Speech Outlines Multi-Year Initiatives to Tackle Street Homelessness,
Keep Young People Safe, Build More Housing and Family-Friendly Neighborhoods Through New “City of Yes for Families” Plan, Teach Students How to Save and Spend Money,
Expand Access to Playgrounds, and Save Working-Class Families Millions of Dollars
Advances Mayor Adams’ Vision for Safer, More Affordable New York City for Families
Follows Landmark Year of Safer Streets and Subways;
Record Amounts of Jobs, Small Businesses, Housing Construction;
Passage of Most Pro-Housing Zoning Proposal in City History; and
Expansion of Early Childhood Education System
New York City Mayor Eric Adams today outlined a bold vision to make New York City the best place to raise a family in his fourth State of the City address, delivered at The Apollo Theater in Harlem, Manhattan. After driving crime down, passing historic housing legislation, and helping New Yorkers save billions of dollars through tax relief, child care, free internet, and more in 2024, Mayor Adams used today’s address to unveil new initiatives that will create a safer, more affordable city for working-class people, especially those raising a family, all across the five boroughs.
“In the past year alone, our administration passed historic housing legislation, shattered the record for the most jobs in city history, drove major crimes down, and did so much more to build a family-friendly city. As a result of all these efforts, the state of our city is strong,” said Mayor Adams. “But there is no denying that many New Yorkers — especially our families — are still anxious about the future. We have to make sure that the greatest city in the world is also the greatest place to raise a family. From keeping young people safe to tackling street homelessness, from building more family-friendly neighborhoods to saving New Yorkers millions of dollars, the initiatives we laid out today will make New York City the safest place to raise a family, the most affordable place to raise a family, and the best place to raise a family. My mother never stopped fighting to provide her family with a better life, and that is why I will never stop fighting to do the same for you.”
Keeping New York the Safest Big City in America to Raise a Family
Under Mayor Adams’ leadership, America’s safest big city has gotten even safer. Overall crime continued to fall in 2024, including a 7.3 percent drop in shootings, a 3.6 percent drop in homicides, and a 5.4 percent drop in transit crime. Since coming into office, the Adams administration has seized nearly 20,000 illegal guns and over 80,000 ghost cars and illegal motorized vehicles, like ATVs and mopeds. The administration has also successfully cracked down on illegal smoke shops, shutting down more than 1,300 illegal shops this past year; tackled car theft, helping deliver 12 straight months of declines in 2024; and reduced dangerous lithium-ion battery fires, implementing strategies that led to a 72 percent decrease in lithium-ion battery fire deaths since introduction of a new plan in 2023. The administration has remained focused on keeping families safe and improving New Yorkers’ quality of life.
Additionally, the Adams administration has made smart, upstream investments to prevent crime in the first place, launching a $485 million blueprint to keep communities safe from gun violence that invests in mentorship, mental health, and job training for young at-risk New Yorkers. In 2025, the Adams administration will build on that work and pursue new investments that engage young people. Following an expansion of the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development’s (DYCD) Saturday Night Lights program that gives families a safe place to send their children and teenagers, the Adams administration will open a $9 million transformation of the 133,000 square-foot Brigadier General Charles Young Field in Harlem. The investments will replace dirt and grass with a synthetic turf field, as well as add new dugouts, backstops, fencing, and lighting for use year-round. In addition to renovating the existing baseball, softball, and football fields, the new field will also accommodate lacrosse and soccer. The field will welcome hundreds of young people at expanded hours and host programming by Saturday Night Lights, the Harlem Children’s Zone, Youth on the Move, and more.
Moreover, Mayor Adams announced that New York City will invest $163 million over five fiscal years to expand five of its most successful programs — Fair Futures, College Choice, Career Choice, GirlsJustUs, and Assertive Community Engagement & Success — that engage at-risk youth and other young people; reach a total of 8,000 participants; and help connect more New York City youth with counseling, careers, college opportunities, and more.
Subways, Serious Mental Illness, Shelters: A New Commitment to Addressing Street Homelessness
From day one, the Adams administration has pursued a bold, new approach to getting New Yorkers living on city streets and subways the help, health care, and housing they deserve. Since the launch of Mayor Adams’ Subway Safety Plan in 2022, the administration has moved over 8,000 New Yorkers from the subways into shelter while, in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, the New York City Department of Social Services (DSS) helped a record 18,500 households transition from shelters into stable homes. The Adams administration has also doubled the number of outreach staff working with unhoused New Yorkers, recently launched a new Partnership Assistance for Transit Homelessness initiative, and expanded its Subway Co-Response Outreach Teams with New York state to connect more New Yorkers to care.
