Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts Community Conversation (2024)

April 8, 2024

Commissioner Fred Kreizman, Community Affairs Unit:Good evening. My name is Fred Kreizman, commissioner from the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit. Just want to welcome everyone here to the 26th Community Conversation with Eric Adams, our mayor. Just want to welcome everyone here to community board number nine to Manhattan Folk Community Center. We want to thank NYCHA, DYCD for making the space possible for us, and one of the leading organizers of 2017 Women's March, Tamika Mallory grew up here in Manhattanville houses.

This is a wonderful community representing Morningside Heights, Manhattanville, and Hamilton Heights, comprising precincts from the 26, the 30, PSA 6. We're joined today by a vast array of agencies we have with us today. Of course, to my left, the mayor of the City of New York, Mayor Eric Adams. We're going to tell everyone to hold applause till we finish everyone on the dais.

We have First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, deputy mayor of Operations, Meera Joshi, deputy mayor of Housing Economic Development, Workforce Development, Maria Torres-Springer, deputy mayor for Strategic Initiatives, Ana Almanzar. We have NYPD Deputy Commissioner, Mark Stewart, Department of Education first deputy chancellor, Dan Weisberg, Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs commissioner, Manuel Castro, Human Rights commissioner, Annabel Palma, DYCD commissioner, Keith Howard, DSS commissioner, Molly Park.

ACS commissioner, Jess Dannhauser, Health and Hospital president, chief executive officer, Dr. Mitchell Katz, Department of the Health and Mental Hygiene commissioner, Ashwin Vasan, Mayor's Office Community Mental Health deputy executive director, the executive director, Laquisha Grant, Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice chief of staff, Nora Daniel, Department of Finance director of outreach, Kieran Mahoney, Department of City Planning Manhattan Office director, Erik Botsford, EDC Assistant VP, Fernando Ortiz, and Gender Based Violence Acting Commissioner, Sethi Saloni.

To my right, we have our councilmember, Shaun Abreu. We have assemblymember, Jenifer Rajkumar. We have Department of Sanitation commissioner, Jessica Tisch, Department of Buildings commissioner, Jimmy Oddo, HPD commissioner, Adolfo Carrión, DEP commissioner, Rohit Aggarwala, DCWP commissioner, Vilda Vera Mayuga, the Department of Probation acting deputy commissioner, Joan Gardner, Parks first deputy commissioner, Iris Rodriguez-Rosa, New York City Emergency Management commissioner, Zach Iscol, the Mayor's Office of Asylum Seekers interim director, Molly Schaeffer, Department of Aging first deputy commissioner, Michael Ognibene, Department of Transportation, Manhattan borough commissioner, Edward Pincar, Mayor's Office of Climate of Environmental Justice deputy executive director, Paul Lozito, NYCHA executive vice president Daniel Greene, SBS executive deputy commissioner Dynishal Gross, Fire Department chief, John Sarrocco.

We're also joined by the Police Department, by deputy commissioner of operations, Kaz Daughtry, chief of patrol, Chief John Chell, deputy chief of Community Affairs, Richard Taylor, patrol borough Manhattan North, Chief Ruel Stephenson, PSA 6 commanding officer, Captain Denis O'Hanlon, 24th commanding officer, Captain Noreen Lazarus, 26th commanding officer, Captain Jose Taveras, 28th commanding officer, Captain Albert Rodriguez, the 30 Executive Officer, Captain Gary Rose, the XO of housing, Chief Elvio Capocci, PSA 5, Captain Rebecca Bukofzertavarez.

From Sanitation Department, Manhattan Borough Chief James Leavy, Sanitation Manhattan 9 Superintendent Brian Baba, and from district leaders, Corey Ortega, district leaders Dan Cohen, Deputy District Leader, Norma Campusano, State Committee, William Allen. At this time, we're going to give it over to councilmember, Shaun Abreu, and Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar before giving it over to the mayor.

City Councilmember Shaun Abreu:Good evening, West Harlem. Thank you for joining us tonight. I want to thank our Mayor Adams for being here tonight and bringing his team. We have the best of the best in public servants in Adams' administration, and we're just so grateful that we're here to talk about how we can tackle these challenges together.

I have to say that it was just last month that we had representatives from half of city agencies at our forum at Montefiore Park last month. Already, we're seeing a lot of changes at Montefiore Park. The agencies from the mayor's office have come to two consecutive meetings, and we're already seeing the park. It feels cleaner, it feels safer, and we know we're going to build off of that foundation.

I also want to talk about the exciting investments that have come to West Harlem through our mayor. Our mayor has brought $18 million to Morningside Park. Let's give him a round of applause for that.

The $18 million is a big deal. We're going to have ADA-accessible stairs. We're going to have state-of-the-art ADA access on the northern side of the park. The mayor has also brought $27 million to Taystee Lab to bring access to life sciences in our district, which is going to make a big difference. The mayor has also invested $5 million to rat mitigation zones. There's a lot more that we're working on together.

I just want to say to West Harlem that you are the pride of Manhattan. I know that in this room, it represents who we are. It represents the best of us. The ideas and energy that comes out of here can inform the direction for a better, stronger, and as the mayor says, a cleaner, safer New York. Thank you.

