The Mayor acknowledges the importance of skilled instructors and proposes a partnership with local high schools, CUNY, and tech companies to provide computer training sessions. This initiative aims to empower older adults with essential digital skills while fostering intergenerational connections and community support. Experienced individuals, referred to as students, can collaborate with younger generations, providing valuable life skills in exchange for computer training, fostering an intergenerational symbiotic relationship that benefits both parties. Initiatives discussed include partnering with educational institutions like CUNY and local high schools, exploring ways to donate and refurbish computers, and addressing issues such as retail theft, affordable housing, sanitation enforcement, and revitalizing public housing like NYCHA through tenant-driven approaches.
TRANSCRIPT: MAYOR ADAMS HOSTS OLDER ADULT TOWN HALL
Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, Department for the Aging: There’s some people in government that you work with and you know we’re going to get stuff done. Mark Stewart, who is the Deputy Commissioner for NYPD, is just that kind of person. He sees an issue, he doesn’t see a problem, he sees a solution. With that, about a year and a half ago now, we talked about things that we needed for older adults and what we needed for older adults to strengthen already a strong and good relationship with NYPD and Mark came up with a fabulous solution. With that, I introduce you to Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart.
Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, Community Affairs, Police Department: Good afternoon. It took me an hour and a half to get here from Brooklyn, but I made it. Listen, we’re here today. I took over Community Affairs. Commissioner Vázquez and I, we had an idea, we had a plan, and I couldn’t believe the plan was never in effect, that you have a community affairs officer in each precinct, that you could go to the precinct, and if you have any problems, go right to that officer, male or female, and they would assist you. Who’s the 24 CPO here? Okay. Oh, I’m going to introduce you. I’m used to these questions already. Say your name. Let them know.
Police Officer Sarah Frankel, 24 Precinct, Police Department: Hi. I’m Officer Sara Frankel. I work right here in the 24th precinct. Nice to meet all of you, if I haven’t met some of you already.
Deputy Commissioner Stewart: If you have any problems, she’s the one. When I’m talking about problems, I’m talking about if you have a complaint report, if you’re a victim, and what happened. This is catching on so well that the district attorney’s office are calling us to give you rides, assist you with anything that you might need. Another thing that I also took in consideration was that we do 100 scam alerts for older adults. Year to date we did over 1,100.
We also do Bingo. We do karaoke. We do jazz, but you guys don’t like jazz. You guys like hip-hop. No, I know. When we put on jazz, y’all said, “Put the jazz away. Now, we want to liven it up.” I had a couple of dances with you. I’m nervous. We’ve been having a good time. This is a priority to me. It’s a priority to me too, because my father, he transitioned about two years ago. I remember when he was in a nursing home, and I always tell this story, I used to go there and some of our older adults had nobody to visit them.
My mother used to go to every room, bring stuff, say hello to them, and I had to see them. My father was sick for about six years, so we went frequently to see as this was a priority to me. I met my Lieutenant Bodden who oversees this program, and she is excellent. Commissioner Vázquez and I, we sat down, and I had somebody in her place, and she wasn’t too happy with this person. Not saying he wasn’t good, but it didn’t fit the criteria, the compassion that we needed for this spot.
Lieutenant Bodden came on board. She came to my office, and she says, “Commissioner, I’m going to do something with older adults.” It was like God send. She took over. She’s been doing fantastic work. She couldn’t be here today. She had a meeting, but I think this program is great. I’m here, and we’re here to answer any questions. I know the mayor for over 40 years. He’s compassionate about New York City, and a brief story, this man told me he was going to be the mayor 35 years ago.
We thought he was smoking something. I don’t know, but here he is, the Mayor of New York City. You’ll never meet a man more compassionate about this city who cares. He drives around the city two or three o’clock in the morning. He will call you two o’clock or three o’clock in the morning to let you know, GSD. Mayor Adams, it’s all yours.
Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thanks so much, Mark. Thank all of you. This is number…
Deputy Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: 12.
Mayor Adams: Number 12. This is number 12 of the older adults town halls we’re doing. We’ve done a number of town halls, youth town halls, a number of just everyday town halls. I think we’ve done around 17, 18, I don’t know the exact number, where the team comes out. I just want to thank the team that’s coming out and continue to engage in this conversation, because the goal is just to get beyond the noise and lets you hear directly from me, because I hear it over and over again as I move throughout the city.
I remember about a year ago sitting down with Jordan, my son, and talking about some of the W’s and the victories we have. He’s like, “Dad, I didn’t know that.” That’s what many of you are in the same place. When you think about it, January 1st, 2022, I inherited a city that– do all of you remember that word called COVID? COVID was everywhere. No one was on our subway system. Crime was increasing by 40 percent in the city in January 2022.
