NYC Gazette

Commissioner Fred Kreizman, Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Fred Kreizman, commissioner of the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit. I want to thank everyone from the Hunts Point community for taking part in the community conversation series we started here in Hunts Point, the first one in this series. This is the community conversations with Eric, as the mayor would like it to be called. We are here in Hunts Point. We started off this series today with two parts. 6 to 7 p.m., we had community conversation at each table. We worked with — alongside the community board, 22 community organization to make sure disseminate the information, to invite members of the community to participate here from the Hunts Point community. We were fortunate to have members of the mayor's office at each table to help facilitate, take diligent notes so we could address all the issues at each table.

If the issue isn't raised here directly to the dais, we'd still be able to address it at City Hall. See, we have note cards at every single table, so if your question is not asked, we will get back to you and refer those issues to the city agency and the mayor will get a report. Within two weeks, everyone's going to get a returned phone call based on your issue. This community, we have been fortunate enough to have a lot of great things happen here. We have had the Hunts Point Forward plan 15-year vision developed and funding established and parks given $25 million. We're lucky enough to be here in this wonderful Hunts Point Recreation Center park facility. It just highlighted the wonderful facilities the City of New York does have. We have programming in the community, just like the DYCD-funded Beacon programs that we added in here last year in Graham Windham Beacon and the Bronx Academy for multimedia here in Hunts Point.

But I know you're all eager to continue and seeing how we could better work to address the issues here in Hunts Point, so without further ado, I would like to introduce the mayor, but the mayor asked me just to let you know who's sitting on this day. Two tier dais here. We have the first, the mayor of the City of New York. We have the first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright. We have the DSS commissioner, Molly Park; the DFTA commissioner, Department of Aging Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez. We have the borough Parks commissioner, Jessenia Aponte; Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Counsel, Lisa Landau; the ACS commissioner, Jess Dannhauser; Commissioner Keith Howard of DYCD; the Mayor's Office of Community Mental Health director, Eva Wong. We said Molly Park from DSS. We're fortunate to have the NYPD deputy commissioner, Mark Stewart, joined of course by the borough commander, Chief Rivera and the precinct commander here, Deputy Inspector Anthony Mascia.

We are lucky to have the DOT commissioner, Ydanis Rodriguez; the DOB commissioner, Jimmy Oddo; the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs commissioner, Manny Castro; Health and Hospital president, CEO Mitch Katz. We have Department of Probation commissioner, Juanita Holmes. Wow. EDC senior vice president, Sabrina Lippman; MOCJ director, Deanna Logan; DCL deputy commissioner, Alton Murray; OTI deputy commissioner, Ryan Birchmeier; SBS deputy commissioner, Calvin Brown; DOE deputy chancellor, Kenita Lloyd; DSNY borough chief, Dayton Lewis; DCWP first deputy commissioner, Kenya Manaya; MOPD commissioner, Christina Curry, of the Mayor's Office of People Disabilities; HPD assistant commissioner, Nicole Simmons; Mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice acting director, Vicky Cerullo; DOF director of outreach, Kieran Mahoney; NYCHA interim CEO, Lisa Bova-Hiatt; deputy commissioner of DEP, Beth DeFalco. We have Executive Director Jacqueline Ebanks from CGE; Human Rights borough director, Orlando Torres; and Fire chief of staff, Luis Martinez. Thank you. Without further ado, the mayor of the City of New York, and of course —

Mayor Eric Adams: Yes. I want to first turn it over to just a real solid representative up here, just a real good friend, Councilman Salamanca.

City Council Member Rafael Salamanca: All right. All right. Good evening, Hunts Point. Is Hunts Point in the house?

Crowd: Whoo!

Council Member Salamanca: First, I want to thank you, Mr. Mayor, and I want to thank your CAU team, Valerie, and your entire team for keeping us in the loop, keeping Bronx Community Board 2 in the loop, ensuring that we have a successful event today. I just want to say how much this means to me and to my residents here to not just see you physically here to hear our concerns, but to see city government sitting here with us so that they can hear our concerns as well. You don't know how excited I am because a lot of these commissioners, when they see me in City Hall, run away from me. Don't worry, I'm not going to throw you under the bus today. I just want to say thank you all for being here. I want you to really listen to what Hunts Point has to say because we want to work hand in hand with city government. Thank you and God bless you all. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: If I could just have the director of the center come up, Ashanta.

Ashanta Smith, Manager, Hunts Point Recreation Center: Oh, wow.

Mayor Adams: I saw a video that Brother Salamanca sent me of you helping your neighbors during the fire. It was just so moving to see that that I just asked the team to put together this proclamation for you, you know.

Smith: Thank you. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: For just stepping up, man. You go beyond the call of duty. Every neighborhood has someone like you that just goes beyond the call of duty and it's just our way of saying thank you. This is a beautiful spot to be in. Your team loves you. You had a great team when we came in. Your energy is just the energy we need as we turn things around. Really appreciate you man.

Smith: We appreciate you. I just want to say thank you to the mayor and to everybody in here and to the shareholders of the community. We Hunts Point strong. We Bronx strong. New York strong and we just do it. We do it for the love of it and to motivate people. My teens are right there, my teen boys are right there. I brought them in here so they see, so they could be the next people that's sitting on these podiums and they could be the people that contribute. So thank you very much. I greatly appreciate the [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: This right here?

Smith: That's it right there. On the corner right there. Stand up, gentlemen. Stand up. Stand up. That's my guy. That's my future. That's my future. That's right.

Mayor Adams: Oh, look. The brother right here, stand up. Stand up one more time right here, right here. You with all the hair!

Smith: Tookie.

Mayor Adams: Tookie, Tookie.

Smith: Tookie, yes.

Mayor Adams: Tookie. Listen, I know all of you find it hard to believe, but I used to have hair that long. Thank you. Thank you.

Smith: Thank you. Appreciate it.

Mayor Adams: Thank you, brother. Appreciate you. So we're going to open it up because we want to hear from you, but let me tell you something. This place, to me, is the most significant turning point of my life. Right down the block in Spofford when I was arrested, I spent the night in Spofford and my counselor, Jose, who I'll never forget, one of the things they found on me when I was arrested, I had those fake gold chains. I used to go and sell them on Canal Street to the tourists. Listen, the statute of limitations is over. 

He found one of those gold chains and he sat down. He showed me a book called State of Black America. In the book, it told what was going to happen to Black youth. It told how many would be using drugs, how many children would be born in teenage pregnancy, and talked about how many people would be arrested.

Prior to him showing me that, he says, "I bet you I can get you to buy this fake gold chain that you were selling someone else." I was 15. I was arrogant. I thought I knew everything and I was just dismissive. But when he went through all those items in the book that were bad, here I was in Spofford arrested. 