State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar:Good evening, Manhattanville. Allow me to reintroduce myself. I am State Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar. I made history when I became the first Indian woman ever elected to a New York State office.

I just feel so grateful to be here right now. My mom was born in a mud hut in India. My parents came to this country with just $300 and one suitcase, and now I get to stand before you today as a state representative in the greatest city on earth, in the greatest country on earth. I am here to fight for the people of New York City and to deliver the state resources that the city needs. That is why I am proud to be leading the fight to close all the illegal cannabis shops in our city.

There is an illegal cannabis shop popping up on every corner. There are now 3,000 illegal smoke shops in our city, maybe more, and 36,000 illegal ones in our state. Did you know that there are 400 times more illegal shops than legal ones? New Yorkers feel like they are high right now because this situation makes no sense. That is why I authored and introduced The SMOKEOUT Act in our state capitol. The SMOKEOUT Act will allow New York City to shut down all of these illegal smoke shops, and our mayor has said that when The SMOKEOUT Act passes, he will be able to shut down all of these illegal shops within 30 days. Do you want that?

Audience:Yes.

Assemblymember Rajkumar:I introduced The SMOKEOUT Act on the first day of the legislative session. Then we launched Operation SMOKEOUT, which took us to Harlem, Queens, Times Square, and everywhere. The people of New York City spoke and said that we must close down these shops immediately. The Daily News endorsed SMOKEOUT, The New York Post endorsed SMOKEOUT, Partnership for New York City, Times Square Alliance, the list goes on and on.

I'm proud to say that our leaders in New York State now all uniformly agree that we must close these illegal smoke shops. I'd like to thank Governor Hochul for taking action and saying that we need to close these smoke shops, and I'd like to thank our majority leader, Crystal Peoples-Stokes, for engaging in the conversation and committing to closing down these shops. All of our leaders in Albany are now on the same page, but we have to do it right. It can't be half-baked. There's too much at stake. Some of these shops are cropping up near daycare centers, near schools, endangering our kids.

They are selling cannabis laced with dangerous substances like E. coli and salmonella, things you definitely don't want to be ingesting. They are hotbeds of crime carrying loose cash, attracting criminals. The SMOKEOUT Act will give New York City, our mayor, and the NYPD the ability to close down these shops because the mayor has the manpower to get the job done and everybody knows that our NYPD, including our Deputy Commissioner Daughtry and our Chief of Patrol, everybody knows that they can get the job done.

We're not stopping there. We have to get rid of the e-bike problem. We love e-bikes. They're opening up opportunities, but it's also a safety hazard on the road. There have been a record number of fatalities due to lithium-ion battery fires and injuries due to these e-bikes. We need to regulate the e-bike industry.

That is why I have proposed licensing every e-bike. Every e-bike needs a license plate and insurance and inspection, so we can make sure that there are no more hazards on the road. Finally, let's talk about the migrant crisis. Our mayor has been leading on his own without any help from the federal government. Literally, carrying our city as the population of Buffalo has entered our city. We need people to help including New York State.

That is why I have proposed that the state should issue its own work permits for the migrants, so that they can work, get up off their own two feet so that we can do what the federal government is not doing because this is not just a New York City problem, this is a New York State problem, and I am committed to helping to ensure that our state steps in for the sake of New York City.

I just want to say thank you, Mayor Adams, for leading. Thank you for being a leader on public safety. Thank you for leading our recovery. We have now recovered all private sector jobs under his leadership a year ahead of schedule. Together, we are now going to shut down all the illegal smoke shops. Thank you so much.

Commissioner Kreizman:I, at this time, also want to recognize our CB9 Chair, Victor Edwards, who's here.

Thank you. From six to seven o'clock, we had round table conversations at every table basically with members of the Mayor's Office, Community Affairs, commanding officers from various areas, so this way they can listen to your concerns. This way they could take the conversations back to the policy makers at City Hall to have a conversation. You have the Q&A question cards. If your question is not asked tonight, we will get back to you within a two-week time period with each agency going to– I'm sorry. Each agency will get back to you within a two-week time period.

Then we just ask the last 10 minutes of the conversation to formulate the questions to the dais, to the mayor so that we could ask your questions, so if your questions not asked, please make sure to fill out your cards, we'll get you those responses. We're just asking people to be brief. This way we could go to every single table to ensure we're getting all 12 tables done with. Thank you.

Mayor Eric Adams:Thanks so much. Really thank the entire team that's here. This is number how many?

Commissioner Kreizman:26.

Mayor Adams:This is number 26. In addition to the number of older adults town halls that we do during the daytime, in addition to the number of youth town halls that we are holding, and a number of round tables that we're doing with our faith leaders, Pastor Monrose, who coordinates those events. We want a real lively conversation. We want to hear from you, and we'd like to do it in a manner where you raise a question, I listen, I respond, you listen. This is how we can get to the foundation of what we want to accomplish, and we want to spend as much time, we go through every table. We're not going to leave until all the tables have an opportunity to raise the questions that you raise together, but as Commissioner Kreizman stated, that if we don't get to your answer, we will get to it.