The independent financial observers that determine how stable your city is financially did not want to give us a high rating. Our children were not being educated at the level that they deserved. Many of our older adults were dealing with real issues as they moved throughout the city, and we wanted to address them. NYCHA, when I was knocking on doors on NYCHA during the time of I was Borough President and speaking with them, they were saying our children are home, but they don’t have a high-speed broadband in this facility.
Tourism was decimated. You could walk down Times Square and no one was there. Over proliferation of three-wheel scooters, mopeds, dirt bikes, ghost cars, you name it. Two years later, folks, two years, we have more jobs in the city in the history of the city. Black unemployment was four times the rate of whites when I took office. We cut it in half. It’s the first time unemployment is less than 8 percent.
We funded more affordable housing in one year in the history of the city. Transitioned more people out of homeless shelter into permanent housing in the history of the city. Put more people with FHEPS vouchers into housing in the history of the city. 15 percent, double-digit decrease in homicides, double-digit decrease in shootings. Five of the seven major crime categories are down. 62 million tourists returned to the street, the fourth largest in the history of the city.
We have, as I stated, more jobs in the history of the city. The independent financial experts that analyze how well you’re doing as a city raised our bond rate into a AA. That may not mean a lot to you on the ground, but it means it is saying our city is safe to invest in. When you’re doing analysis of new graduates that are coming into cities, we are leading the way, New York City. Report after report is saying New York City is one of the best cities to live in. Another report came out the other day. We are doing it, although we got 194,000 migrants and asylum seekers.
People said to me over and over again, “Well, Eric, why don’t you stop the buses from coming in from Texas and other places?” I can’t. It’s against the law. People say, “Well, why are you making sure that they have to get three meals a day and a place to sleep?” That’s what the law required me to do. They said, “Well, why don’t you allow them to work?” The federal law does not allow me to allow them to work. They said if I have them volunteer to do a service in the city and give them a stipend, I’ll be breaking federal law.
Everyone looks at the mayor and says, “Mayor, why are you doing this to us?” When in fact the mayor is following the law that I’m required to follow. When I go to the shelters where our migrants and asylum seekers are, you know what they say to me? They say, “Eric, we don’t want your free food. We don’t want your housing. We don’t want your outside parties, the outside showers. We just want to work. We just want to work. That’s all we want, is to work.”
Now, do you know we have a substantial number of migrants and asylum seekers that are from Ukraine because of the Ukrainian war, and we allow them to come in to flee that war? Do you hear about them? You know why you don’t? They’re allowed to work. If you can work from Ukraine, why can’t you work from Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia? Something is not right there. Something is not right. We need workers. That’s the interesting part about it.
We need nurses. We need food service workers. We need lifeguards. We need backstretch workers. When I speak to people in other municipalities, they say, “Eric, we will take some of the migrants and asylum seekers, but we can’t have people come and just sit around all day. We need people to fill the jobs that we have.” That is the number one thing that would turn this crisis into an opportunity, if we allow people to work.
I look at this room, as diverse as we are in this room, imagine if your ancestors came to this country and they were told they could not work. When I go and see 3,000 people sitting around all day, I am amazed that we’re not having some serious violent encounters, but they have been patient enough because they want to just work and contribute to this city. We need it. It’s not like we don’t need it. Imagine having a brigade to help our shortage in healthcare professionals, our shortage in removing graffiti, cleaning streets, in our restaurants. Our restaurant employers are telling me, “Eric, we need employees,” and I cannot allow them to work.
That is what we are facing. You know what? It costs us $4 billion. $4 billion out of our budget unexpectedly we had to find the money for. We’ve navigated this through COVID, navigated this through the crisis, navigated this through the increase in violence, navigated through the unemployment. We have successfully navigated this city in two years. Two years. We’re going to continue to navigate it, but I need to speak to you directly because when you pick up the paper and you read the worst thing that has happened to you in the city, you begin to define the city by that.
Do you know how many people we have on our subway system every day? I love sharing this. We have 4.1 million riders a day. 4.1 million. We have six felonies a day on our subway system. Now we want to get rid of the 6, but 4.1 million. Our New York City Police Department is doing an amazing job. You can give it up for them. We removed over 50,000 ghost vehicles, illegal dirt bikes, illegal motorcycles, three-wheel motorcycles. Remember how these streets–
We’re not where we want to be because there’s more, we got to get off our streets, but there was just a total level of disruption that was happening on our streets, and the chief of the department and the commissioners got on and said, “We’re not going to have a lack of quality of life.” We like to come out and speak directly to you because you are only going to hear bad news. They say if it bleeds, it leads. That’s what they say.