Someone predicted what was going to happen to me and I bought that fake gold chain and I was sitting in Spofford on what they said was going to happen to me and it did happen to me. That's Spofford Juvenile facility now, because of this brother, it’s turned into a place of healing, a place of empowerment. When I was here with him, as we walked through it, it brought chills through me because if that counselor didn't take the time to talk with me one-on-one... He didn't see me as a number. He didn't see me as another young Black man that was not going to make it. He saw me as an individual.

When I went to my counselor after the court gave me counseling with my brother and I, the counselor told my brother to come back for follow-up and the counselor looked at me and said, "You don't even bother coming back. You are incorrigible. You are too angry. Your energy is too negative." But that counselor at Spofford saw me as a person and he saw the pain that was in me. And instead of trying to destroy me, he was dedicated to healing me. I don't know where he is now. I don't know what he's doing right now, but because he took the time to see a broken child to turn into a broken adult, I went from that life of arrested, dyslexic, rejected, and now I'm elected to be the mayor of the City of New York. So let's open this conversation up.

Commissioner Kreizman: Excellent. Thank you. Let's get started. Table number one.

Question: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Mary. Mr. Mayor, with a high prevalence of crime already in the South Bronx being committed by people in our community, how can we combat violence that might be perpetrated by incumbent asylum seekers?

Mayor Adams: Well, the goal is, which is really, really impressive on my part, as you know, we have over 70,000 asylum seekers that have come to this city, over 70,000. I stayed at the Brooklyn Army Terminal with a group of them, a couple of hundred men. We have a lot of single men that are coming through. Do you know what I was really pleased with? We are seeing little or no criminal behavior from them, little or no criminal behavior from them. You know how hard it is to be between the ages of 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 and you're told you can't work. You have to sit around all day. Even with that, there's only one thing they've asked of us. They say, "We don't want your free food. We don't want your free bed. We don't want your free healthcare. We just want to work. We want to have a job and we want to work."

When you speak with the police that's up here, they will tell you with hundreds of people in one facility, we're having no problems at an asylum seekers at all. They're here to contribute to our society, not take away from our society. They're part of the rich tradition of those who came from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Africa, the Egypt, Ireland, Italy. There's a rich tradition and we find that the contributors to our city and our country are those who are part of all the diverse groups that come here. So I welcome them, but I also welcome the national government. Not to say New York City must pick up this responsibility of a national problem, but I encourage all of you to go to some of the HERRCs, some of the shelters and see. You are going to see in their faces the same thing that people saw in the faces of all of us who came to the city in this country.

I think about to the right of me, of my commissioner of Immigrant Affairs, he came from Mexico as a 5-year-old child with his parents and knew how hard it was as a dreamer and rose to the level of now, he's in charge of our immigration policy. Commissioner Castro brings that humanitarian approach to this. We need to really understand that the asylum seekers are not coming to bring violence. They come in to bring opportunity that all of us want. We have to deal with this violence. The guns that we caught on the 16-year-old, I think it was yesterday, was not an asylum seeker. The individuals that did the shootings and the shooters we're seeing in the Bronx, they're not asylum seekers. They are young people that need opportunities and that is what we are going to continue to do so and to present to this community.

Commissioner Kreizman: Excellent. Thank you. Table number two.

Question: Good evening. My name's Maria Torres. The question we came up with was what have you done to make communication between agencies more efficient and what can you do to improve it and make these changes sustainable? For example, like DHS with NYPD, with DOH. How is the city able to make those work more efficiently together?

Mayor Adams: That's a great question. What I found when I got into office with the team is that there were too many silos and too many walls and people were operating in their own separate silos. We have dismantled that to a great deal. One of the great indicators of that is during what you see with homelessness. Our transit system was filled with encampments, people sleeping on the subway system. We saw a lot of encampments and tents on our street. My first two months in office, I went out and visited people who were living in encampments on our street, dealing with mental health illnesses, living in their own waste, stale food, hypodermic needles, drug uses, bipolar schizophrenic behavior. I sat down with Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom and she put together a team made up of the HRA, NYPD, Department of Sanitation, community groups, and organizations. They still meet from when we first put this together back in February, March of last year. They still meet every Monday going over the initiatives, making sure we're giving services to people who are in need of services.

That is one of the examples of the combination and teamwork that we operate under. When we became mayor, my precinct commanders were rarely communicating with my principals. Now my precinct commander and principals speak on the regular, regular, coordinated communication on the phone. They know each other. They talk about issues in the community together. They are preventive. We have not had a school shooting on our school grounds, not on our school ground, and it has a lot to do with the coordination between the police commissioner, the chancellor, and the precinct commanders and those borough commanders. We communicate with each other. Communication is the key if we are going to run a complex city like this. I think your question is right on target. It was the first thing I said to our team that we will communicate and not live in our silos, saying that's not my job, that's not my responsibility. We're all on one team. We wear one jersey and that's Team NYC.

Commissioner Kreizman: Next table.

Question: Good evening. My name is Anna Faore. My question is how can the mayor's office help our Hunts Point community with food for the pantries in the community? They have just been told they will not receive any food anymore going forward.

Mayor Adams: Molly Park is our new commissioner, so you have your first hot seat.

Commissioner Molly Park, Department of Social Services: Thank you for the question. We have run a robust program to help food pantries acquire food. The funding runs through the fiscal year so that it may be a timing issue, but I'm happy to follow up with you offline so that we can get the specific names of the pantries. But we have a strong budget for this year. We have a strong budget for next year, so I do think there's probably a pathway forward there.

Mayor Adams: We got a substantial. We're seeing longer lines on our food pantry lines. We have just the need and food insecurity is a very real issue. It increased because of not only the economy, but again, our new arrivals that are in the city are also looking for. That's on food pantry lines is a real challenge, our Catholic charities and many of our others, the Jewish, I forgot the Jewish organization on poverty, Met Council. There's a real commitment and we are really energizing our corporate community to play a greater role in helping with the issue around food insecurity. Your question is right on time. We know that our pantries are doing an unbelievable job. Campaign Against Hunger in Brooklyn, they contribute a lot of food to the pantries. It's our goal to try to get as much food as possible on the ground because food insecurity is real and we also want healthy food in the process. Thank you for that question.

Commissioner Kreizman: Alina, you'll get connected to the person and get their information. Next table, Patrick.

Mayor Adams: Can someone speak with them? Find out the information to that pantry, please. Okay?

Question: All right. Peace and blessings. My name is Shanequa Charles, executive director of Miss Abbie's Kids. First off, thank you for doing this. Thank you for doing it in the Bronx and thank you for making sure that the needs of the people are being heard, not just in private but also in public. We really do appreciate that. We're a table full of folks who are very interested in youth. Our question is twofold. One, how will your office make access to funding for programs that ensure sustainable lifestyles for youth and making sure that they are programs equitable across the Bronx in keeping our youth safe and be prioritized in the 2024 budget? And also, how will the Afford to Live Act, which is being presented by YOURS, the organization, be supported to ensure that youth can afford to live in New York City once either they're aged out of the system, whatever system they may be in, or once they graduate from college? Because currently, they can't afford it and the programs that service them before they even get to that age are not as robust as they need to be. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: The second part of the question was with foster care youth?