Mayor Adams announced today that New York City will invest $650 million to bolster that work and expand support for New Yorkers living on subways, wrestling with serious mental illness, and at risk of entering city shelters.
To help move more New Yorkers off subways, as well as city streets, and into shelters, the Adams administration will add 900 new Safe Haven beds that offer a more flexible, personalized option for New Yorkers experiencing unsheltered homelessness and have proven a highly-effective tool for moving New Yorkers from homelessness into permanent housing. To help break the cycle of homelessness and hospitalization, the Adams administration will open an innovative facility specifically to support unsheltered New Yorkers with serious mental illness, offer psychiatric care and substance use treatment, and help secure permanent housing. Finally, Mayor Adams today set a new goal: No child should ever be born into New York City’s shelter system. To make this goal a reality, the Adams administration will launch a pilot program to connect soon-to-be parents applying for shelter with services that help them find permanent housing and prevent homelessness before their child is born, moving new families into stable homes more quickly and preventing lifelong cycles of poverty and housing instability before they begin.
These new investments — which will take place over several fiscal years — will help New York City tackle street homelessness by supporting New Yorkers living on subways, helping connect individuals with serious mental illness to care, and keeping families out of city shelters.
Additionally, Mayor Adams today reiterated his calls for Albany to pass the Supportive Interventions Act in an effort to give those experiencing severe mental illness the care they deserve and provide assistance to those who can no longer care for themselves, potentially posing a danger to themselves or others.
Helping More Families Find Homes in the Five Boroughs by Turning New York Into a “City of Yes for Families”
Since 2022, the Adams administration has made historic progress creating new affordable housing, connecting New Yorkers to affordable housing, and keeping New Yorkers in the homes they already have. The Adams administration has shattered affordable housing records two fiscal years in a row; financed the construction and preservation of over 79,300 housing units since 2022; and connected a record number of New Yorkers to affordable housing through City Fighting Homelessness and Eviction Prevention Supplement and the city’s housing lottery.
Additionally, to bring long-overdue change to New York City’s zoning code and build a little more housing in every neighborhood, the Adams administration introduced and passed “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” the most pro-housing zoning proposal in city history. This historic legislation will create up to 80,000 new homes and invest $5 billion in housing and infrastructure over the next 15 years. Coupled with significant new housing production tools secured in Albany in 2024, the administration has focused on building more housing to address the decades-long crisis. To further tackle the city’s historically low housing stock, this year, Mayor Adams announced New York City’s first-ever Charter Revision Commission focused specifically on solving the city’s generational housing crisis and tasked the commission with examining the City Charter to determine how to create and preserve more affordable housing.
Despite these landmark achievements, too many families still struggle to make rent or purchase a home in New York City. Mayor Adams today unveiled “City of Yes for Families,” a multi-pronged approach to housing, zoning, and public space that will create more family-friendly neighborhoods and build new housing. Under City of Yes for Families, the Adams administration will work within agencies to build more family-sized housing units and multi-generational homes, as well as work with its partners in the New York City Council to introduce new tools to build more housing alongside schools, playgrounds, grocery stores, accessible transit stations, and libraries.
As part of City of Yes for Families, the Adams administration and the New York Public Library will move forward with the largest co-located library project in New York City history, bringing over 800 units of mixed-income housing and a new facility to the Bloomingdale Library location in Manhattan Valley. City of Yes for Families will also include new tools to support homeownership, help families make a downpayment on a home, add an additional dwelling unit to their property, and count rental payments towards credit history.
At last year’s State of the City, Mayor Adams launched “24 in 24,” an ambitious initiative to advance 24 housing projects on public sites in 2024 that will build 12,000 housing units. Last year, Mayor Adams surpassed his goal and advanced 26 housing projects on public sites. This past summer, Mayor Adams also issued executive order 43, requiring city agencies to review city-owned and controlled land for potential housing development. In 2025, the Adams administration will continue that work and advance the first sites for development, including 100 Gold Street, where over 2,000 new homes will be created just steps away from City Hall. The Adams administration will also advance housing projects at 395 Flatbush in Downtown Brooklyn, on the waterfront at Coney Island West, and in St. George on Staten Island. Collectively, these housing projects and others are expected to produce over 8,700 units, with additional public sites to be announced later this year.
