they wind up being very, very stable.
They're not just reliant on annual grant funding, they have stable funding so that they can perform that work in an ongoing way. We would love to work with more neighbors in the community to create more thriving merchants associations as well as business improvement districts.
Mayor Adams: I'll come to you, ma'am. I think that East New York has a great opportunity. I was in Miami a few months ago, and they had a similar layout where it was a lot of warehouse space, and the community reclaimed it. They turned it into a real attraction. I think that with some of us partnering with both the council person, the assembly person, and some of the community groups, we need to really look at East New York and see how do we use some of that attractive warehouse space to turn and redefine it.
I don't believe East New York has found this redefinition yet, and it should be done from community residents. We don't need to wait for folks to gentrify the community and all of a sudden turn it into a hip, cool artist environment. There's a lot of potential here with a lot of this warehouse space that I think we could do some great things. I think we need to sit down and figure out here's the SWOT of real estate, who owns it, how can we acquire it, how do we bring in funding to turn some of these locations, these warehouse spaces, into places that I believe can do everything from entertainment to food to tech startups. There's some great opportunities that are here. There was a young lady that did something about president--
Greg Vayngurt, Assistant Vice President, Economic Development Corporation: Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to add. Greg Vayngurt, assistant vice president with EDC. Just as SBS, EDC's determined to bring economic development to East New York, just a few months ago, along with Bill Wilkins, which some of you definitely know, a great stakeholder and a great partner in East New York. We had some site selectors come out to East New York.
We showed them around sites that are possible to bring commercial here and prop up and they're going to bring that information back to national businesses that could come into East New York. As well as activating certain city lots that we're going to release an RFP 4 soon that will as well bring manufacturing, green economy. SBS together, we really are determined to prop up East New York as well. I just wanted to add that.
Mayor Adams: I'm giving you the mic. A lot of potential here in East New York but you should be part of the potential like that vacant elevator line. In Manhattan, they have the, what do they call it? The High Line. Why can't we have a High Line in East New York? It is a vacant line. There's no reason we can't turn that into a High Line similar. We can turn around with real investments.
Question: Thank you for that. I know that on all the boards and meetings that I've actually attended. We are a part of the conversation. A lot of people in this room is a part of the conversation, but then when things actually are built or things are actually made into fruition, we get lost and nobody is coming back to say, "This is what was promised." What is economical for commercial spaces? Is it economical for the businesses in this area or is it economical for somebody else outside of the area to come in?
Mayor Adams: No, no. It's got to be for you. Got to be in the area. Folks got to benefit from it. It's not about displacement. It's about development that's from ground up and it could happen. I know many of us are disappointed in how things evolved over the years. We saw what happened in Bed-Stuy, we saw what happened in Crown Heights. I could go by community, by community, but I think Brownsville and East New York are two gems that we should be able to get it right.
The sins of the fathers of previous mayors, it's challenging for people to really comprehend. I've only been here two years and nine months. That's it. Two years and nine months and we've been turning stuff around every day and this is an opportunity to get East New York right.
Assemblywoman Lucas: Mayor, can I just add something, please?
Mayor Adams: Yes.
Assemblywoman Lucas: When I came in I invested some funding into a couple of organizations to do asset marketing for East New York really to determine what we have in terms of small business as well as the factories that are out there, and to determine what we need within this community. As opposed to the entry-level employment opportunities, I wanted to see what we could bring in terms of emerging businesses and emerging technologies. I've been working with a couple of different groups to really determine what that looks like. You guys should look out for the reports as well.
Mr. Mayor, also, you have the the SCA, which is the School Construction Authority mentor program that you didn't mention, but that's a big thing that you're doing. You should talk a little bit about that. In addition to that, I'm working along with, first of all, let me stop for a second. Thank you for embracing me as a state elected and really working with me on a city and state level. That's number one.
I thank you for also, just in a broad scale, for a long time we didn't have a lot of this in this community especially, but now we have you, we have Councilmember Chris Banks, we have Congressmember Hakeem Jeffries. I think somebody in here was from here. Frida was in here. We got Senator Roxanne Persaud. We got some folks in there from Senator Persuad's office.
This is the first time in a long time that regardless of the differences and our styles and all these different things, we were really able to pull it together and work together to develop these communities, and the first time that I've seen that people have put a face and a voice onto East New York. I appreciate that. There's a lot of work that needs to be done. There's a lot of catching up that we have to do. Look for these reports, and taking the reports, not just from a piece of paper that's telling us what's here, what's not here, but really implementing some real programs, real businesses, and really putting resources, financial resources behind exactly what we're passing in the programs. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you, East New York, for coming out and supporting us. Thank you very much.
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