Question: Yeah. The first part was —

Mayor Adams: I got the first part.

Question: The access to funding, yeah, and then the second part is the Afford to Live Act, which is being presented by YOURS.org. Miss Abbie's Kids is presenting the first question and it centers around young people that are aging out of the system that need to live on their own and who are graduating from college and whatnot, trying to live in New York City once they graduate.

Mayor Adams: I'm going to let Commissioner Howard talk about DYCD and the funding. Commissioner Howard has been spearheading a group of youth town halls throughout. We were in the Bronx, I think, last week, and of the several hundreds of young people coming out, smart ideas, really thoughtful, and I'm sure everyone would agree that attending these town halls with me, number one issue on their mind, public safety. Public safety. They were talking about being safe in their school. They were talking about gun violence. They were talking about having their school safety officers being in their school because the relationship with their school safety officers were strong. I think sometimes we think our youth are not concerned about public safety because adults are trying to drive the agenda. But every one of those town halls with young people that we did, they talked about public safety.

We are really excited about what we're doing around our young people. For the first time in history, everyone wanted it, but no one did it, 100,000 summer youth jobs. That's the first time last year we did it in the first year in this administration. We did it again this year. Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright to my left, of how she not only turned those summer youth jobs into experiences, where young people were learning the city, learning about meditation, learning about other skills and life skills that they could have. So we wanted our children to do more than just have a job. We wanted to teach them financial literacy. We have been really zeroing in on what we're doing with young people. Our Summer Rising program, over 100, I think 120? 110,000. I'm a believer that schools should be just about all year-round. I said that on the campaign trail. We're opening schools for our children to be signed up to get continuing education throughout the summer months. The numbers are extremely impressive.

But one of the things that I am really impressed with and really happy about is what we're doing around young people who age out of foster care. We know that 6,700 young people age out of foster care every year. We knew it. We knew they were more likely to be victims of a crime, participate in a crime, mental health illness, unemployed, living in shelters, and we said no to that. So we told our young people, "You want to go to college? We are going to pick up your college tuition up to $15,000. We're going to give you a stipend, and even after you graduate, we are going to keep you on the stipend for a year so you can stabilize."

We also have what's called Fair Futures. We've baselined Fair Futures. That is allowing young people to age out, I think it's 21. So they could have a life coach up until 21. People wanted to do this, never did it. We got it done. So we know that we should go upstream and save our young children who are in foster care, not waiting until they fall in the river and we pull them out downstream. We have invested in our young people, BlocPower, green jobs. $56 million we invested in BlocPower to teach justice-involved young people. If they were involved in the criminal justice system, we are allowing them to get involved in learning green jobs, battery installations, solar panels. All of these green jobs, we are making them happen in a real way. So I want Commissioner Howard to tell you about the funding source, and then I want to go to commissioner of Probation, former Chief of the New York City Police Department, so she can share with you what she does with Girl Talks, her own time, leaning into young people. So if you can go into Girl Talks as well, Commissioner Howard.

Commissioner Keith Howard, Department of Youth and Community Development: Wonderful, and great question. So the investment in the young people, the mayor already outlined it. I can just add on this, that in this community district, we have after school programs, the Beacon program, the COMPASS, both high school and elementary. We have the SONYC program, which is a middle school program as well. We have healthy families and healthy living in this community. We have immigrant services that are being offered in this community district. So the investment in the young people in the community across the district is very, very significant. We have a huge CBO network, community-based organizations that are providing such wonderful services to the residents and to the kids in this community district.

We also have a program, and I think the program is here as well. In fact, I know it's here. It's our Saturday Night Lights program, which the mayor made sure that we had a real partnership with NYPD, and you're talking about breaking down silos. It's NYPD and DYCD and also Parks Department as well that host the Saturday Night Lights program. So we have about 133 sites across the city that we open up.

I also want to emphasize that in our Beacon program, in our Cornerstone, which is our community centers, that we also have with NYCHA, the mayor wanted to make sure that we opened up not only extended hours, but also on weekends as well, just to make sure that we have the young people safe.

So I can definitely meet with you also to tell you and outline the significance of the programs that we have and the community-based organizations that run those programs. But I can honestly tell you, especially in our summer youth employment program, I want to give a shout-out to NYPD this year for actually increasing the number of participants they had last year. They had 813 young people in summer youth employment. They've actually raised the bar, and now they have 1,002 young people. So I would be happy to sit down and talk with you to go over exactly those community-based organization. Mr. Mayor, I think Jess wants to also comment on foster care.

Commissioner Jess Dannhauser, Administration for Children’s Services: Just real quickly, thanks to the mayor's investment, young people in foster care now, the coach is all the way to 26 years old. So if you know any young person who's been in foster care and is up to 26, right now, they can reach back out to us, and we can help them through educational barriers, career barriers, and make sure they get what they need, because we not only have to do what's right, going forward, we've got to make up for what wasn't there, going back. The mayor mentioned the College Choice Program. It has increased by 50 percent. So there are 300 young people in foster care thriving in college right now. When the mayor announced this less than a year ago, it was under 200. So these are working. We know when we invest in young people, they thrive.

Mayor Adams: Commissioner?

Commissioner Juanita Holmes, Department of Probation: Good evening. So I'm Commissioner Juanita Holmes, commissioner of Probation, originally chief of police for the New York City Police Department for about 36 and a half years. As a result of such, I remember when I first began working in Brownsville, East New York, Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, and I realized that there weren't any real programs for young girls. So as a result of such, myself and a couple of the female officers assigned to the command, we took our own money, our own time, and then I was covering every development pretty much in that part of Brooklyn. We would just bounce around from community center to community center to community center, and the group began to grow.

As a result of such, I took it everywhere I went. I became a borough commander. All eight precincts had to participate in that program. Then I became chief of patrol. All 77 precincts participate in that program, and it wasn't just Girl Talk. It's Blue Chips that we don't talk about a lot. Over 3,000 young men have come through the Blue Chips mentorship program with NYPD. Still currently going on, as well as Girl Talk, and it keeps them involved.

Now that I'm in Probation… And I'll tell you a funny story, Mr. Mayor. I won't be long. I'm in Probation, and I go into the Bronx Family Family Court and the Bronx Center over here. I inquired of some of the young men that were being interviewed by their probation officers, "Do you know about Blue Chips? Are you part of that program?" I spoke with the young ladies. "Do you know about Girl Talk?" So you want to talk about silos. None of them even heard of it, not even the probation officers. So I can guarantee you now there's going to be a strong collaboration. They'll be signing up for Blue Chips. That way, they'll establish those relationships with PD, as well as with Probation, and naturally connecting to DOE, because a lot of them are still currently in school. That way, we create this safe space for the children.

