WILLIAMS UNVEILS HOUSING FOR ALL AGENDA TO CREATE NEW NETWORK OF ONE MILLION QUALITY, AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNITS FOR ALL NEW YORKERS

Historic Investment in Housing Will Fundamentally Address New York’s Housing, Homelessness Crisis 

 New York City Public Advocate and candidate for Governor Jumaane Williams today released his plan to transform New York state’s housing landscape by providing historic investments in the creation and preservation of one million high quality, permanently affordable housing units for all New Yorkers. Read the full plan here.

“Housing is a human right, and housing and homelessness need to be a top priority for anyone who wants to lead our state,” said Jumaane Williams of his plan. "Governor Hochul’s housing strategy is woefully inadequate to meet the scale of the housing crisis, the depth of need, that decades of corporate giveaways have helped to create. Development shouldn’t be driven by donors, it should center the needs of New Yorkers struggling as rents rise and communities are displaced. We can’t just tinker at the edges on issues of this magnitude and importance in people’s lives – we need to build new systems that work for all.”

As detailed in his Housing for All platform, a Williams Administration will reestablish the mission of Empire State Development (ESD)-- which has a long history of providing corporate subsidies under the guise of economic development – to become an agency that directly benefits communities by developing a network of democratically controlled, publicly-owned, publicly-financed and publicly-built housing units available to all people at a range of income levels across the state, with rent capped at 30% of a household’s income. 

Housing under the revamped agency will create a robust public set of quality, eco-friendly, permanently affordable housing, where buildings are managed by cooperatives or tenant unions -- not developers who can raise rent at free will. By flooding the marketplace with the vast addition of quality affordable housing units, real estate developers and landlords across the state will finally have significant competition, which will create real choice for working families and lower rents throughout the city and state.

At least 20,000 units will be set aside as supportive housing for those experiencing homelessness, substance use, or mental health struggles, or those returning home from incarceration. To further address New York’s housing and homelessness crisis, Jumaane’s Housing for All plan will also: 

•   Strengthen protections for tenants to stave off evictions and small homeowners to have relief from foreclosures. Advocate for the immediate passage of legislation including statewide good cause eviction, ability for tenants the right to form a union, and improved safety regulations and safety enforcement of apartment buildings.
•   Improve oversight and transparency of public housing, working closely with federal partners to finally upgrade New York’s public housing.
•   Institute major property tax reform to reduce the burdens of working families and the middle class across New York through increased income taxes on millionaires and billionaires.

“When I’m talking to New Yorkers, the number one issue that they raise is the housing affordability crisis,” said Ana María Archila, Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor and Jumaane’s running mate. “Our state has failed to prioritize housing as a basic human right and ensure that every New Yorker has a safe, affordable home. Instead, the Governor and Lieutenant Governor posts have been used to advance enormous giveaways to real estate developers and corporations under the guise of economic development. Our state needs leaders willing to chart a new course, and Jumaane’s plan offers a roadmap to keep tenants in their homes, build new affordable housing, and tackle homelessness. I’m excited to help him present it to tenants and homeowners across the state.” 

Jumaane’s full Housing For All plan can be downloaded here, and was applauded by leading housing advocates and community organizations across the state:

Governor Hochul Updates New Yorkers on State's Progress Combating COVID-19 - MARCH 18, 2022

 

Hospitalizations Have Fallen Below 1,000 For First Time Since August 4

16 COVID-19 Deaths Statewide Yesterday

 Governor Kathy Hochul today updated New Yorkers on the state's progress combating COVID-19.

"Thanks to New Yorkers remaining vigilant and getting vaccinated, our state continues to make strides in fighting the pandemic," Governor Hochul said. "The vaccine continues to be our most critical tool in keeping our positivity and hospitalization rates down, but we need to continue encouraging friends and loved ones to get vaccinated and boosted when they can. Parents and guardians should get their children vaccinated and boosted as soon as possible."

Today's data is summarized briefly below:  

• Test Results Reported - 128,877
• Total Positive - 2,089
• Percent Positive - 1.62%
• 7-Day Average Percent Positive - 1.76%
• Patient Hospitalization - 978 (-31)
• Patients Newly Admitted - 126
• Patients in ICU - 157 (+4)
• Patients in ICU with Intubation - 82 (-4)
• Total Discharges - 289,057 (+152)
• New deaths reported by healthcare facilities through HERDS - 16
• Total deaths reported by healthcare facilities through HERDS - 55,024

The Health Electronic Response Data System is a NYS DOH data source that collects confirmed daily death data as reported by hospitals, nursing homes and adult care facilities only.

• Total deaths reported to and compiled by the CDC - 69,958

This daily COVID-19 provisional death certificate data reported by NYS DOH and NYC to the CDC includes those who died in any location, including hospitals, nursing homes, adult care facilities, at home, in hospice and other settings.      