There's an individual question that you want to raise. The other day we were up in, was it the Bronx? Where were we walking together? Where the people were using drugs behind the– Monte Field Park. Share what happened up there. They were using drugs behind the walls that was there. We took a walk up together late at night, and it was unbelievable what we saw. Because of the wall that was there that allowed people to sit there, inject themselves with drugs, and just really turned that area into a dangerous place. The councilman and I met up there late one night, walked through the park, and the Commissioner Meera Joshi is going to do an analysis on how do we make that a fairer location?

Here we are, two years and three months later. What did we walk into January 1st, 2022? Covid was everywhere. We were unsure if our schools were going to open or not. Those independent bond raiders that determine how successful a city is being managed did not want to raise our bond. Jobs, we were hemorrhaging. Our children were not reading at the levels that they should have been reading. Tourism wasn't back in the city. No one wanted to be on our subway system. We were dealing with a 40 percent increase and crime shootings were on the rise. Homicides were on the rise. You look at the crime, and they were all on the rise. Housing was dismal.

Two years and three months later, more private sector jobs in the history of the city. 62 million tourists have visited city spending their money. 4.1 million people are back on the subway system. Double-digit decrease in homicides, shooters. Five of the seven major crime categories are down. Independent bond raiders that determine how successful a city is being managed. We turned around the financial stability of this city years ahead of time where people said we could not do it within four to five years.

More people with vouchers were in housing than the history of the voucher program. We transition more people into homeless into permanent housing in one year in the history of this city. This city has turned around. I know you hear a lot of noise that this city is out of order and out of control. I want you to go Google other cities. We came into this city in January 1st, 2022.

There were encampments everywhere. I would ride around at night, 1:00 a.m., 2:00 a.m. in the morning, taking pictures of encampments and sending it to DSNY and the deputy mayor, and we would clean it up instantly because our city's not going to look like other cities. We put up thousands of people who was dealing with severe mental health illness through Dr. Vasan and Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. We transitioned them off the streets.

We went into the subway systems and engaged people in real time and gave them the support that they deserve. We need help from Albany to give us the power to do what's called involuntary removal because if you can't take care of yourself and don't know you can't take care of yourself, we have a responsibility for taking care of them and putting them on the right direction. That's what cities do.

This administration here, look at them. You know what you're going to notice? They look like you. This is the most diverse administration in history, five women deputy mayors. First Trinidadian deputy mayor. First Filipino deputy mayor. First Dominican deputy mayor in the history of the city. First African-American, first deputy mayor. You go through the list, and you see the diversity from our first Korean to head SBS. All across the line, we went and found New Yorkers, who are everyday New Yorkers, to do this job.

Now, I am you. There's nothing special about me. Growing up in South Jamaica, Queens, born in Brownsville, struggle with education because I was dyslexic, undiagnosed. Mommy raising the six of us, not getting any support that she deserved. Cities have abandoned families like mine for so long. I became mayor after 22 years in the Police Department, headed 100 Blacks in law enforcement who care. Moving on to become a state senator. Now becoming the first Black borough president.

Now, I'm the mayor of the city of New York, because of folks just like you decided that, "Eric, we want someone just like us, of working-collar, blue-collar person to be the mayor of the city of New York." I'm here because I believe in what I'm doing, and I believe in the people of this city. I wore that bulletproof vest for 22 years and stood on street corners to protect the children and families of this city.

When I buried an officer, Jonathan, a few days ago, when I got back to New York, I had to rush up to the Bronx where a two-year-old baby was shot. That's what I'm fighting for. That's what we want. Our city is going to be, and continue to be the safest, big city in America, but we can't leave anyone behind, folks. Too many people have been left behind. That's why we invest in NYCHA than any other administration. That's why we adjoin just to stay cool when we walk through NYCHA the other day to look at the repairs that are needed.

We're on the ground. We want to be on the ground and hear directly from you on what we can do better to continue to move this city forward. I want to have a good, lively conversation where we respect each other's existence and treat each other with the dignity that we know we can do, but we can solve some real problems as we like to use the three letters, get stuff done. That's what this administration is about. Let's open up the floor and hear from the questions on the table. Pastor Monrose.

Commissioner Kreizman:Table number one.

Question:Hey, Mayor Adams.

Mayor Adams:How are you?

Question:Thank you for coming out of the Harlem. I'm [inaudible], local entrepreneur. Me and some of my peers, we're just wondering if you could create a tech system that will provide text blasts for local job training, workforce development, educational programs, and services in the palm of your hand, like in real-time.

Mayor Adams:Thank you. Who wants to take that with the hiring halls, Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer?

Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, Housing, Economic Development, and Workforce:Thank you for the question. This mayor and so many partners here, I see we have Dynishal Gross in the Department of Small Business Services. We also have Commissioner Keith Howard from DYCD. Ensuring that as we've regained the one million jobs, that we are connecting those opportunities to New Yorkers, whether it's entrepreneurship or specific job openings, is critical for this administration.