Mayor Adams: I want Deputy Commissioner Stewart to go over what he's doing, but also I want Lamona… Nice. Stand up, Lamona. Lamona, a retired police officer. She's onboard now in our CAU unit. She just held a program of… We don't have a mic. Do you have a mic over there so Lamona can talk about… Lamona, talk about what you have done these last few weeks and the number of children that have come out, because I really want the sister to understand how we are leaning into young people, because if you don't break a child, you won't have to try to fix an adult. So we are making sure that our children get the resources. Lamona, talk about what you've done, what you've been doing.

Lamona Worrell, Assistant Commissioner and Senior Community Advisor, Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit: So good evening, everyone. NYPD approached the mayor's office and asked us to partner with them to host a New York City kids' festival. So we were able to garner the Parks Department. [Inaudible] was there. She was very instrumental in that. We brought the Fire Department. All the city agencies, sanitation, you name it, they were all there. We had close to 8,000 children. We picked a borough. Actually, it was five boroughs, a park in every single borough, and we had children's activities every single day last week. Monday, we chose Marine Park. There were about 1,500 children who were bused in. They were third, fourth, and fifth graders. EMS taught them CPR. The Fire Department brought their firetruck so they can climb on it. Parks Department had a lot of giveaways. Stop and Shop donated hamburgers and hotdogs. The children were so ecstatic.

Chief Christina Curry, she said, "Make sure you have portosans for the ADAs." Chief Curry, we had portosans there. On Tuesday, it was Springfield Park. We had about 1,000 children there. Wednesday, it was the Bronx, Van Cortlandt Park. We had about 600 children. Thursday, we were in Queens. No, Thursday was Manhattan, Thomas Jefferson Park. Friday, we were in Staten Island at Midland Beach. It was overwhelming, close to 8,000 children, and they had a good time. So thank you for all the city agencies who participated in that.

Mayor Adams: So we want to go to Commissioner Stewart, Deputy Commissioner Stewart, a retired detective in the NYPD, went over to the DA's office to investigate some dangerous crimes, and now he's in charge of our Community Affairs. He has taken community affairs to another level. So just give us some of the things that you're doing.

Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, Community Affairs, Police Department: Good evening. How you doing? When I took over, okay, at the Community Affairs, I looked at the program, and I wondered, "Are we getting our whole community involved, the parents, the grandparents, the older, aging?" That's our community, and our youth, too. I saw we were playing a lot of basketball, and I said to myself, "We have to do more than just play basketball." I made it perfectly clear we could throw as many events as we want to, but what's the retention that we are going to have on our kids? I can throw an event for two hours and three hours. You walk away from the park. See you in six months.

Community Affairs is retention. It's about conversation, communication, and the relationship we have with our youth. We are opening up a center, 1932 Arthur Avenue, May 25th, STEM program, coding, photography. We just built a new gym there, too. Now, I know this is the boogie down Bronx. You probably want this in every precinct. But we're doing this in every borough. We have a drone program coming to the Bronx, too, that's going to be out of there, too. We have another program that we started in the Far Rockaway Giants that's some mentorship, along with DOE, where we go inside the schools, and we get troubled kids and we mentor them one-on-one. We started in Far Rockaway. It did great. We started in Harlem. Our next mission is come to the Bronx, and this program is going to be run by the New York Giants, which the New York Giants players do come out and do practices and talk to the kids, too. So that's in the future that that's going to come to the Bronx.

I have one idea. What works in one borough could work in every borough. So we're bringing that to the Bronx, and we're going to bring something to our kids, except for just basketball. Don't get me wrong. I like basketball. I like sports. But that can't be your all-in to what we do for our youth. There's a lot of programs. We even started another program. We did two schools in the Bronx, where we take these kids to SUNY and CUNY schools on bus trips to give them a tour of these colleges, because the only thing that's missing and holding them back is transportation and opportunity. So I look forward to being in the Bronx. I live in the Bronx, and I look forward to being in the Bronx and staying here for the next couple years. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Hold on. Hold on. Going into your English-speaking program.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Oh, yes. Yes.

Mayor Adams: Go into your baby showers.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Yes. So yeah, we are doing a lot here. So what happened? We have a baby shower that we do in the Bronx, too. We did it at the Y, I'm sure. I think it was something like 600 to 800 people that are registered, which is great. 1,000? Okay. Better than I expected. We also are starting in our Latino communities an ESL program that we started in the 44 and we started in the 46. It's eight weeks, and we did it on every Tuesday. The class started out with four. By the second week, the third week, we were up to 70 to 80 people. So like I said, if it's going good in one borough, we're going to go to another borough. We did the 33. We're in the 115 now, and we're going to come back around to the Bronx again.

Mayor Adams: So his baby showers is for young people who are having children that can't get some of the basic items, the diapers and all of those things that when you are a new mother, if you don't have the money, you have to go without. He has been doing these baby showers all over the city. Couple of hundred expected mothers come out and just giving them that starting. Anyone that's a mother here know those first few months are challenging, and he has been doing these amazing job as a baby shower.

When you look at what Deputy Commissioner Stewart is doing, we subscribe to the philosophy that if you want to fight crime, prevent crime. Build that relationship earlier. That's what he's doing. So it's not about just locking folks up. It is about lifting people up, and he's the right person to do it. He has transformed the community affairs unit. I'm so happy he's onboard with this. Thanks so much.

Commissioner Kreizman: Next table, Tiffany.

Question: Hi. My name is Milagros Ocasio. I work for Bronx Charter School for the Arts. I live in Hunts Point, and my question is what is the public safety plan for the Hunts Point area when facing the highest rates of overdose, violence, homelessness, and drug abuse in our neighborhood? Because I do work at a charter school, and we walk over this bridge all the time from the Bruckner to Garrison. When we release the kids to go to our afterschool programs, there are people there doing drugs, and the kids have to see the needles, the adults there. It's really scary. So I just would like to know what the plan is.

Mayor Adams: Borough Commander Riveras is here, the borough commander. But here's what keeps me up at night, those of us who are old enough to remember what heroin was like and how it devastated our community. Then we saw in the eighties what crack did to our community. Take heroin and crack, and you have fentanyl. Fentanyl has the potential of devastating our community, and we have to really do a combined effort. It is so deadly. The number of people who are dying from it, it is crossing all different groups. I was with the DEA, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency down in Washington. Down in the lobby, they have photos of people who died from fentanyl-related death, all different faces, all different ages, all different economic backgrounds, all different ethnicities of fentanyl and the number of overdose that's associated with it. It's a real problem.