• Total vaccine doses administered - 37,285,153
• Total vaccine doses administered over past 24 hours - 14,891
• Total vaccine doses administered over past 7 days - 87,671
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with at least one vaccine dose - 91.9%
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with completed vaccine series - 83.3%
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with at least one vaccine dose (CDC) - 95.0% 
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 18 and older with completed vaccine series (CDC) - 85.9%
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 12-17 with at least one vaccine dose (CDC) - 82.2%
• Percent of New Yorkers ages 12-17 with completed vaccine series (CDC) - 72.2%
• Percent of all New Yorkers with at least one vaccine dose - 81.4%  
• Percent of all New Yorkers with completed vaccine series - 73.6%
• Percent of all New Yorkers with at least one vaccine dose (CDC) - 89.3%  
• Percent of all New Yorkers with completed vaccine series (CDC) - 75.9%   

Each New York City borough's 7-day average percentage of positive test results reported over the last three days is as follows:  

Borough	Tuesday, March 15, 2022	Wednesday, March 16, 2022	Thursday, March 17, 2022
Bronx	0.70%	0.71%	0.76%
Kings	1.34%	1.35%	1.37%
New York	1.73%	1.72%	1.81%
Queens	1.05%	1.08%	1.14%
Richmond	1.18%	1.07%	1.09%

MAYOR ADAMS ANNOUNCES NEW YORK EMBROIDERY STUDIO CREATING 500 JOBS AT BROOKLYN ARMY TERMINAL

 

Local, Women-Owned Business Will Be Largest New Lease at BAT in Three Years

 

Company Pivoted From High Fashion to Make Sustainable PPE for Frontline Workers, Now Growing to Help Restore National Stockpile

 

Announcement Comes During Women’s History Month, Builds on Mayor Adams’ Economic Recovery Blueprint Released Earlier This Month

 New York City Mayor Eric Adams today announced that New York Embroidery Studio (NYES) will be the newest tenant at the Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT), signing the largest new lease at the terminal in three years and filling one of the largest spaces at BAT. This expansion will create more than 500 on-site jobs, yielding an estimated $73 million in economic output for New York City. The full-service design manufacturer will take over nearly 80,000 square feet to create a state-of-the-art facility, where they will manufacture personal protective equipment (PPE) for frontline health-care workers across the country.

 

“One week after announcing my administration’s economic recovery plan, I am proud to show New Yorkers that we are getting to work and creating jobs in our city,” said Mayor Adams. “Small and minority- and women-owned businesses must be at the core of an inclusive and equitable economic recovery, and I am proud to honor Women’s History Month by supporting NYES and women entrepreneurs in all five boroughs.”

 

“The New York Embroidery Studio’s expansion at the Brooklyn Army Terminal will bring 500 jobs to Sunset Park and further advance New York’s economic recovery,” said Deputy Mayor for Economic and Workforce Development Maria Torres-Springer. “As we continue to invest in the city’s garment manufacturing sector, this is a great opportunity to support an innovative, women-led business providing life-saving personal protective equipment to medical professionals across the country. New York Embroidery Studio embodies the spirit of reinvention will bring our economy back from the pandemic.”

 

“The local production of PPE is essential to our health care workers and our city, so we are always prepared,” said New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) President and CEO Andrew Kimball. “We must be forward-thinking as we address our city’s future pandemic preparedness. NYCEDC is proud to support a local, women-led small business, like New York Embroidery Studio, with a new state-of-the-art space in the Brooklyn Army Terminal, to help them meet their PPE quotas and ensure the equipment is made in America. We commend New York Embroidery Studio for answering the call and pivoting from high fashion to sustainable PPE for our frontline workers.”

 

“New York Embroidery Studio has been manufacturing in the garment center for over 30 years. I am totally committed to growing the apparel industrial base here in NYC,” said Michelle Feinberg, founder and owner, NYES. “Additionally, we want to bring high fashion’s drive for innovation and quality to PPE manufacturing, by developing novel and sustainable products for our clients.” 

At the height of the pandemic, NYES pivoted from high fashion to making PPE. Founder Michelle Feinberg and her team prototyped and made more than 590,000 hospital gowns in just nine weeks, while also keeping hundreds of New Yorkers employed when the city’s economy was shut down.

 

That pivot laid the foundation for the company’s expansion to NYCEDC’s BAT, where they will use state-of-the-art automated cutting and spreading machines and other advanced manufacturing techniques to produce biodegradable and sustainable PPE full-time, as part of an ongoing effort to restore the country’s national stockpile. NYES prioritizes eco-friendly production methods to reduce waste and the city’s carbon footprint. While medical PPE is typically not biodegradable, NYES has developed an innovative biodegradable isolation gown.