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, we announced a new initiative called Jobs NYC, where we're doing hiring halls in neighborhoods across the five boroughs so that everyone can have access to not just training opportunities, but real openings, both within government and within the private sector, all sorts of sectors from health care to construction. We definitely, specifically to your point, want to make sure that we are getting that information out, whether it's texts, robocalls, or on the ground in person. Definitely want to hear how best to get that info out, but we're totally on the same page.

We also have Upper Manhattan Workforce1 Center on West 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell. We want to make sure everyone knows about that, but we're really committed to making sure that through technology and being on the ground, we're making those connections because it's critical that all New Yorkers have access to job opportunities and training opportunities so that our recovery in the city is as equitable as it needs to be.

Mayor Adams:Brother, what's your name brother?

Question:I'm [inaudible].

Mayor Adams:Can you connect with Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer with some of those ideas, you're talking about texting and other things, whatever else we can do before the show's over? Commissioner Howard, talk about…

Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer:Mayor, can I just add one thing? We also have a new website, where these opportunities are available, and so, jobs.nyc.gov. We'll make sure everyone has that, but please do check out the opportunities that are there because it's all up to date, from training to open job opportunities.

Mayor Adams:For years, people were asking, "What do we do about summer youth employment?" The numbers were so low. We came in, what did we do about them, Commissioner Howard?

Commissioner Keith Howard, Department of Youth and Community Development:100,000 young people in Summer Youth Employment for the past two years. In fact, we had about a thousand young people in this community district that actually was in summer youth employment. I also want to add to the DM's point, we just had a job fair here in March 24th. A very robust job fair here connecting community and young people and two real jobs with real providers in this very building.

Mayor Adams:Dan, can you talk about DOE, what DOE is doing with career pathways? A lot of our children, many that didn't go to college, did not have a career pathway and we are doing career pathways in several different areas including medical profession which is going to be a high demand for jobs. Can we go into some of the stuff we're doing in the DOE?

Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg, Department of Education:Yes, sir, happy to. In 100 of our high schools, including several high schools here in upper Manhattan, every single student graduates not just with a diploma, but with certifications, career certifications, with early college credits, some of them with an associate's degree. By the way, you parents will love this piece of it, free, completely free, tuition free. They graduate with an associate's degree or at least many college credits, but not just random credits.

As the mayor says, towards a particular high-paying job that leads to a high-paying career, we want every single one of our young people who graduates to graduate with a plan. If you know that you want to work at the hospital, you want to be a physician, we can make sure that you graduate high school having taken the right science courses eventually to go to medical school, but to also have certifications.

If you decide you want to go right into the workforce after high school, maybe college is not for you, you can get a job as a medical imaging technician making $60,000 a year and you don't have to go back to school to get that certification. You don't have to get the coursework. We've provided it to you in high school. We have a hundred high schools, and under the mayor's leadership, we're going to up that number for next year doing these sorts of career programs.

Mayor Adams:One of the things we knew was important is that we were expecting people to come to us to apply for jobs. That is not how it was done. We did these hiring halls where we were having anywhere from 800 to 1,000 people in a hiring hall, and we navigated them through the process of how to get employed. We have about 13,000, 14,000 vacant jobs right now in the city of New York.

We gave some of the best raises, 94 percent of our civil servants we have a contract with, 94 percent where they get good wages. We just raise these salaries for human service workers which are overwhelmingly women, predominantly women of color. They've been denied for years. When I campaigned, I said we're going to give you the contract you deserve. Why? Because my mother was a human service worker and she could not afford to take care of the six of us.

Well, we said we going to change that now through First Deputy Mayor Wright. We put in place an increase in their salary to make sure both Deputy Mayors Wright and Deputy Mayor Almanzar focus on this to make sure we can do right by folks. Here's what we're doing for foster care children. Everyone knows that foster care children age out and they are overwhelmingly going into homelessness, mental health, victims of crimes, criminal behavior.

We said we can't continue to allow that to happen each year when they age out. We now pay their college tuition, give them a stipend. When they graduate from college, they're able to stay and get a stipend for a year. Now, we have one of the largest enrollment in college of foster care children in the history of this city. We give them a life coach until they're 21 years old so they're not dropped into the system.

Listen, I was calling my mother when I was 51, so imagine not having someone you can support who don't have a family. We need to help people upstream. Don't let them fall in the river downstream, and then pull them out. This is an upstream mindset in administration. Go ahead, pastor.

How are you?

Question:I'm well. Hello, Mayor Adams. I'm also dyslexic, so I'm going to do my best to read the question from the table here. That is the current trash containerization program in Hamilton Heights between 142nd and 153rd Street is a failure and unacceptable. My question is, are adjustments being made to the program for its expansion or is it expanding as is?

Mayor Adams:I'm sorry. I didn't get the last part of the question. What was the last part?

Question:Or is the program being expanded as is?

Mayor Adams:Got it. Okay. A couple of things. I'm glad you said that you're dyslexia. I just want to touch on this for a moment because this is important. When I was out campaigning and meeting with different people who fell on the wrong side of the law, and I asked them, I used to skid in the room and some of my crisis management team members who are here, I would get in the room and I would say, "How many of you have learning disability?" 80 percent of the room would raise their hand.