So we have to educate, we have to have the proper law enforcement, and we have to really be conscious of what our young people are doing and adults around the issue of fentanyl. It's a real problem that we're having with drugs in our city. I know here in the Bronx, we have made a number of drug arrests. We continue to do so. This team up here is extremely aggressive about going after those who are selling drugs and participating in the drug trade. Chief, you want to give an overview of the crime? Just introduce yourself to those who don't know.

Philip Rivera, Assistant Chief and Commanding Officer, Patrol Borough Bronx, Police Department: Thank you. Yeah. So I'm Assistant Chief Philip Rivera, Commanding Officer of Patrol Borough Bronx. I oversee all 12 precincts in the Bronx, including the 41 precinct. I was also the precinct commander of the 41 in 2010 to 2014. So I'm very astute when it comes to the needs of this community. A broad overview of what the Bronx is doing, and then I'll turn it over to Anthony Mascia, Deputy Inspector Anthony Mascia, for a specific approach. We haven't stopped enforcing our initiatives against narcotics. So one of the things, especially when it comes to drug overdoses, that we do is we evaluate every single drug overdose for the ability to try to reverse re-engineer an investigative case. So if there's video that we can look at, if there's stamping on the paraphernalia that we can look at, we can try and trace it back to a seller and try to take that up to get at the root of the problem, the people that are bringing the fentanyl into our communities. We have had some tremendous success in the past with reverse engineering these cases and arresting these dealers who are bringing the fentanyl into this community.

Another issue that comes up is the proliferation of the smoke shops. And we just recently did an operation this past May 18th where eight locations we tested and eight of these locations, unfortunately were selling to minors. We don't want that issue to gain a foothold in our community, so we are aggressive with that. There's 37 locations so far this year that we've nuisance abated that they've lost their license to operate their business, that we've shut them down, and they have to pay severe civil penalties in order to reopen. So we are addressing at a multi angled approach, but I'll turn it over to Deputy Inspector Mascia for the specifics for that location.

Anthony Mascia, Deputy Inspector and Commanding Officer, 41 Precinct, Police Department: Hi, good evening. Thank you for the question and thank you for bringing that up. What we're going to work to do is, again, shift our school deployment a little bit and make sure that we're on that area at that bridge to make sure it's clear when these kids are getting out. But overall, I do want to touch on a couple of things the chief mentioned. Recently the department changed our model a little bit. We've increased the size of our narcotics units, and that's helping us do these investigations. And what we do, I do a weekly crime strategy meeting with these specialized units too, just like we have the meeting with the principals, and we discuss issues that are being brought to me by the community. Those issues I then bring to the specialty units within the department, and we'll bring up fentanyl overdoses, other overdoses, drug use in a specific area.

And I don't have the numbers with me right now, but we definitely have a couple search warrants that were executed on Faile, on Manida, where we were able to get a significant amount of narcotics where we're tracking that back from the initial overdoses that we got, the stuff that the chief is describing. Going over to the second issue that the chief brought up, which was the smoke shops, the weed shops, this precinct has been on top of it from day one. Initially we made seven arrests. We've issued multiple summons. We've been working with corp counsel to get nuisance abatement proceedings going. We have four locations that we submitted for closure. We have one that we successfully closed outside of those four, and I'm waiting for another two to be, like the chief said, where we're finding them selling to minors.

It's a little bit of a process where we have to get a couple of instances documented correctly, but it's something that we're working on because we see a lot of issues with it. When I see our youth hanging out in parks smoking weed, or getting the packets, these edibles, and they're at a state that they're using this stuff that they should not be touching. It's very troubling. I'll follow up with you after the meeting, make sure that we have the correct dismissal times, and we'll make sure everything's covered. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: And if you could also identify, particularly those safe corridors, if there are places where your young people are coming from programs at a certain time, we could have police there to essay to make sure they could have a safe corridor. So share that information. That's very important, because we want them to get too and from these afterschool programs and activities in a safe way. And we're combining with, I know we have DSNY that's here. We have a whole needle pickup program here to sort of get the needles off the street. But that over proliferation of needles on our street is a reflection of how the drug problem really has gotten out of control.

Previous administrations did not have that local street drug enforcement. We brought that back because it sent a message that people were able to sell whenever they want however they want, and we were not going to tolerate that. Same thing with those paper plates, illegal plates. Those plates were committing robberies, other crimes. We've really tracked down on that. Many of you in the Bronx were complaining about the ATVs, the dirt bikes, the loud noises running through your streets. We have zeroed in on that, and we found that many people who were riding those bikes were carrying guns, doing robberies and other illegal behaviors. So my attitude is clear. Just because we live somewhere don't mean we have to accept everything. That is not acceptable. The same standard of living I want at Gracie Mansion, I want to have up here on the Grand Concourse, we are going to have the same standard of living.

Commissioner Kreizman: Next question. Lamona, can you pass it to someone at your table?

Question: Good evening. My name is Shatoria. I am a mental health therapist and a substance abuse counselor, and I'm a proud member of the Bronx Community Board Number Two. Someone at this table's grandson is going to be left back because he's autistic. So our question is, how can the city and community based organizations collaborate to ensure children diagnosed with autism or other special needs considerations introduce early interventions to reduce misdiagnosis and provide suitable, equitable treatment?

Mayor Adams: We have Deputy Chancellor Kenita Lloyd here, and she's going to go into that. Every time I hear the numbers of the number of people who are Rikers Island who have learning disabilities, close to 40 percent are dyslexic. We look at the other learning disabilities and how we have really failed. I bet you, if you take the overwhelming number of young people who are participating in violence in this city, I bet you they have undiagnosed learning disabilities. And they sit in a classroom like I did, believing you're dumb, believing you can't learn, and you'd rather be out in the streets instead of being in the classroom where you're supposed to be. And so the chancellor just gets it. Chancellor Banks is committed on this issue. That's why we're doing dyslexia screening for all of our young people in school so that we can identify and give them the services that they need. But I know we are leaning even further into this issue. It's a very real issue for us, and Deputy Chancellor Kenita Lloyd, she'll go into some of the stuff we're doing.

Kenita Lloyd, Deputy Chancellor, Family and Community Engagement and External Affairs, Department of Education: Good evening, everyone. Thank you for the question. Well, first I want to say our superintendent for our District 75 schools, our superintendent for District 8 and District 12 are also here tonight. If you have very specific questions about students in those districts, they can help you, and I'm here to help you as well. We've been looking at our special education support services from top to bottom under Chancellor Banks. First, the mayor talked about how we've expanded dyslexia screenings, we have expanded accessibility to students with special needs in our early education programs, and are looking at ways to provide more services within the district. So I'm happy to reach out to you individually. Our superintendents are all here to talk to you as well about that specific student that you have concerns about. Thank you.

Commissioner Kreizman: Next question. Ido, can you pass the mic to someone at your table?

Mayor Adams: I just want to make sure you heard Kenita. This specific student, because you were talking about a specific student, please catch her before she leaves, before we leave. Okay?