 

In the coming months, NYES will be fitting out the large-scale operation center at BAT, and the company has committed to working with Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises as contractors and subcontractors to build out the space. In addition, NYES will utilize NYCEDC’s HireNYC program, which connects businesses with qualified job seekers in the local community.

 

Previously, NYCEDC supported NYES with grant funding through the Fashion Manufacturing Initiative from 2014 to 2018, to offset costs associated with purchasing new equipment, upgrading technologies, and making improvements to the company’s Manhattan facility.

 

Michelle Feinberg founded NYES in 2001, in Manhattan’s Garment Center, offering embellishment and specialized services and skills in fashion manufacturing for the likes of Tory Burch, Thom Browne, Coach, Ralph Lauren, and Alexander Wang, as well as small and emerging New York City-based brands like Kerby Jean-Raymond.

 

Today’s announcement builds on the mayor’s vision for the future of New York City’s economy outlined in “Rebuild, Renew, Reinvent: A Blueprint for NYC's Economic Recovery.” The blueprint, released this month, contains 70 initiatives designed to capitalize on a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reinvigorate the city’s economy and increase equity and inclusivity. The blueprint specifically aims to accelerate the return to pre-pandemic employment levels, while simultaneously laying the foundation for the city’s economic future — addressing historic injustices and reimagining outdated ways of doing business.

 

“The road towards a full and just recovery is a long one, but we must learn the hard lessons coming out of this pandemic,” said New York City Councilmember Alexa Avilés. “We cannot continue to rely on unstable global supply chains when our community stands willing and able to produce necessary PPE right here. We welcome New York Embroidery Studio to our district and look forward to working with EDC on adding even more high-quality, good-paying jobs to our working waterfront.”

Governor Hochul Announces Executive Order Prohibiting State Agencies and Authorities from Contracting with Entities That Continue to Do Business in Russia

 

Announcement Builds on Governor's Ongoing Efforts to Support Ukraine

Governor Hochul: "We're going to be announcing an executive order that we're going to be strengthening in our sanctions against Russia as well and we're going to have additional blockchain analytics technology to make sure that we're being very vigilant about what they do. We're now going to prohibit any state agencies and authorities from contracting with any entities that are still doing business in Russia."

 Happy St. Patrick's Day. My maiden name is Kathleen Mary Courtney from County Kerry, so this is a very special day for me, but it's even more special for the purpose that we're here that I'll talk about in a couple of minutes. I'll be acknowledging our speakers in a moment, but I do want to acknowledge the elected officials who've shown up here today and to support show their support for the country of Ukraine and how New Yorkers collectively are standing together to call out the unlawful invasion by Putin and Russia against the independent sovereign nation of Ukraine. During that time we've seen the spectacle, the horror of what has transpired. I want to thank New Yorkers, particularly, for standing up and being so generous.

Before I get started on what we're doing here, I want to acknowledge also that we're still giving reports on our pandemic numbers, the COVID-19 numbers. I just want to acknowledge that we've come down a lot and this is the trend we're continuing to watch. We are down to 2,323 positive cases, down from, I need to repeat this, down from 90,000 just a couple of months ago in January, so that is extraordinary. And our single day, positivity is 1.7 percent. Hospitalizations continue to decline, but there's still about a thousand people in hospitals and we did lose 13 New Yorkers just yesterday.

But what I want to focus on is the fact that we are also watching what's happening across the world. I told everyone as we are coming through this and scaling back on our requirements, that we're going to keep an eye on global trends. So I want everyone to know that here in the State of New York, we're watching and staying alert about what's happening in the United Kingdom. We're seeing an 82 percent increase in cases over there over the last few weeks, we tend to be a few weeks behind those trends, but we do have surveillance techniques, which we're using expansively across the state. And we're able to monitor 70 percent of our state population, literally through wastewater surveillance.

So, using technology we'll have an early on to any problems that may spike even before someone would have any symptoms. We're not seeing that. I want to be clear. We're not seeing that right now, but in our efforts to continue being vigilant, we want to make sure that we're going to continue to get our test kits out.

Fewer people are coming to our test sites. That's understandable, but we want to make sure that of the 92 million testing kits that we amassed here in the state, that we're now going to be deploying another 20 million out to schools, to nursing homes, to NYCHA residents, food banks, and to elected officials for them to distribute as well. So, let's get those in people's hands. If there's any warning signs, anyone's concerned that they can get that test immediately. That tests lets them know if they're positive and if they're positive, we want them to isolate. That's how we've learned from the past on how to stop the spread.

We're also going to be stockpiling 20 million test kits so we have them available as we enter next year's school year to make sure that we have enough for students to keep monitoring. We're going to continue keeping New Yorkers safe. This is something you can count on this administration to continue to be very vigilant on as well.