You are only going to hear bad news. Before we open to questions, we handed out this little magnetic strip that can fit on your fridge. Whenever there’s an emergency at home, when I was a police officer, we would come to the house and people won’t be able to give us basic information for whatever reason. We have this card coming out of our Department of Aging and our amazing commissioner and just put your basic information, so if there’s an emergency, you won’t have to search for it.
Your name, your contact, your emergency contact, any chronic condition, any allergies, any medication that you’re on. This allows the first responder to just take the information and communicate it to the law enforcement person or to EMS that comes. Fill it out. You can fill it out for you, of your loved one, your family member. Just put it right on your fridge or somewhere where someone can notice it, and this helps in case of emergency. All right, so let’s open up the floor. Let’s answer some questions. Where are we starting? How are you?
Question: Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Adams: You don’t look like a member of the center.
Question: I don’t. I was designated here. Officer Vázquez. Basically recently members of the table, they were made aware that there’s a possibility of disabled individuals living within the same housing facility as seniors. Is this a rumor true, or…
Mayor Adams: I’m sorry, I didn’t get that.
Question: Possibility of disabled individuals living within the same facility as senior members.
Mayor Adams: They’re physical disabled? Physical disability, or…
Question: They’re not seniors. They’re disabled, but they’re in senior buildings, and they want to know how is that…
Question: If they’re going to be living…
Mayor Adams: You aware of that? I’m not aware of that.
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Thanks. Yes. That is something that we’ve worked very, very closely with our commissioner for Disabilities because the one thing we do not want is to have people who are homeless. If you’ll notice, many of the people with different abilities are also older adults. Where we can, we also… And I’m one of your cohorts, I’m up there with you. We also want housing that is mixed age housing. The reason we want mixed age housing, because none of us lives in isolation. We really do live in community. We’ll hear a little bit more about what we’re doing with our youth to anchor those two. Yes, that is something that is occurring, but it’s not a displacement of one, it’s an enhancement.
Mayor Adams: Yes.
Question: Okay. I have a question. My name is [inaudible.]
Mayor Adams: Yes, ma’am.
Question: I recently moved to here to this place and I feel so comfortable and safe and they care of me and everybody very well. I have a short question.
Mayor Adams: Okay.
Question: What are you doing to ensuring senior safety as we traveling through the city?
Mayor Adams: I say this over and over again, the prerequisite to prosperity is public safety. There are things we could do together. Number one, we want to increase our police classes because nothing give us a greater level of feeling safe, because being safe is not only stats, it’s how do you feel. That presence of that uniform officer on the train, walking the streets, walking the beat again, playing that role is crucial. We want to increase our classes that are coming in to get the manpower.
I want to encourage you to tell your loved ones, the young men and women in your lives, policing is a great career. I’ll encourage you because we’re seeing a drop off on a number of officers who are enrolling in the police department. We want to increase our classes. We increased and added two more classes to make sure the budget cuts would not hurt our law enforcement officers, because that’s the number one thing we hear no matter where we go in this city.
I don’t know those numbers that are saying they don’t want their police and they want to disband police officers. I never hear that when I come to meetings, I hear just the opposite. You want your police, you want your police on patrol. That is the number one way that we can ensure safety and also collaborate with Commissioner Stewart stated of having your senior liaison that’s in the precinct.
If you see a problem or something that is a potential problem, communicate with them so we can respond right away to have the right patrol there, the right deployment of resources. My goal is to continue to drive down crime like we’ve done, but it has to also make you feel safe by seeing that uniform officer that’s on patrol and doing the job he’s supposed to do.
Question: Good afternoon, Mayor.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: I’m doing very well yourself?
Mayor Adams: Good, good.
Question: Good afternoon, everyone. This is the Latin table.
Mayor Adams: Yes.
Question: One of our concerns we would like to know, or they would like to know, is how fast can the city fix the sidewalks? Apparently the sidewalks in the neighborhood, because of the trees, they have open a lot of bumps and it’s a danger for them when they walk down the street. It’s a real concern from them.
Mayor Adams: DOT, I know we have a program because we heard those complaints that some of our town halls. I believe DOT and Department of Aging, what we are doing in areas, we’re walking the streets with the seniors and we are having them point out what road conditions need to be rectified and need to be corrected. We are not going to just try to go from our set of eyes.
If you’re navigating the streets… My mother used to hate with her walker, she’ll talk about that same bump that was on her street that got in her way. What we are doing we’re walking the streets and going into communities to do site surveys with our seniors. Everything from traffic patterns, how to do above curves out, everything to make the streets more navigable for our older adult population.