Commissioner Kreizman: Lamona, if you could connect them after the meeting. Thank you.

Question: Hi. Oh, sorry. Good evening, everyone. My name is Amy Guzman. I'm a youth ambassador for the TAG Organization, which stands for Teaching a Generation and Teens Against Guns. As you mentioned earlier, Mary, you know what it's like to be a broken child and having that one person who has the encouraging words that made you who you are today. As you may know, many of the crime rates and heartbreaking events that are happening today involve the youth. How can you help shed light and bring awareness to organizations like ourselves to let the youth know that we do have a voice and that there is youth that are still passionate and are ready to be the leaders of tomorrow instead of us being shut out?

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you for that. And I like the fact you all stood together. Well, I don't know if Deanna, I know she's here, Deanna Logan, if you want to add to that. But also we're having these youth town halls, as I stated, with Commissioner Howard, and it's run by young people. They are really giving us some amazing ideas. Last week I remember young people said that they want to come in and speak with police officers as they go through the police academy to tell them how they want to be approached and interact. So it's important to us. I don't want to dictate to young people what they need. We want them to come and say, "Here are the programs we want." That's how we want to flow. We want you to sit down, be a part of the cohort of young people that we've been meeting with, and say, "Here's what we want our afterschool programs to look like. Here's what we want our block watchers to look like. Here's what we want the part of policing that we want to tell our police commissioner about."

I want my commissioner in the room, I want all of these commissioners to come in the room and hear directly from you because we got to hear from you on what you want. If we attempt to shape your programs, we're going to get it wrong. I know it's hard to believe, but I'm not a young person anymore. We are so energized about hearing from you, so I would love to meet with this group, get you guys and ladies to come down to City Hall or Gracie Mansion. We could hold an event at Gracie Mansion. We did three already with young people. But if you have a group that you want to bring together, we could hold an event at Gracie Mansion where you come inside, we have the team there, and you shape a program that you would like.

I need your help on coming with an anti-violence program for me, I need your help to talk about bullying for me, and I need your help to help me with social media. Social media is killing us. We just had a few young people who got arrested for this Kia car challenge. We have to push back on social media. We're having a meeting with social media experts with Dr. Vasan in a day or so. I would love for you to come down and participate in that meeting with social media and tell them what you expect of them. So we want you to craft the young people agenda.

Commissioner Kreizman: So Ito at the table will get contact information. We'll connect with DYCD DOHMH to coordinate that thing at Gracie Mansion.

Mayor Adams: You want to talk, Commissioner Howard?

Commissioner Howard: So the mayor was just so impressed with TAG. Yes, both the Reverend Cohen and his lovely wife. Not only were we so impressed by the students and the truth that you brought to the conversation, the Reverend will tell you that we decided to invest in TAG, in programs, and start you out with two schools in Harlem so that you can start clubs within those schools and just lend your voice into those programs. So I believe that's going to be starting in the next fiscal year, which is July.

Commissioner Kreizman: Excellent.

Mayor Adams: TAG should come down. The deputy ,ayor has given me the date of the social media… We're going to have the social media companies there. So once we get the date, I would love for you to come and participate. I would love for TAG to come and participate so they can hear directly from young people on the social responsibility of social media, what we're seeing in retaliatory shootings on TikTok, what we're seeing how YouTube is being exploited, some of these games that are being done, some of these challenges that are extremely dangerous. So it'll be great to have TAG in a room to talk directly to them. So we're going to get to date and please come down. And we would like to have a real party at Gracie Mansion, one of those parties where they will call the cops and tell us to turn down the music.

Commissioner Kreizman: Excellent. Next

Mayor Adams: June 8th is the event. DJ got your information. We'll make sure you get it, okay?

Commissioner Kreizman: Excellent. Next table, Kevin, can you give someone the mic at your table?

Question: How're you doing, everybody? Give yourselves a round of applause for being here because I think it's very important for our kids to see us at this capacity. I want to give a shout-out to Hoops By The River for winning a championship. Stand up. Stand up. These guys, we look at them as our own reflections because I too came up in this community, and I was able to grow and blossom because of centers, because of recreational centers, things of that matter. I'm currently a branch chief with the Department of Probation. My name is Corey Blackwell. 

My name is Marcia Hernandez. I'm also a branch chief with the New York City Department of Probation. Our kids expressed to us that the environment is unsafe. They feel like the gangs are taking over. They feel like there's no recreational centers that are open to them. So our question is, how can we create new centers or revitalize some of the existing centers to provide safe spaces for our youth?

Mayor Adams: One of the number one things that we were really on a pathway doing until we sort of had to deal with the budget but we want to give back focus to it. What's in a youth center? A youth center has basketball courts. A youth center would have an auditorium for performances. A youth center would have rooms where people can learn health, financial literacy, other skills. All of those items are in youth centers. You know where they are already? They're called school buildings. School buildings have gyms. School buildings have auditoriums. School buildings have classrooms. We tell our children, "7 a.m., come in. 2 p.m., get out and don't come back." No. Those school builders are resources for the community. What the chancellor wants to do, we want to do what I did when I was Brooklyn borough president, keeping the school buildings open for nonprofits and organizations. But the way we did it in Brooklyn, if you are nonprofit and you are saving our children, I should not be telling you you have to pay for the school safety agent, the insurance, you have to pay for the use of the space.

No, we should be paying for that. And so we were on the pathway of really kicking it off and we got sidetracked because of the budgetary restraints. But we are going to get back on it, and we are going to ask our corporations to sponsor schools and help pick up the tab. I don't want nonprofits paying for using space. I want them to pay with their sweat equity. But we have so many school buildings with all of those things. 

They have swimming pools inside. They have all the things we want, but we are telling our children they could only use it up to 2 p.m. No, that's not right. They should be able to use the school buildings and parents. We could be doing HVAC training inside our school buildings. We could be doing all sorts of things inside our school buildings. We just have to think differently about how we use our school building, and that's our goal.

Commissioner Kreizman: Excellent. Next table, Karen, can you pass the mic to someone at your table?

Question: My name is Rashaun Green. I'm a student from Cardinal Hayes High School, and I was born and raised in the Bronx. So as a kid since this grade, I've been riding the train home to school, et cetera. So as a table, we're advocating for mental health specialists in the train stations in the Bronx community instead of just NYPD.

Mayor Adams: Sorry, brother. Finish the last part. I didn't hear the last part. You said?

Question: We're advocating for mental health specialists in train stations in the Bronx community instead of just NYPD.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. What we have done, and I know we have… Who do I have from Department of Health? Okay, I'm going to have Eva. Eva is here? Okay. And Eva is going to go over what our plan is. And people wanted to give the impression of what our plan, and it was articulated as though our plan is not being led by mental health professionals, and it is. It is not being led by police. It's being led by mental health professionals. And the reason I know it's being led by mental health professionals, because I'm in the subway system. I spend many days in the subway system talking to people who are dealing with mental health illnesses and joining folks to try to get them in proper care. That is what we need.