But speaking of what we're watching around the world, as I mentioned, the specter of the fighting going on in Ukraine, the painful images of seeing innocent civilians, losing their lives, attacks on schools and hospitals, and it's continuing to decline. I saw President Biden yesterday announced another $800 million of support for security, which is important. He's doing what he can on that front, but also it's incumbent upon all of us as New Yorkers to say, how can we help our brothers and sisters who are hurting? And knowing New Yorkers as well as I do, I'm never disappointed in how they respond to crises when there is a call for help.

I've been to many Ukrainian communities, we are the largest Ukrainian population in the nation, the majority in New York City, but we have populations in Rochester and Buffalo and Syracuse. I've gone to visit them over the last couple of weeks. I've worshiped in their churches, I've shown our support. But I also want to say we can do more as a state. And I did announce an executive order saying that the state would not be doing business with any Russian entities, but I want to take that a step further here today.

We're going to be announcing an executive order that we're going to be strengthening in our sanctions against Russia as well and we're going to have additional blockchain analytics technology to make sure that we're being very vigilant about what they do. We're now going to prohibit any state agencies and authorities from contracting with any entities that are still doing business in Russia. So this is not just directly with Russian companies, it is with American companies, can companies that are continuing to do business in Russia in light of what's happening. So that is the message that we're delivering to our state agencies and authorities today to cease business, to not have no more future contracts with those entities.

We're continuing to put the pressure on and I saw this as a young college student when we were trying to stop apartheid in South Africa. And it was when people started divesting holdings in companies that were doing business in South Africa, we finally created the economic pressure that resulted in change, and we got our university and other universities across the nation to divest their holdings. So, I know the impact of what even a college can do, but I certainly know the power of New York State and the ability that we have to have influence in our own way as well.

I also want to talk about an organization here, Afya, which means simply "health" in Swahili. And what is going on in this room is a dedicated group of individuals who have decided they will not sit on the sidelines. These volunteers right here, young people who've come together to help gather tens of thousands of pounds of critical medical humanitarian supplies - surgical pack, wound care kits, stretchers, emergency hospital beds, first aid supplies - and they're all putting them together to be able to send where they're needed the most. I want to thank this organization. I also want to thank Ken Raske. They did this. They brought together all these medical supplies together here today so they could be sent. Ken is the President and CEO of Greater New York Hospital Association. So even still dealing with what they went through during the pandemic and all the stress on the system and the scramble for protective equipment and masks and gowns, they, at a time of crisis for another country, still show the heart of New Yorkers and our healthcare industry to help people. We may never see their faces, but we know here today, standing in this warehouse in Yonkers that we're about to ship out, literally 200 pallets of supplies desperately needed, over 100,000 pounds. And we're going to continue doing this and we're continuing ramping up our efforts to do what we can to support these individuals, not just with our prayers, not just with our thoughts, but real supplies that we hope will save lives.

Santaella Gardens Affordable Housing Property Debuts At At 1230 Metcalf Avenue In Soundview, The Bronx

 

Acacia Network and Phipps Houses recently celebrated the grand opening of Santaella Gardens, a 249-unit affordable housing property in the Soundview section of The Bronx. Located at 1230 Metcalf Avenue, available homes are reserved for individuals and households earning between 30 percent and 90 percent area median income (AMI), as well as 25 units for the formerly homeless.

Santaella Gardens is named in honor of Justice Irma Vidal Santaella, the first Puerto Rican woman to serve as a Justice of the New York Supreme Court.

The developers were joined by local community groups, members of the project team, elected officials, and the Santaella family for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new building.

“The path to a truly affordable city requires us to build high-quality affordable housing that serves all communities,” said Adam Weinstein, president and CEO of Phipps Houses. “Our partnership with the Acacia Network at Santaella Gardens has created much needed affordable housing in The Bronx, including units for the formerly homeless.”

Roof terrace at Santaella Gardens – Dattner Architects

Led by Dattner Architects, the 12-story building was designed to meet Passive House sustainability standards. This means that the structure incorporates a high-performance façade to mitigate heat loss or heat gain, which typically drives up energy costs related to internal temperature control. The building will also feature energy-efficient lighting systems and mechanical components, solar panels, Energy Star-rated appliances in each apartment, and filtered ventilation systems.

Amenities include an 11th floor amenity deck with a fitness center, a children’s playroom, a rooftop terrace, and bike room.

“Affordable housing is a human right, something that Justice Irma Vidal Santaella, a trailblazing woman, fought for her entire career,” said Bronx borough president Vanessa L. Gibson. “This 100-percent affordable housing development will bring 249 much-needed units for low- and moderate-income households, along with 25 units for the formerly homeless to the Soundview section of The Bronx. This affordable housing project represents important investments that should be a model for our borough and city.”