I would suggest either this table or whomever raised a question to speak with DOT, get his information so we could come do a site survey in his area also as well. A lot of these ringers, man, you guys don’t look like senior. They’re not. Trust me, these seniors are not shy. Don’t let them kid you.
Question: Good afternoon.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: How you doing? My table had two questions. One was, what’s going to happen to most of the senior centers, more specifically this one due to all the budget cuts? The second question is… Oh, my question.
Mayor Adams: Go ahead. No, you can actually go ahead. Ask you a second. Karen is rough.
Question: What’s the steps being taken to minimize the moped problems?
Mayor Adams: Don’t we hear that at every town hall?
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Can I take the cuts first?
Mayor Adams: Let me get this moped. We hear it at every town hall. What happened after COVID, everyone started getting home deliveries, and these mopeds are just all over the place. They drive on the sidewalk, they drive up and down, they go down wrong way streets. It’s a problem. As I stated, not only were they a problem, but the ghost vehicles were a problem, paper plates, unregistereds. They hit someone, they don’t have insurance. The three-wheel motorcycles, the dirt bikes, all of that. We remove over 50,000 off our road.
The commissioner and his team are zeroing in with DOT and others, we’re zeroing in on getting these illegal mopeds off our streets. There’s a lot of proposal out there, registering them, make sure they have license plates. There’s a series of things, but we clearly know it’s a problem and we have to right size our city. After the massive home delivery that has taken place, a lot of people have been using these bikes and we are calling on our restaurants to also play a role.
They have a responsibility to make sure these mopeds are following the law and the rule, because the worst thing that could happen is you get hit by one of them. They don’t have insurance, they keep going and you’re left with the hospital bills, and there’s been some horrific stories. We know it’s a problem and we’ve been on top of it and we are continuing our enforcement. There’s been a large number of them that have been using those moped for committing crimes. We’ve been finding guns on people. Some of them are part of robbery patterns, so we know it’s a problem and we are on top of it to rectify the problem.
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Before I get to the budget question, because I really want to take that one head on. I want to turn it over to deputy commissioner who might want to add something.
Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Yes, sir. About the mopeds still. Crime prevention, these are all my officers in the blue shirts, we understand even with the migrants that they come here and they really don’t understand the laws about driving, operating a vehicle. Quite a few. What happens, we’re going to set up a tutorial program for them and we went to every borough, every store, and we know where all the mopeds are. We’re going to go to all stores and we’re going to set up a program to teach them, because let’s be honest, and a lot of these countries there’s no rules. When they come here they think there’s no rules, no traffic laws.
We are going to try to educate them on that aspect of it. Like the mayor says, that some are just getting these bikes and just driving crazy. We have Commissioner Daughtry and Chief Chell, like the mayor said, we took over 50,000 bikes already. When this easy money for them to make, especially when they can’t work, these stores, they’re giving them mopeds.
I got to give it to them, you’re coming from different countries and you’re riding around New York City, I would be lost, but they find a way, but they don’t know the traffic laws, so we’re going to do the educational part and the confiscation that when they do use these bikes illegally that we’re going to take them.
Mayor Adams: That’s what he means not knowing the traffic rules. Traffic rules are different when you are in a rural environment. I saw that when I was down in southern… I see it in West Africa when I saw it there also. Our traffic rules in an urban environment is different from the traffic rules in a rural environment. What the commissioner is doing is proactive. He said, “Let me let you know what the rules are in the city on driving on our roads.” It’s really a real proactive step on his part.
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Absolutely. No different than if you went to New Jersey or Westchester County, You can make a right on red and you can’t in New York. You got to know the traffic rules and they’re all different. I want to get to the heart of the matter that people have been asking me and the Mayor a lot on the budget cuts. I want to thank all of you for your advocacy, you were strong, your voices were heard. I also want you to take the opportunity to thank the mayor. This city was and still is facing some financial challenges. Some people have a different opinion of that, but we know that we always have to have a balanced budget.
This mayor made a decision that there will be no older adult club programs closed, and this mayor also made a decision that we would not cut senior services right.
We hear a lot of swirl, which is why it’s important for us to come directly to you and for the mayor to speak to you directly and hear your questions. The financial situation of the city changes all the time, but I can tell you that there is a commitment that in this year they are no budget cuts, they were no budget cuts and as a matter of fact, there was no negative impact on any of the programs. That was done by this mayor, Mayor Eric Adams, and it was because he was very smart. He came to these town halls, he heard you and he learned from you, so continue in your advocacy. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Thank you, thank you. You speak we listen. We listen. Where am I going? How are you, ma’am?
