New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Members of the Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus Highlight Legislative Efforts That Support Black Communities, All New Yorkers

 

New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and members of the Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus (BLAC) held a press conference to celebrate legislation passed during the 2022-2023 session that support Black New Yorkers and other communities of color. The bills, which focus on housing, public health, equitable opportunity, and public safety, have helped expand community-based mental health programs, remove barriers to city housing vouchers, require greater police transparency to increase trust towards improving public safety, banned the use of solitary confinement, established a program to provide doula services and other efforts that confront maternal health disparities, and more.

“Our historic representation as a majority-women and most diverse Council has empowered us to prioritize the people who make up the backbone of our city and sit at the intersection of multiple marginalized communities,” said Speaker Adrienne Adams. “By centering Black communities and other communities of color, we’ve been able to confront the longstanding inequities facing all New Yorkers, and especially as it relates to affordable housing, public health, public safety, and educational and economic opportunities. We have pursued holistic solutions to promote healthier and safer communities, including an all-of-the-above approach to public safety that recognizes police transparency and accountability are key to community trust. The well-being of all New Yorkers depends on the implementation of these laws, and the Council remains committed to ending the discriminatory practices that harm Black and other communities of color.”

Improving Public and Mental Health:

•   Passed 11-bill legislative package to address persistent disparities in maternal and birthing health that disproportionately impacts the health and safety of Black and Latina women and birthing people (2022).
•   Passed a bill to confront the historic racial disparities in treatment of sickle cell disease that primarily affects people of African descent and other health equity issues (2023).
•   Enacted legislation to increase access to blood pressure machines by requiring DOHMH to post on its website where blood pressure machines in NYC are located, make at-home blood pressure machines available at no cost to the public at federally qualified health centers in 5 high-need areas (2023).
•   Released the Mental Health Roadmap, first in May, to address existing challenges in the City’s mental healthcare landscape and strengthen the infrastructure and investments in evidence-based solutions to improve mental health outcomes for New Yorkers (2023).
•   Passed several bills to address pollution and improve clean air, with a focus on Environmental Justice communities.
  •   Passed legislation to expedite the phase out of oil grade No. 4, the most harmful heating oil still used in city buildings, to create cleaner air and reduce negative health outcomes that are especially felt in environmental justice communities (2023).
  •   Enacted legislation to require the city’s first redesign of its truck route network in over four decades, with the goals of improving safety and health outcomes, increasing visibility, and reducing traffic congestion (2023).
•   Passed legislative package that expand education on and access to menstrual products in city facilities and change terminology to be gender inclusive with the goal of making the city safer, healthier, and more just for every New Yorker who menstruates (2023).

Addressing the Housing and Homelessness Crisis:

•    Passed Speaker Adams’ Fair Housing Framework Legislation, establishing targeted housing production goals for each Community District to help hold every neighborhood accountable for their role in equitably addressing the city’s housing crisis, with a focus on affordable housing.
•   Passed legislation to create the Office of the Homeowner Advocate within the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) to support homeowners through City services, resources, and information (2023).
•  Passed historic legislation to confront child, family, and youth homelessness by removing barriers to rental assistance programs:
  •   Passed CityFHEPS bill package that removes barriers to the rental assistance program that helps move people out of the shelter system more expeditiously and prevent evictions to keep people in their homes during eviction and homelessness crises (2023).
  •   Passed legislation requiring the Department of Homeless Services to report on families with children living in shelters, providing data on types of shelter, average length of stay, number of families exiting shelter for permanent housing, and metrics on school enrollment and attendance (2023).
  •   Passed legislation to require the Department of Homeless Services and Department of Youth and Community Development to report on the number of LGBTQIA+ and runaway homeless youth who receive city services, and the number of shelter beds reserved for them (2023).
  •   Passed legislation to require drop-in centers to participate in the intake process for runaway and homeless youth to transition into adult shelters (2023).
•   Passed legislation to promote housing stability for older adults and increase transparency on encampment sweeps
  •   Passed legislation to provide fulllegal representation in eviction proceedings in housing court for people 60 years or older, and establish a housing support program for older adults 60 years or older at risk of eviction or foreclosure (2023).
  •   Passed legislation to require reporting on removals of people experiencing homelessness from a public space and the outcomes of those removals (2023).