In 2024, the Adams administration not only passed its Bronx Metro-North plan, but also advanced four other additional neighborhood-specific plans to create 50,000 housing units over the next 15 years. Mayor Adams today announced that his administration will unveil additional neighborhood plans throughout 2025 and — as part of City of Yes for Families — launched “The Manhattan Plan,” an initiative to review zoning across the whole of Manhattan, unlock potential housing sites for development from Inwood to the Financial District, and add 100,000 new homes to the borough, bringing Manhattan to a total of 1 million homes over the next decade. The Manhattan Plan will include the Adams administration’s Midtown South Mixed-Use Plan, public sites, and more.
Finally, Mayor Adams announced today that the New York City Department of Veterans’ Services (DVS) has begun collaboration with DSS to enhance housing support and resources available to veterans. DVS and DSS will work together to streamline the use of data systems and improve the overall experience for veterans across the city. This partnership will help veterans and their families receive seamless assistance and create a stronger safety net for those who have served the nation.
By implementing new rules within city government that encourage more family-sized units and multi-generational homes, working with the City Council to create new tools that build more family-friendly neighborhoods and foster homeownership, creating more housing across New York City, and more, Mayor Adams’ City of Yes for Families initiative will help more families find and afford a home in the five boroughs.
Putting Money Back Into Families’ Pockets
From day one, the Adams administration has focused on creating a more affordable city for working-class families, saving New Yorkers more than $30 billion through city, state, and federal programs as part of its “Money in Your Pocket” work. After successfully expanding the “New York City Earned Income Tax Credit” and returning more than $345 million to over 1.7 million New Yorkers in tax season 2023, Mayor Adams is now calling on Albany to pass his “Axe the Tax for the Working Class” proposal that will eliminate or cut city income taxes for working-class families and put $63 million back into the pockets of over 582,000 New Yorkers.
The Adams administration has already helped more than 25,000 New Yorkers reduce their debt by over $37 million through the city’s financial support services, but too many families and young New Yorkers still struggle with student loan debt. To help even more New Yorkers, Mayor Adams today announced that the city will partner with a leading private-sector firm to enroll public servants in the federal government’s Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program and help wipe out nearly $360 million in student loan debt for 100,000 city employees and their families. As part of the initiative, public servants will be able to extend invitations to family members who independently qualify for PSLF to use the service as well and help get their student loan debt forgiven too.
In 2022, the Adams administration launched Big Apple Connect to bring free internet and cable to 150,000 households across 220 NYCHA facilities, save working-class families hundreds of dollars, and close New York City’s digital divide. To build on that work and help connect more families to jobs, housing, and health care, the Adams administration will partner with the New York Public Library and launch “Neighborhood Internet,” an innovative program to bring free internet to over 2,000 Section 8 households and other low-income homes in the Bronx and Upper Manhattan starting in 2025.
Additionally, to make child care more affordable for working-class families, the Adams administration lowered the cost of child care for a family of four earning $55,000 from $55 per week in 2022 to just $5 per week today, increased the number of children enrolled with a low-income voucher from fewer than 8,000 in 2022 to over 50,000 in 2024, and saved New Yorkers more than $1.9 billion through child care vouchers since the start of the administration. Finally, in 2024, for the first time in New York City history, every family who applied for a 3-K seat on time received an offer, while the Adams administration enrolled over 150,000 children across the entire early childhood education system. In partnership with the New York City Council, Mayor Adams also launched a $100 million, 10-point plan to address systemic issues, boost enrollment, and connect families with more pre-K and 3-K seats.
Delivering a First-Rate Education for New York City’s Students
As a proud graduate of New York City’s public schools, Mayor Adams has committed to making sure every single student gets the first-rate education they deserve. In 2024, Mayor Adams expanded his signature ‘NYC Reads’ initiative to every K-5 school in the five boroughs and New York City’s early childhood education program, as well as launched both ‘NYC Solves’ to overhaul how students learn mathematics and a new Division of Inclusive and Accessible Learning in New York City Public Schools.
The Adams administration also opened up 24 new school buildings and added over 11,000 new seats in 2024 — the most new seats added by the New York City School Construction Authority since 2003 — and, again, secured an extension of mayoral accountability in Albany for another two years. Additionally, the Adams administration has connected New Yorkers to over 15,000 apprenticeships since 2022 and launched FutureReadyNYC to give thousands of students work experience in 21st-century industries like decarbonization and finance. Today, Mayor Adams announced that Memorial Sloan Kettering will join FutureReadyNYC as an anchor partner and offer hundreds of New York City Public Schools students work-based experience in health care every year.