Question: Hi, our table had a lot of questions…
Mayor Adams: Of course.
Question: …and points of view. One of the things that I’ve noticed in the Upper West Side and it’s a result partly because of the congestion pricing that you don’t control and also the sidewalk eateries, street-eateries. It’s made a huge pressure on parking for people who have cars, some seniors, but a lot of other people in the Upper West Side are going to feel this horrible pinch. One thing that could be done is the resident Parking Permit and I just would like you to talk about that.
Mayor Adams: Your flashlight is on.
Question: Oh, I’m so sorry.
Mayor Adams: I’m so glad you said that because everyone stops me and talk about congestion pricing. That was passed by the state, turned over to the MTA with assistance from the federal government. I believed that the city, these are our streets, we should have had in partnership with the City Council came up… If there was a congestion prices and pricing initiative, it should have been controlled by this city because these are all streets. That’s not what happened.
We were able to secure $100 million for those area outside the congestion zone, because we’re concerned about the displacement of fumes, displacement of traffics. We’re concerned about those areas. As it stands now I think that your councilperson, I believe Gale Brewer represents here, you should engage in a conversation about residential parking. You should engage in a conversation to make sure there’s advocacy to impact those areas that are on the peripheral of the community that’s going to be charged in the congestion zone. Everybody should make sure that… You’re alright ma’am. You want to need any water? I think all of those ideas need to be put on the table, and you really should bring your councilperson and your local state folks to talk about how do we mitigate some of the impact of congestion pricing. How are you?
Question: I’m fine Mr. Mayor. Thank you for being here.
Mayor Adams: Thank you.
Question: Our question is regarding homelessness on the subway, and what is being done about the safety for the riders? What’s the update? Because I understand they have a new program.
Mayor Adams: Yes, called SCOUT.
Question: That’s it. Can you give us some…
Mayor Adams: When I became mayor, the first two months I went into the streets to talk about because I saw it on the campaign trail, these encampments. They were everywhere. People were living on the boxes, they were living in tents. I spoke with the mayors in Los Angeles, the mayor of San Francisco and other cities where these encampment is normalized. I went out during the first few months in office, and I visited the people inside those tents and camps.
Schizophrenic, bipolar, human waste, drug paraphernalia, stale food, people talking to themselves. I went back to the team and I said… We had a woman living under the subway stairs in the subway system. I said, “Listen, people are not living like this in this city. I don’t know what other cities are doing, but this is inhumane.” We got a lot of pushback. People were saying they have a right to live on the streets. I’m being inhumane to try to take people off the streets.
If you don’t know you need care because of severe mental health condition, how could we feel it’s humane to allow you to stay on the streets in that manner? We removed 7,000 people into care. Some stayed, some didn’t. It is a repeated action. We went into the subway system, partner the police with mental health professionals. We pushed to get in Albany an initiative that would allow us to increase the involuntary removal.
If you are at a place where you can’t take care of yourself and you’re in danger to others and yourself, we should be able to involuntary remove you to give you the care that you deserve. We believe it should be long term. What we have done historically, we’ve taken people off the street, we’ve given them medicine for one day, then we put them back out there until they do something that’s violent. This was a mistake when we closed a lot of our mental health institutions years ago.
We’ve turned our mental health institutions into Rikers Island. 54 percent of the people on Rikers Island have a mental health issues. That is a problem. We believe in our subway system that’s no place for people with severe mental health issues to be. That’s what SCOUT is about. SCOUT is getting mental health professionals to go out and engage in a real way to get people off our subway system so they won’t be living on our subway system with severe mental health issues. That’s what SCOUT is about, and we are going to continue to push forward with it.
How are you?
Question: Fine. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor and the team that’s present today.
Mayor Adams: Thank you.
Question: Our question is, how can we increase computer skills for our older adults with skilled people to teach them?
Mayor Adams: I love that. I know we gave out iPads. We gave out 40,000 iPads to older adults, 40,000. We want to redo that initiative. Here’s what I believe we need to do, because you’re right, skilled people. Here’s an excellent opportunity that I think we could do. I would love to partner and kick this off with this older adult center. The most skilled people I know that know computers well, young people.
Just as you have adopted the city in your activities, we should have the local high school adopt the adult center. Let them come in and CUNY, you know why the cost of… My son went to American University, it cost me $50,000 a year. You go to CUNY, it’s a fraction of that. You know why CUNY is a fraction of that? Because your tax dollars go to it. Part of the electorate that you do and CUNY should be coming in and doing services like this.