And there's a combination of things we need. We need more mental health beds, particularly for those who are dealing with severe mental health illnesses. Our push was to get those who are dealing with severe mental health illnesses, can't take care of themselves and dangers to themselves, can't take care of their basic needs, to give them what is called involuntary removal for a doctor for proper diagnosis. We have to be honest about… There's a population out there, as small as it is, that they can't take care of their basic needs, and they're a danger to themselves. I saw it when I was out visiting people in the encampments and visiting people on the subway system in the first two months of the administration. We must be honest about that and give people the services that they need. And it's being led by mental health professionals. So Eva, you want to go into what you guys are doing over at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene?

Eva Wong, Director, Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health: Yes, I can speak to some of that. And also, I'm the leader of the Mayor's office community mental health. And I am a clinician who came from nonprofit world and just really from community. So I think that alone, the fact that mayor appointed me to lead the Community Mental Health office, is showing his commitment to make sure that we have someone who really is reaching out and care about the perspective of the community. And what you were touching on with subway and safety is something that Mr. Mayor also mentioned. When we across agency come together weekly, that's one of the 8:30 calls that we're in every week so that we can talk about what is happening on the subway, about those who are suffering and also in general, New Yorkers who come into transit and wanting to feel safe. And we have to balance the both where there is perception sometimes, mental illness is a safety issue and we think about it as a health issue, so we're wanting to make sure those who are suffering are cared for and connected, and also those who are riding have what they need as well. So there are a lot of conversations we're always having and including efforts that are making sure those who are safe patrolling and really, we have teams on a subway and we're all communicating.

And one of the programs that the mayor has committed to expanding city wide is the B-HEARD program where it's not specifically on the subway but when 911 calls come in where there's individuals suffering with mental illness issues, we have mental health counselors along with EMS who go out and respond to these calls. And I know that B-HEARD is covering this district, this precinct, this area as well, all of South Bronx. So treating what we see in terms of making sure the right people are in conversation leading efforts, as I think that's a huge commitment that mayor has made and we're there to support.

I want to see if my colleague [inaudible] has anything else to add to that, because we can talk all night. I just know that many of you are eager to ask your questions, so any other follow-up questions, specific things you want to think about, please do reach out, and shout out to you for being a leader for your neighborhood.

Mayor Adams: And at the key, brother, your question was around, and that's what she answered, our mental health initiative is led by mental health professionals. It is not led by police. Now, are there times that you need police like what happened in South Jamaica, Queens? A person went out and accosted someone. The guy pulled out a knife and stabbed the individual in the chest. Police need to be there because I don't want to put civilians in harm's way, but our mental health initiative is led by mental health professionals.

Commissioner Holmes: Mayor, can I chime in a little bit, just on that? So I just wanted to chime in for two minutes because I was chief of training when we created the training for NYPD response, and I called it involuntary voluntary transport. People think removal but it's really not. So NYPD, when they respond naturally, we're 24/7. A lot of clinicians aren't. B-HEARD isn't, so nine times out of 10, if we get a call to the location, we are communicating with a clinician. So some of you may not know that but there's a 1-800 number, a toll free number that we have to call the clinician, tell them what we are met with, and that's only if they're not removed voluntarily. Naturally, we approach with empathy and tell them, "Listen, let's get you to a doctor. You need treatment," and hopefully, they're in compliance, but if not, we are communicating with a clinician to make that decision, if that makes it a little clearer.

Commissioner Kreizman: The next question we have, Anastasia's table.

Question: Hello, good evening. My name is Carmen Vázquez. I'm a community organizer with WE STAY/Nos Quedamos. You guys actually answered our first question which was around economic investment into our youth, so our second question is what's the city's economic and legislative commitment to ensuring our community's resiliency and emergency preparedness plan before, during, and after a time of crisis?

Mayor Adams: I'm sorry. So when you're talking about crisis, you're talking about like a natural disaster? That's what you're talking about?

Question: Yes.

Mayor Adams: Okay, thank you. Commissioner Farrell, Deputy Commissioner Farrell. Here you are. We can share a mic.

Christina Farrell, First Deputy Commissioner, New York City Emergency Management: Thank you. Hi. So New York City Emergency Management works with all communities to prepare, and all agencies here. As people may or may not know, hurricane season is starting in a couple of weeks, June 1st, so we are getting ready preparing for that. Coastal storm shelters, this is an area that's in a coastal storm evacuation zone. We work with schools to prepare students so they can go home and help to prepare their parents, and again, we're small, we're 270 employees but we have a big volunteer program and we have worked with all agencies to be prepared.

Mayor Adams: And every community has a CERT, C-E-R-T. We really encourage all of you to be part of the cert, and during the Riis Houses, I met a group down there that's Lower East Side Ready I think it's called, and we want to duplicate that all over the city. So we would like to speak with you and your organization to really get a body of community residents that are on the ground. They know their community well. They know what family members are living alone with our elders. They know the intricacies of a community. Lower East Side Ready was a very powerful organization and I think it should be duplicated all over the city. And out in Queens, I was with a group that was giving our food to those who were in need and it is called Queens United. Those on the ground organizations mean a lot. We want to utilize our agencies to assist the on the ground organizations and so we would love to partner with you and come up with a ready preparedness plan using OEM and our other agencies and entities to accomplish it.

Commissioner Kreizman: And NYCEM has been so important, and specifically for Hunts Point Cooperative Market and Hunts Point Wastewater Treatment Plant and assisting them as well. So we want to just kick it now to Malcolm's table.

Question: Oh, thank you. First, I'd like to say thank you Mayor Adams for being here, and the Hunts Point community, because it is very rare that this area, which is a poor area, get this, and it let us know that you do care about the Hunts Point and we're not left alone. My first question I like to state is that I'm looking at this map and I see that they're going to be building a Metro North station here, and I was wondering, can the opportunity of some of the money be funded in the community to help their young people and the adults to get a job and be able to be trained, be educated and get licensed to help them get a job that's going to be coming up soon?

Because when this Metro North comes in, a lot of opportunity is going to be coming in. And you're seeing a lot of things about the youth, yes. But what about the people who… I don't know how far y'all take youth, from 18 to 21 to 24, but what about the young men here who can get these training like OSHA or any kind of license to help them be prepared that when this organization starts, they get a job, and not only work in the community, they could stay in the community and work. So will some of that money be able to go to these programs in Hunts Point for the youth and the adults, and the organizations?

Mayor Adams: Yes. Well, there is a very important piece of legislation that is making its way through Albany right now that we really need help in getting it done. It's called Local Hiring. These projects should be hiring locally and we are asking folks to reach out to their state lawmakers and say you want them to support the Local Hiring bill because it answers what you are saying. We can't continue to watch buildings go up and the future of our residents go down. We need support in getting this bill. This bill would be a game changer. But even in absence of that bill, we want to advocate for people in the community to get the jobs that are available.