Do you know 30 to 40 percent of the people on Rikers Island are dyslexic? We've been abandoning children. I could have easily have ended up there if I didn't discover in college that I was dyslexic. That's a real problem. I'm going to talk about your containerization claim. I know you are dying at the bits to get answer to this question. First of all, it's not a failure. I hate rats. If you don't hate rats, you should– wait. Hold on, hold on, hold on. We don't do that here. You're going to find yourself out of here. Don't disrespect me and I'm going to show you respect. We are answering. The rule is you ask a question, I listen. I answer the question, you listen.

This is not Congress where they yell out at the president. We show each other respect. You got an opinion and I got facts. We're going to containerize all of our garbage. All of our garbage is going to be containerized. If we want to get rid of the rodent problem in the city, we have to put garbage in containers. We started with pilot projects. Anyone that knows a pilot project is, you test, you figure out what's right, what needs to be modified, and then you move on.

One thing we're clear on, we can't be the last civilized city on the planet where our garbage is still in black plastic bags. We're going to move to containerized. People told me it was going to take five years. I said, "That's too long." Let's talk about what we've done, Commissioner Tisch.

Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Department of Sanitation:To respond to your specific question about whether the Go Forward Plan is going to look like the current pilot, it's actually going to be different in a number of important ways. The first thing that's going to be different is that the containers that are in the current pilot are shared among buildings and they're shared among all buildings on the block. In the Go Forward Plan, the fixed on-street containers are going to be dedicated to specific buildings. In particular, all buildings of 31 units or more. Buildings of one to nine units will put their trash in wheelie bins and individual bins and buildings between 10 and 30 units will have an option between the two models.

That way we minimize the impacts to parking, and we also have a very predictable amount of trash associated with each building so we can size the containers quite well, and that building will be the only building to be able to access the container. The containers will lock. We have been developing a fleet of new trucks that will lift and hoist these on-street containers. The containers in the permanent plan will not be wheeled to the back of a rear loader. It'll look more like the trucks that you see in Europe. We're going much more in the direction of the European model.

Question:As part of the conversation, you're saying that they're going to have side-loading trucks, but that's not in our pilot today. You said that you're going to be introducing wheelie bins for the other residents that are potentially 30 or less, but that's not in the pilot today. This is almost an entirely new program. Our question, where has this been tested? Where has this been tested in Manhattan?

Commissioner Tisch:I just want to put everything into perspective. Since 1970, every day, New Yorkers, residences, and businesses have dumped 44 million pounds of trash on our sidewalks. That's the amount of trash that is collected every single night in New York City. We look around and we wonder why we have a rat problem. It's pretty obvious. One-third of the material in the trash bags is human food. Human food is also rat food.

Over the past year, we have taken a number of very aggressive steps in New York City to play a massive game of catch-up. When we containerize our trash in New York City, we are not going to be the first city in the world to do it. In fact, we are going to be one of the last. What have we done in the past year?

Mayor Adams:Hold on. Listen, we know how we do this.

Commissioner Tisch:What have we done in the past year? First, every business in the city is now required to put their trash in wheelie bins. We started rolling it out at the end of the summer. As of March 1st, all businesses, that accounts for 20 million pounds of trash a day, have been required to put their trash in wheelie bins. This fall, every residence in the city of 1 to 9 units will be required to put their trash in wheelie bins. Next spring, spring of 2025, because we have to buy all of the new trucks that we have just developed, the side loaders, we are going to be rolling out the new model, more like the European model, of fixed on-street containers in all of Manhattan 9.

Mayor Adams:Thank you. A couple of things. One, the pilot that she's talking about, the extension of the pilot, no. You have your pilot, we're going to do other pilots so that we can find what pilot is best. Remember this, folks? You know what this was at first? This was an iPod. You would only be able to listen to music on it. Now your whole life is on it. People who are afraid to try are those who never succeed. You evolve. That's why you do pilots. You evolve. You see what works, and then you modify to get to where you want to be. That's how this administration is.

What is the problem that people see with us? We're not afraid to fail. We're not afraid for people to boo us, to yell at us, to call us names, but at the end of the day, you're going to look at your life, and you're going to see that we changed the quality of life in this city. You've got to get plastic bags off the street. Now, we're going to spend the whole day with you. We heard you. We're not going to do that if we don't try. This area here, from what street to what street?

Commissioner Kreizman:143rd to 153rd. The pilot program had a…

Mayor Adams:68 percent reduction in rat views, 68 percent. Not who I call, 68 percent less calls in this community from rats, and we're going to keep getting there. We're placing garbage in containers. That's what we're going to do. That is how you keep your street clean. You'll never get rid of rats if you have plastic bags on the street. You can shake your head, no, no, no. That's cool. That's all right. We're getting rats off our streets, folks, because I hate rats, and many of you do too. Go to the next table.

Question:Hello.

Mayor Adams:How are you?

Question:Doing well. How are you?

Mayor Adams:Excellent.