Advancing Public Safety for New Yorkers:

•   Passed the “Support Survivors” package during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, two pieces of legislation requiring city agencies to establish a housing stability grant assistance program for crime survivors and create an online portal and resource guide for survivors (2022).
•   Created a new Speaker’s Initiative of $5.1 million in Council funding – Community Safety and Crime Victims Services Initiative – to provide each Council district with $100,000 to expand crime victim services and community safety programs (Began in 2022).
•    Established New York State’s first four Trauma Recovery Centers in New York City to support underserved victims of crime and stop cycles of crime in neighborhoods experiencing high rates of violence (Began in 2022).
•    Passed seven police transparency laws, including the How Many Stops Act, that provide more complete data, facilitate increased community trust, and enhance accountability to improve public safety (2023).
•   Passed the Fair Chance for Housing Act, which prohibits housing discrimination on the basis of criminal history in New York City (2023).
•   Enacted transparency measures for homeless encampment sweeps and mandated reporting on services offered to individuals forcibly removed from encampments (2023).
•    Approved several pieces of legislation addressinggun violence, examining the flow of illegal firearms, requiring City training, evaluations, and operational support for violence prevention programs in the Crisis Management System, and evaluation of criminal justice programs (2022).
•    Passed legislation that would ban solitary confinement in city jails and require that all people in city custody have at least 14 hours of out-of-cell time in shared space (2023).
•   Approved several bills with the goal of safely reducing the population of individuals detained on Rikers Island, ensuring people make it to court so lengths of stay aren’t inflated, protecting TGNCNBI detainees, and increasing transparency and access to programming (2023).

Expanding Equitable Opportunities:

•    Passed legislation to expand access to Civil Service careers by establishing a Civil Service Ambassador Program, codifying the Public Service Corps, andcreating pipelines to the civil service for marginalized communities and populations, including for justice-involved New Yorkers (2022 and 2023).
•    Passed Pay Equity Package to address pay disparities across the municipal workforce by providing key data and analysis on inequity among City employees and enact practices that confront occupational segregation and promote workforce diversity (2023).
•   Passed a 5-bill package to increase thediversity of FDNY’s firefighters through recruitment and retention policies that support women and people of color being firefighters – the strongest effort to date by the City to address historic discrimination and lack of diversity in the FDNY (2022).
•   Passed legislation requiring SBS to provide information on Community Development Financial Institutions, which can provide M/WBEs with access to capital (2023).
•   Passed Industrial Development Strategic Plan Law to require creation of a citywide plan for investing in the industrial sector to cultivate its growth for our city to achieve its green energy goals and expand equitable economic opportunities for New Yorkers. People of color make up 80 percent of the industrial workforce (2023).
•    Passed legislation to provide information onreduced fare programs to people issues a summons for fare evasion (2023).
•   Passed legislation to requireanti-racism and discrimination trainings for employees, independent contractors, and human service workers (2023).
•   Expanded education and youth support through legislation and budget investments.
  •   Passed legislation to help diversify employment options for Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) participants by increasing collaboration with government agencies, community-based organizations, and private businesses (2023).
  •   Passed legislation to help high school students access IDNYC municipal identifications, providing them with information on the program, enrollment, and application form (2023).
  •    Passed legislation to post information on the Department of Education (DOE) website informing people on how to establish after-school programs (2023).
  •    Passed legislation to expand data captured by Department of Education (DOE) reports to include special education services, students in foster care and temporary housing (2023).
  •   Passed legislation to include financial empowerment components in the Department of Youth and Community Development’s youth and runaway and homeless youth programs (2023).
•  Passed four bills related to citywide swim access and safety, following through on a proposal outlined in the Speaker’s most recent State of the City address. The bills established water safety instruction to New York City’s public school children at no cost and mandated a DOHMH report on drowning deaths in the city, among other things. (2023).