There’s no reason our CUNY students can’t come in and do serious computer training. That’s the partnership. We have a great chancellor in CUNY who will love to do this, because that’s how he is. He’s very forward-thinking, so we could get our computer science, our majors, our math majors, our tech guys. We can partner with Google who I’m sure would assist us in doing this because we’ve been doing great partnership with our tech companies.
We have a large population of experienced people, they’re called students. We should put together, if we start here, it can grow throughout the city. They will love that intergenerational interaction because let me tell you something, a lot of our young people don’t have those instructions at home and the wisdom that many of you have to offer. There’s a symbiotic relationship that could develop. They would teach you computer skills, and you could teach them life skills.
We should speak with the director, the director here, bringing someone who’s from CUNY, but I don’t know which high school is in this area, whatever high school is in the area. Which one?
Audience: Trinity.
Mayor Adams: We should set up a meeting. We should set up a meeting with CUNY, Trinity. I’ll get the chancellor engaged. Sister, since you raised the question, you should be the point person for here. There’s nothing that will stop us from…
Question: I’m from Isaacs…
Mayor Adams: I’m sorry.
Question: I’m from Isaacs on the East Side, but we will gladly partnership with anyone who want to work with us.
Mayor Adams: Let’s do it.
Question: When is the next round?
Mayor Adams: Hold on. Hold on. One at a time.
Question: When is the next round for giving out the laptops to thestudents?
Mayor Adams: Where are we with the iPads?
Question: Yes, the iPads.
Mayor Adams: Yes. Where are we with that?
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: We gave out 40,000. 20,000 in NYCHA facilities, and then the rest for older adult clubs. We gave those out primarily during COVID and post-COVID so that you can still engage with family members because for us, it was social isolation. It is one of the things that we will look forward to, or continuing, obviously. Looking forward to doing and expanding the program.
Question: [Inaudible.]
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Yes?
Question: I’m seeing them on the computer.
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Right. A lot of people were taught. What was great about those tablets… The answer is not now, but soon we’ll look at that. I just texted the chancellor of CUNY and said you got a new project. The mayor just gave you a new project. The issue for us is social isolation, but the also issue for us is your skills enhancement so that you’re employable for those who want to continue working. It is something that we will look at very carefully.
Mayor Adams: It is a combination that we can do a lot of our corporations. They recycle their laptops and computers when they’re still good. It’s just that they cycle out of that. We should explore how do we get those computers because it’s a tax write off and there’s a way if they donate them. Let us explore and come up with an initiative of… I’m really happy to hear you talk about computer training because that’s a big issue.
Everything we do now is going to be dealing with some form of technology. Let us partner, let’s come up with ways of getting computers donated. How do we get some folks, maybe even Robin Hood or others that’s willing to refurbish our iPads? It was a great initiative we did during COVID. Let’s lean into that and see how we can do it again.
Question: Hi.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: How are you?
Mayor Adams: Good.
Question: I’m just wondering what’s being done regarding retail and petty crime.
Mayor Adams: Oh, retail theft. Hate it, hate it, hate it. When people tell me retail theft is a victimless crime, they don’t have a real reality of it. It’s an impact on all of us. We had a Retail Theft Summit at City Hall led by Deputy Mayor Banks because it impacts us all. If a drug store closes down, we’re losing jobs, and then you have to travel further to get your basic items that you need. Nothing angers me more than going into a drug store and seeing my toothpaste locked up behind, and I got to wait for somebody to come and unlock it. It’s a real problem.
Here’s what we did. You know the biggest problem is, they’re repeated offenders. 542 people that were arrested for retail theft were arrested 7,600 times in this city. Think about that. We were able to get Albany to zero in on these repeated offenders, and we are hoping that we could get some real movement of it. We’ve also did something else.
We announced on the 125th Street BID, where we’re partnering with a company called Fususand the Police Department, where they’re placing a camera that’s going to go directly to the precincts that could be monitored so we could identify those habitual offenders that have been doing this retail theft over and over again and bringing them to justice.
We’re with you. We know it’s an issue and we have really zeroed in on it. It’s a national issue and some of it is organized crime. People are stealing and hiring boosters, going in, stealing stuff and they selling it on the internet. Attorney General James and I last year stood together about a takedown of an organized crime ring. I think it was in 22′ or ’23, where we believe that we have to deal with the low level and the organized effort. Retail theft can’t continue in our city. Let’s free our Colgate. Yes, ma’am.
Question: Good afternoon. I’m from Goddard and not Isaacs. However, we do interact with each other. We are all one, Goddard, we’re all one. We are family. Thank you for coming today. However, you brought up housing, affordable housing.
Mayor Adams: Yes.