To lay the foundation for a lifetime of healthy financial and consumer practices, Mayor Adams today set a critical new goal: New York City will ensure that every public school student can learn how to save and spend money by 2030. The Adams administration will deploy financial educators in every single school district to provide counseling, lead workshops, and help develop curricula; open 15 innovative bank branch pilots in underserved schools to give students real-world exposure to safe banking; and build a bold new initiative to incentivize financial education and give students hands-on experience learning about saving and investing. Mayor Adams called on financial institutions — from banks to credit unions to philanthropic organizations — to join the city in this cause and ensure the financial success for New York City youth for the decades to come.
Outside of the classroom, the Adams administration has continued to keep families safe at city pools and beaches, hiring 930 lifeguards last year alone and announcing a historic $1 billion investment in city pools. To lay the foundation for a lifetime of water safety, New York City Public Schools and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation currently offer free swim classes to over 13,000 young people. Mayor Adams announced today that New York City will expand those programs to reach another 4,800 second graders — bringing the total youth served to nearly 18,000 — in underserved communities, teaching more students how to swim, and saving working-class families $1.3 million with this expansion alone.
Finally, DYCD's Fatherhood Initiative helps fathers reconnect and build stronger relationships with their children through counseling, conflict resolution training, mediation, and mentoring. It can help fathers develop an individual service plan focused on parenting and co-parenting skills. To help strengthen more families and support more children’s emotional and economic futures, Mayor Adams today announced that New York City will double the size of the program to reach 3,000 fathers in the coming years.
Creating Good-Paying Jobs for Parents and Young People
Thanks to investments in public safety, working families, and 21st-century industries like life sciences and artificial intelligence, New York City’s economy has made a powerful comeback. In 2024, the Adams administration broke the record for the most jobs and small businesses in city history while welcoming nearly 65 million tourists to the five boroughs — the second most in city history. Additionally, Black and Latino unemployment has dropped by over 20 percent since the start of the Adams administration while storefront vacancy rates have dropped for four consecutive quarters.
Following last year’s State of the City address, the Adams administration continued to unveil and advance generational projects to turn New York City’s waterfront into a “Harbor of the Future,” including a Science Park and Research Campus in Kips Bay in Manhattan, a $700 million climate research facility on Governors Island, the country’s largest offshore wind port at the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, a modern maritime port and vibrant mixed-use community hub at the Brooklyn Marine Terminal in Red Hook, a revitalized North Shore of Staten Island, the Willets Point Transformation in Queens, and a cleaner, greener Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market in the Bronx.
Additionally, to bolster the city’s cultural economy, the Adams administration invested a record $254 million in the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs through the FY25 Adopted Budget to support thousands of cultural organizations across the city. Today, Mayor Adams announced that New York City will invest more resources into the Cultural Institutions Group (CIG), adding up to five additional organizations in order to ensure that the CIG network reflects the rich diversity of the city’s creative sector.
Creating Cleaner, Greener Streets for Families to Enjoy
Public spaces are an essential part of New York City’s fabric, providing families with a fun, accessible place to take children and build community. Mayor Adams has made transforming the city’s public spaces a central focus of his administration, creating over 85 football fields of new public spaces since 2022 for families to enjoy. The Adams administration has also issued rules to move 70 percent of trash bags off the streets and into containers through its “War on Trash,” torn down over 310 long-standing scaffolding sheds through its “Get Sheds Down” initiative, and expanded curbside composting to the entire city — fulfilling a 2023 State of the City commitment.
To ensure that more families have safe, supportive places to play in their own neighborhood, Mayor Adams today announced New York City will open more schoolyards in underserved neighborhoods for use during the summer, after school, and on the weekends, and put another 20,000 individuals within a 10-minute walk of a park.
Additionally, to keep New York City parks cleaner, Mayor Adams announced that New York City will add a second cleaning shift to 100 new hot spots across 64 parks throughout the city, ensuring they are cleaned each afternoon between Thursday and Monday. As part of the second shift, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation staff will also keep restrooms open, on average, for another two hours each day, five days a week. This investment builds on the 62 parks that received a second cleaning shift earlier this year as part of the FY 2025 Adopted Budget and will help allow more families to enjoy safe, clean, accessible parks.
Finally, Mayor Adams touted El Centro Kingsbridge, a sweeping plan for the future of the Kingsbridge Armory unveiled earlier this week by Mayor Adams, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, and U.S. Representative Adriano Espaillat. Following a request for proposal process launched in the summer of 2023, the winning proposal will include event space, sports fields, and affordable housing, as well as cultural, commercial, and community spaces.
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