Question:I am speaking on behalf of NYCHA residents of Manhattanville. I am one of the residents, and I've seen, along with other residents, an influx of people coming into our buildings, generally with suitcases, sometimes dealing drugs, well, asking for supplies, knocking on residents' doors. It feels very unsafe, especially me as a mother of a four-year-old. It's been very, very, very nerve-wracking entering the building and exiting in the morning, watching over my shoulder, making sure, no, come on, let's keep walking straight, don't look to the side, there's somebody laying on the floor. It's been very concerning. My question to you is, who do I talk to? Who do I reach out to? What can be done?

Mayor Adams:Thank you. Major problem, major, major problem. What NYCHA has gone through for years, NYCHA has been abandoned for a long time. When I was out during Covid, handing out masks to NYCHA residents, when everyone was getting their mask and no one wanted to give it to NYCHA, they wrote stories about, why are you, NYCHA, giving masks to those people? We did it anyway.

When we knocked on the doors, and I spoke to residents, I was borough president at the time, the residents were telling, I was saying, "How are your children? Are they learning online?" The residents were telling me, "Eric, no. We don't have access to high-speed broadband." I made a promise. I said, "When I get elected mayor, we're going to make sure you have it."

Right now, every NYCHA resident, they have free high-speed broadband, every resident. When we went to a couple of town halls last year, a resident came to me, and she said, ""We have people sleeping in our hallways, sleeping on our roofs." I went and met her over there. Sure enough, we walked through the stairs. Someone was sitting there with a knife. They were sleeping on top of– Sleeping in the stairway, sleeping on the roof of human waste in the area.

We were just walking through the Polo Grounds with the same problems. We would like to come, do an analysis. Where's my chief sheriff? Where's my PSA? Who's the PSA inspector or captain here? Do we have him in the room? All right, talk to me. Tell me about these complaints. Sister, I'll meet you over there and we're going to walk through together with the inspector and do an analysis, but we have a major issue with NYCHA.

NYCHA has– How big is the gap, Sheena? $70 billion capital gap. Fixing the doors, fixing the roofs, cleaning the building, removing lead. The issues in NYCHA, they have been abandoned for years. We came in, they never put NYCHA in. I'm going to come to you, inspector. They never put NYCHA in the housing proposal. Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer came in and we said, "We put NYCHA at the top of our housing proposal." Because we can't ignore one in four New Yorkers living in this city that's living in NYCHA and treat them with the lack of dignity that they respect. That is what we're doing. I'm in my NYCHA residence, walking through, talking to folks just like you.

We can do a better job. We need to get our state and federal government on board, but the public safety aspect, that's within our span of control. Inspector, help me with the conditions. Captain, did I promote you?

Captain Denis O'Hanlon, Police Service Area 6:Not yet.

Mayor Adams:The conditions she's talking about.

Captain O'Hanlon:All right. I'm Denis O'Hanlon. I'm the Commanding Officer of PSA 6. I can say I took over at the very end of 2022, and I immediately saw, not just in Manhattanville, but in all these developments, that it's obviously a major problem. One of the major things that I tried to do when I first got here was increase the number of interior patrols inside all developments in PSA 6. At the end of 2023, compared to 2022, we were up over 1,000 interior patrols where officers are going in, checking out each floor of the building to see if there's anybody that's there that's not supposed to be there.

So far, this year, we're already over another 150 on top of that number that we already are at. Our trespassing arrests have increased, our trespassing summonses have increased, but also, at the same time, we recognize that not every single person that we come into contact with needs to be an arrest. A lot of these people are people that have just fallen under hard times. At which point, then we bring in Department of Homeless Services. We try and get these people connected to services. That way, they're not coming back in, because nobody should ever have to feel unsafe in the building that they live in. They should never have to feel unsafe where their children are.

I always ask people, call 311, call 911. That's our best lifeline in order to know exactly where these people are, what time they're there, so we can go there and we can make a decision of whether or not there should be an arrest or whether or not there should be someone who needs a homeless outreach.

Mayor Adams:Sister, what are we going to do, we're going to coordinate, right, Chief Chell?

Chief John Chell, Patrol, Police Department:Yes. We heard you and moms. We're going to work around your schedule. We're going to come out to you right after this meeting. We'll hook up with the captain, maybe yourself and some other concerned tenants. Just like the mayor was saying, we walked through the Polo Grounds last week. We'll walk the building. You show us everything, and we'll tailor a response to your needs through the captain. We can give you numbers all day long. We're going to give you a little human touch here, so you let us know when your schedule allows. Denis, you hook up with her after this. Let's make that happen.

Captain O'Hanlon:Yes, chief.

Mayor Adams:Bring some of the other residents. Organize the residents so we can go through and do an analysis. As the chief state, it's about tailoring, and that's what we saw at the Polo Ground[s]. We got to get back to the days of doing the verticals. I don't want my guys just driving through. No, you got to go up and walk up and down those stairs. If you see people there, you can't just ignore it. Do you live in a building? If you live in a building, you know what, that's fine, but if you don't live in a building, this is not a hangout. This is where people live. I don't want you up on the roof playing with your dogs. I don't want you just creating havoc.

You deserve to be in a safe environment, and that's what we're going to push for. We're going to go out to your location and walk through like we did with the Polo Ground[s] and like we did with other NYCHA residents as well.

Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, Community Affairs, Police Department:Mayor, if I may just jump in real quick? When we walked through the Polo Ground houses, we spoke to the ATA presidents over there. We started a WhatsApp group message with the NCOs. We still want people to call 911, but after you called 911, you can put it right into the chat group. "Hey, listen, there's a homeless person sleeping inside of the building." Now all of the NCOs get it. I know that you don't want to hear about how many arrests we have. We want to make sure you feel safe when you walk into your building. Maybe, captain, we can get together and do the same thing that we did over there. That may be helpful. Just throwing it out there.

Mayor Adams:Yes, because, usually, when you see it, you should report it. It doesn't have to always be 911. Be connected with your NCOs, your community affairs, Commissioner Stewart. "Hey, there's a homeless person sleeping on the third floor." We can get folks there and address that issue for you. Quality of life is everything. You have to feel safe in your building.

Commissioner Kreizman:Table number four.

Question:Good evening, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams:How are you doing?

Question:Hi, my name is Katherine Canto. I'm the treasurer of Manhattanville. My question is, what are you going to do to improve Manhattanville and the quality of life? The garbage? As you was saying about the garbage, yes, the garbage are going to be in bins, but you have drug addicts that come through–

Mayor Adams:[Inaudible]the mic.

Question:Sorry. You have drug addicts that come through and open them, take out the garbage, leave it all over the floor. It brings rats, it brings roaches. We also have the crime, the smoking of the marijuana on the floors. That's not good quality of life. We have children. We have elderly that smell that. How can we improve this?

Mayor Adams:That's what the captain was just talking about, about coming and catering a plan here. What I've noticed as I move throughout the city and park my car and walk through, I was speaking with Commissioner Tisch, every NYCHA housing area that I visit, I see garbage all over the place. That just makes no sense. We need to containerize the garbage where people can put their garbage.

It's unbelievable to change in an environment when your garbage is not all over your stairs, all over your street. A lot of people don't pick up after their dogs. We need to change the quality of life. We don't have the billions that are needed to do all the capital programs, but changing quality of life, cleanliness, containerizing garbage, making sure people are not loitering in your hallways. There are things that are within our span of control that we can do and that we are going to do.

Commissioner Kreizman:Mr. Mayor, we have NYCHA, Daniel Greene.

Mayor Adams:Talk into the mic.

Daniel Greene, Executive Vice President of Property Management, NYCHA:Good evening, everybody. My name is Dan Greene. I'm the Executive Vice President of Property Management at NYCHA. I work at a property every single day. I get there at 7.45 in the morning. I meet with our janitorial staff, and I see the conditions that you talk about. They're not acceptable. We need to get our doors fixed. We need to continue to partner with the NYPD and Department of Homeless Services to address the vagrancy. We have been working with NYPD, for example, on a new program to address squatters that break into some of our apartments, which we often find some really significant criminal activity. We need to clean. We're subject to the same requirements that we just talked about.

Containerization is something that we do under our HUD agreement. We want our residents to use our hoppers. Every NYCHA building has a hopper. We know they're a little bit old, and they're a little bit small, but we really want residents to dispose of their garbage into their hopper. I, as the EVP of Property Management, I make sure that our neighborhood administrators, our superintendents, are staying on top of the compactor outages to make sure that they are put back in operation. We have a long way to go, but we are really making progress.

For example, on lead paint, when I took over the lead paint program just a few years ago, NYCHA was doing 400 abatements a year. Now we're doing 400 abatements a month. We're relocating families to hotels to make sure that we do the work safely. If we can get there with a program like lead, we can absolutely get there with public safety. It's not acceptable. I'm going to provide you with my cell phone number, as I do for every NYCHA resident. We can visit your property as soon as this week to take a walk-through and see the conditions of what we can do to improve the conditions at the property.

Mayor Adams:We are not even going to try to pretend. Listen, NYCHA has an 80 billion dollar capital to a whole. Not million, billion. There's stuff we can do, but you don't need dollars and cents to make sure the garbage is picked up, to make sure people are not sleeping in your hallways, to make sure that people are not taking down the quality of your life but when it comes down to some of those capital repairs, we're not getting help from the federal government. We need more help from the state. We are investing in NYCHA, but when you have an 80-billion-dollar whole now, we've done some amazing things with the NYCHA land trust.

We have a great project I think is a pathway for it in Chelsea where they're going to build the building, move people, the residents into the new building, take down the old building. Some of these buildings behind the walls are devastating and we can't keep putting a band-aid on how bad these buildings are. NYCHA deserve the same quality that anyone deserves that's paying their rent and that is our focus. It's a huge challenge, but we believe we can get it done. We're going to make a major dent. How many land trusts did we vote on and get past?

Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer:The NYCHA trust that the mayor talked about, NYCHA residents and leaders fought really hard with us in Albany to get that legislation. It passed and Nostrand houses in Brooklyn was the first instance of residents voting and they voted just a couple of months ago. Overwhelming turnout. They voted for the trust. We have another one, Bronx River addition, that voting is concluding soon and there will be more.

What is important about that model, a few things. Number one, the residents choose. The residents choose because for too long there were too many policies, too many programs, too many decisions that everyone else made, but you know who wasn't in the center of it? NYCHA residents and we knew that had to change.