Question: Affordable housing for whom? We have Housing Connect. If you haven’t looked at the papers recently, they start out for most people if you are really, really poor, $19,000. Most of us make a little bit more than that. We are not qualified for that. If you want to be qualified for a one or two-bedroom, you have to be making at least $80,000, so at the moment… Housing Connect was for people who were low income. Right now, Housing Connect does not apply to us.
For most of us, if you’re retired, you cannot get into Housing Connect. Period. I’ve applied. 10 years I’m on the list. Twice they told me I make too much money, $3 above the level that they want. You don’t qualify and now they have raised it. When you talk about affordable housing, we are not talking NYCHA, we are talking affordable housing. I want to know exactly where we stand.
Mayor Adams: Well, a couple of things, and that’s very interesting point that you raised. NYCHA is as important. We were the first administration that put NYCHA as part of our overall housing plan and the NYCHA Section 8 list is opening for the first time in I don’t know how many years. NYCHA is an important housing stock and we are investing in it, everything from free high-speed broadband to all the resident, to doing the NYCHA Land Trust, the first time this has ever been placed. A lot of people have tried, we were successful in doing it, but I’m not dismissing. NYCHA is important part of our housing stock in the city.
Notice was stated, you said affordable for whom? You stated that you went after a unit and you were ineligible because you were $3 above. If we make the only low, low income, you’ll never make it. That’s part of the problem. Part of the problem we fought hard to get the minimum wage raised. If you are a husband and wife that work full-time at McDonald’s, you’ll become unqualified for some of these programs. We don’t only need extreme low, we need middle and moderate housing. I need my teacher and accountant to be able to stay here. I need my retirees to be able to stay here. I need my son to finally get the heck out of my house and get an apartment on his own.
We need levels of affordability, but here’s how you get those levels. We got to build. We have a 1.4 percent vacancy rate in the city, 1.4 percent. In affordable, we almost have a function of zero vacancy rate because everyone walks around, “Housing isn’t right, housing isn’t right.” “Okay We going to build this on your block.” “Wait a minute. Not on my block.” Every part of the city needs to have some housing. We got 59 community boards in this city, 59. 9 of them have built more affordable housing than the other 50 combined.
We have places where we have good schools, good hospitals, good transportation, good access to food, yet they don’t have any affordable housing. What we need to be saying in our City of Yes program, a little more housing in every community board, not just certain community boards. That’s why you got gentrification. That’s why you have displacement because we’ve been only going to certain community boards building the housing.
I’ll encourage you to talk to your city council people because now our plan is inside the city council and say, “We need to build a little more housing in every community board,” and not take the position I have my house, I have my park that I like. I have my hospital that I like. I have my transportation system. I don’t want anyone else new in my community. No, we need to share the resources of the city. We got Albany to respond.
We’ve been able to get some stuff done in Albany, but now we need this City of Yes proposal passed. I’m encouraging you to read up on it, because if we don’t build more, what happens when you have a low stock of anything? The price goes up. Housing is in such short supply that it’s a seller’s market. We got to build more housing in the city so that you won’t have to go through that, and it’s across the board. It’s extremely low, it’s middle, it’s moderate, because everyone needs to afford to live in the city.
You should not be going somewhere and saying, “You make $3 too much, and so you cannot be eligible for this project.” That’s what’s happening because we don’t have enough affordable units. Let us finish and we’ll come back to you, sister. Let us finish the table and we’ll come back to you. Okay, and we’ll come back to you.
Question: Hello, good afternoon, I got a shy table over here.
Mayor Adams: That’s okay.
Question: This is their question. There is a question regarding sanitation enforcement. The question is, what is being done about cleaning up the sidewalks? An example being enforcing fines for people leaving their dogs’ waste on the floor?
Mayor Adams: I hear that a lot. People need to realize, clean up. Commissioner Tisch, the Department of Sanitation, she has done an amazing job. One of my favorite staffers is the rat czar, who’s here, because I hate rats. We have transitioned into… What people told us it was going to take five years, we’re doing it in two and a half years, a little over two and a half years, and that is moving into containerizing our garbage. You’ll never have the streets as clean as you want as long as we keep these mounds of plastic bags on our streets. We are really cycling into containerization.
We started with food service businesses, then we moved to chain stores. Now we are moving to the next level, one to nine units. We believe, like other civilized societies, you don’t see garbage bags. I just came back from Rome in the Vatican, and even in Greece, you don’t see these garbage bags, only in New York. This is a relic from the ’60s. We need to put our garbage in containers.