Now, we are doing something else. Some of you may have seen me at the train station handing out the flyers. We're doing hiring halls all over the city where we go out. Dawn Pinnock, who's the commissioner of DCAS. we have teamed up, we've done I think 11 hiring halls thus far. We have almost 12,000 jobs in the city, 12,000 jobs. We want people to apply for these jobs. You know what you want in your community. You know what you expected from your community. You will make great city employees. Good pensions, good salary, healthcare, benefits, 12,000 jobs we are ready to hire people for.

We hired over 1,000 jobs on the hiring halls that we've had. The last one was on Chambers Street at the surrogate courthouse. I think we had around about 8, 900 people there, but these are jobs that are available and I really want to encourage you or someone you know that's looking for a job to come and be a part of the hiring hall, and we are rolling out a new website with an app so that you can see jobs that are available throughout the city. So not only the Hunts Point train station that we want to hire people locally, but there's some amazing jobs throughout this entire city. People are looking for workers right now and we want to connect those who are looking for work with the work that's available.

Commissioner Kreizman: So next table, Socrani, could you give the mic to someone?

Question: Good evening, everyone. My name is Yelena Vassilyeva. I'm assistant principal of P186X. It's the school in the Bronx, District 75. My question is… I sort of got an answer on a question because Mayor said that we have the buildings in our schools. We have community organizations which are represented over here and seated by our tables and having this two-way communication helps us a lot, and my question originally was how can we get more Boys and Girls Clubs in specific geographic locations based on violence and gang activity in an effort to give children off the streets? If we all communicate, as mayor said, to a communication, that would be excellent and we can connect and build it together, but now, it's only here.

Mayor Adams: Commissioner Howard, do you want to go into that?

Commissioner Howard: So that's a great question. So we also have Saturday Night Lights, which is a collaboration between DYCD, Parks department and NYPD. So what we do with Saturday Night Lights is we focus on specific areas where we see a high level of violence, especially for young people. So we open up those community centers, we open up the schools to make sure that we're running programs in those areas so that we can keep young people safe. Now, we offer all assortment of different programs, from art programs to enrichment programs to even sports programs as well, anything that can catch the young person to make sure that they have an opportunity to go to the programs and stay safe.

But the bulk of our programming are in our beacon programs, which are after school programs and our compass programs, and based upon the mayor's instruction and in investment, we have those programs from Monday to Saturday and in some cases Sunday, and we offer extended hours. So if you need to know exactly where those programs are, I have a whole list of them in front of me and you and I can meet afterwards and I can tell you exactly what the level of investment we are in this community district, and I can honestly tell you, it's significant. It's just that we need to do a better job in making sure that you know exactly where these programs are.

Commissioner Kreizman: Excellent. One more table. We have Alex. Perfect.

Question: Good evening. My name is Marla Torres. Eric, you talked about helping youth who are exiting out of foster care with funding for college. However, you nor anyone up there answer the question about how they will afford housing. So piggybacking on that question, how are we defining affordable housing? Because the salary requirements are not matching with what many of us can afford when it comes to paying rent.

Mayor Adams: Throughout my entire time in office, that question gets the loudest applause everywhere I go, and the question is always affordable for who? That's another question I hear a lot. Affordable for the diverse people in the city. We need low income housing. I need housing for my teachers because if they can't afford to be here, then they're thrown out of the city. I need housing for my fast food workers because if husband and wife are working full-time, because we were successful in raising the minimum wage that many of our fast food workers that husband and wives are working, they cannot stay in the city because the amount is so low that they don't qualify for the subsidies. So we need to partner with our city councilmen, with our speaker, with our office to find the right balance, because you can't just have extremely low that you're going to lose that teacher and that accountant. You're going to lose that fast food worker and his spouse.

So it's about finding the right dollar amount that's going to have a proportion of money for low, low income, the person who's making only minimum wage, and you're going to need it for those who as one person stated, we want our middle income New Yorkers to stay in the community. My son went away to college. He gets a job, I want him to be able to come back into the community so that he can help stabilize and contribute to the community. So we don't just say let's build market rate. When we change the zoning, we make sure that they have to build a level of affordable units so that they can go across section, that everyone can stay in the communities. Your son or daughter goes off to college, we don't want to tell them they can't come back and we have to maintain a level of affordability.

Now, some of them, we have control of. Some of the units of housing, we don't have control of it. They're private housing. The government cannot dictate what a private parcel of land is going to charge their rent. They can charge whatever the market could bear, but when we rezone like we're trying to do now in Albany, it's important for us to get the right to incentivize development so we can get those housing stocks that you want. We have a volume problem. We don't have enough units of housing and we are trying to build 500,000 more units of housing, but we need help with Albany. Albany has to give us the permission to do the things we want to do, and I don't want to give all the technical terms of FAR, increasing FAR, 421-a. There's a lot of technical terms, but we need to incentivize building more units of housing, and then we need to do what no one else has done. We need to invest in NYCHA.

This administration got the NYCHA Land Trust passed. So many people tried and they were unsuccessful. This administration has made sure that we were able to get the ERAP passed. Those who fell behind in their rent, we were able to get that passed in Albany with our partners up there. So when it comes down to housing, we have to build more, we have to increase the stock, and we have to make sure we go after low income and middle income because I don't want to lose my middle income civil service workers. We just gave DC 37 one of the best contracts they can get. I don't want it to be that now, they're not eligible to stay in the communities that they built. We lost 200,000 Black folks in this city because of the affordability issue, that we have to make sure that we keep people in the city and that's my commitment, that's my dedication.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you very much. Will I ask everyone in the mayor's office at each table to collect all the intake cards to ensure that we are going to get back to you in a timely manner? We want to thank everyone for participating in this community conversation with Eric and we'll continue this throughout the city. There's one more table? Okay. One more question here. One more question. Sorry.

Question: Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Adams and everyone. My question is, first of all, my name is Grier Smith and I live in the Abraham Lincoln Houses, which is considered the projects, and the homeless has taken over the buildings, especially the one that I live in. They are defecating in the halls. They are urinating in the halls. They are tampering with the mailboxes. They are stealing Amazon packages and running out the building. I see them with my own eyes. I can't do nothing about that. I can't run behind them. That's what the police will take care of. They are sleeping on the steps and they take mattresses out of the street, bring them into the buildings and sleep on the steps. They are threatening the workers, the caretakers who take care of the buildings, and when the caretakers tell them to please leave. And it's just too much, too much to keep bearing.

Mayor Adams: Listen, you should have to go through that. Richie Taylor is next to you. Give him your contact. I'm going to call you and I'm going to come by and walk through the building with you, okay?

Question: Yes. Thank you.

Commissioner Kreizman: Okay. Thank you.

Original source can be found here.