We agree with this enforcement. If there’s some specific areas where you’re seeing habitual abusers, we could partner with the Department of Sanitation and the police department to do enforcement in the area to get it done and clean up the area because you’re right, there’s some people who walk their dogs, they walk their animals, and I love dogs, they walk them in an area, and they don’t clean up after them. That is unfair to your neighbor, and the best way to get compliance sometimes is with a citation to pay a fine for doing so.
We do have a Pooper Scooper Law in this city, and people need to abide by it, and we need to make sure that it’s enforced. We’re with you. If there’s an area, please speak with your rep, the law enforcement rep at the table, and we’ll do some quality assurance over that area. Go ahead, ma’am. I saw somebody’s hand. Yes, ma’am. Yes. Who’s going to give her a mic? We just got the great Councilwoman Gale Brewer just popped in here. We were just talking about her. Yes, ma’am.
Question: Hi. Good afternoon.
Mayor Adams: Good afternoon.
Question: I know it’s good luck to step on poop. You could play the lotto, I don’t know. A lot of Spanish people say that. Anyways, but I do agree. It’s actually a statement that I have. When it comes to affordable housing, one thing is for you to talk to community boards and the borough, but it’s the lawmakers in Albany that have every say when it comes to tenant rights, landlords, building, that’s who you need to speak to before you could speak to anyone else. They have a lot of power over there from the judges to attorneys. That’s where you need to go to then be the change that we need to see here in all of New York.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. We were up in Albany countless number of times to get some real changes at Albany, and now we’re down here in the city council because it’s a combination. It’s a combination of what we do in the state, and it’s a combination of what we do in the city. We were able to get some victories out of Albany. Now we have to match those victories down here in the city. I’m going to do this last question, sister, because you were raising your hand for some time. Go ahead. Yes. Here is your mic.
Question: Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor, for being here at Goddard Riverside today.
Mayor Adams: Thank you.
Question: We really appreciate your time and your effort. I’d like to ask you a question about RAD. Public housing is being sold out. We have the most precious pieces of property here in New York City. We have over 44,000 public housing, over 44,000 and more that the federal government is trying to take from New York City. What is your stance on that as far as keeping this property here and keeping these developers from taking over this property?
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Now, let’s think about this for a moment. How many years have you heard that the calvary is coming for NYCHA? How many years? Those bugles you hear, that’s not the calvary. It’s taps. NYCHA is dying. You’ve heard it over and over and over and over and over again. The federal government is not bailing this out. NYCHA has something like $80 billion capital budget, the federal government is not coming.
Now either we can play make believe, and say, “Well one day they’re going to come,” or we can say to ourselves, “What are some different things we can do that tenants can generate?” We went to Albany. For years they’ve been trying to get NYCHA a land trust that will free up billions of dollars to do capital. We said, “We’re not going to force you on it. We are going to present what it is and then as tenants, you will vote on if you want it and then you will go see other projects.” I think it was Nostrand Houses, they voted, they passed it.
It wasn’t Nostrand, she said Bay Houses. We did a couple of other locations. It doesn’t matter if it’s RAD, if it’s land trust, if it is tearing down a building and building a new one, we got to come up with some different ways, folks, or we’re going to be sitting here in 2060 saying help is coming. Help is not coming. It’s not coming. We have to figure out new models of dealing with the capital issue. I think one of the best things is what we’re doing down and I think it’s Chelsea Houses where… Listen, folks can agree or disagree. I’m not voting. The tenants are voting.
Some of these buildings are in such disrepair, it costs more money to repair them, to build them brand new. We could either keep pouring money into a bottomless pit, or we could raise NYCHA to the standard that is expected for people who are paying their rent in these buildings. That’s my position, but whatever we do, it would be tenant-driven. The tenant would vote, they would make the determination. Now you and I both know there’s no monolithic view when it comes down to anything.
We have 8.3 million people live in the city and we got 35 million opinions. No matter what you do, everybody’s not going to be on board, so you got to go with the majority rules. We got to go with the majority rule, and that is going to come from the tenants, but we got to fix NYCHA and we’re determined to do so. Deputy Mayor Maria Torres Springer, one of the first things she did, NYCHA was never in our housing plan. When we came into office, one of the first thing we did, we said we are including NYCHA in our housing plan because We’re not going to leave NYCHA out. I love being here, but I got to bounce. Thank you. Councilwoman, why don’t you say something to your constituency?
City Councilmember Gale Brewer: Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. He and I were borough presidents together and he was a very good Brooklyn and I was a very good Manhattan. I love Goddard Riverside and also Stanley Isaacs. I appreciate the questions that you asked and we will also follow up, technology, rats, sidewalks. I got the list. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, for coming to the Upper West Side.
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Thank you.
May 22, 2024 Manhattan New York
Sources: Midtown Tribune news – NYC. gov