Number two, it unlocks resources. The mayor said in the face of a 70-billion-dollar capital budget, we can't just use the same programs or hope and pray that the federal government or the state government is going to give us tens of billions of dollars. The NYCHA trust, as well as the PACT program, are two paths for transformation. It basically unlocks funding from the federal government so that those repairs can happen.

In the past calendar year, we have with the leadership at NYCHA and with this administration closed more projects, so advanced more projects with PACT and with the trust than ever before in addition to spending more in terms of capital dollars to do those repairs that need to happen on a day-to-day basis.

It's not going to happen overnight, but what NYCHA has needed for way too long is the attention, the resources, and the commitment of all of government to make sure that we finally, finally pay attention to the issues that have been plaguing NYCHA developments for too long. We're well on our way, a lot more work to do, and feedback in town halls like this, what we're hearing across the city, is critical so that we stay on the right course.

Mayor Adams:So important, attention, paying attention, making sure we are focused on it. This has been a high priority for us and we spend time walking through to see what can we do right now. You're right, DM, this is a Herculean task, but we can't be afraid to engage because we're not going to finish the task. We have to start the task. I say over and over again, for years people are saying help is on its way. Those bugles were not the cavalry, it's taps. NYCHA has been dying, and it's time for us to be focused on bringing NYCHA to the level that it deserve. We're going to give it our all. We're going to give it our all to make that happen.

Commissioner Kreizman:Table number five.

Mayor Adams:Wherever you want to stand, brother, wherever you want to stand. You want to stand here next to me?

Question:I want to come up here with you, brother.

Mayor Adams:Whatever. I am so low-maintenance, man.

Question:It's an honor, Honorable Mayor Eric Adams…

Mayor Adams:Thank you.

Question:To be in your presence. Everyone has opinions, but my opinion is valuable when it comes to you. I believe that you're doing a very good job. I believe that you're upholding your position as a mayor and making sure that those who put you in office, you will be held accountable. I just want to thank you for that.

Mayor Adams:Appreciate you for that, brother. Appreciate you. Thank you.

Question:The other thing, I have a non-profit organization which is called Uptown Inner City League.

Mayor Adams:What was it called? Uptown?

Question:Uptown Inner City League Inc. We're a nonprofit and we've been working here in this community for over 32 years as volunteers and I am the president and founder of Uptown Inner City. My name is Kelvin McCallister. I grew up here in Manhattanville and I still live here in the community. I had a very good friend. I'll be brief. I had a very good friend and his name was Mayor David Dinkins. I know that Mayor David Dinkins would be so proud of the work…

Mayor Adams:He was my mentor.

Question:There you go. Of the work that you're doing in the community because he was a buddy of mine, and now I can say you are now officially a buddy of mine, too.

Table five, right? Table five is over there. We have a lot to ask you, but we took everything down. You'll be with us here until next week, so we know your schedule is too busy. We have a couple of things we wanted to address with you. How do we ensure that we have appropriate housing opportunities to address mental illness, the migrant crisis, and renovations that are done in a way that protects the health of residents?

Number two, what is being done to ensure the safety of residents, specifically, how are we addressing smoke shops, which was touched on earlier, bail reform, the shortage of school safety, which is important, safety agents, which is very important to our young people, and creating recreational opportunities of adolescents?

Mayor Adams:Thank you. Well said.

Question:Thank you.

Mayor Adams:Do me a favor, tell that brother to write down on a piece of paper for you where he got that red jacket from. That's rocking, man. I'm going to let my good commissioner, Dr. Vasan, talk about the whole mental health piece, because that's a major, the three issues we're fighting in the city. One, recidivism. There's a small number of people who are doing repeated bad things to good people. Second, is severe mental health illness, something that Dr. Vasan is just really wrapping his head around. Third are the random acts of violence. Those three issues are really playing on the psyche of New Yorkers. Doctor, can you talk about the mental health stuff?

Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene:Sure, absolutely. Thank you for the question. I'm glad to be here with my colleagues because this is a team effort. Dr. Katz and his team at the public hospital system, H&H, Commissioner Park at our social services department. Housing is crucial. Housing is foundational to any recovery. It's impossible to live with a mental illness on the street and hope to recover. You can have the best medications, you can have the best access to care. If you don't have a roof over your head, it's impossible to recover.

I have to say, I'm really proud of the team and our efforts to try to open up more housing units to people with chronic serious mental health needs. There aren't enough units. We need to open up more and that's also why the commissioner and I are working to revitalize the New York 1515 program to get 15,000 units built by 2015 to redouble that commitment. That was a commitment from a different time to redouble that commitment and ensure that a lot of those units are going to people with serious mental illness, but the other two pillars of care are health care and community, and we're also making investments there.

On health care, not only through our outreach teams, doing sweeps for the subway, doing street outreach, making sure that people are actually getting into care, whether it be through most of them, the vast majority of them are coming into care and off the street voluntarily, and the very, very, very small subset that need assistance to do that from our clinicians, or from our law enforcement partners, and getting into one of our public hospitals, or getting into one of the hospitals in our areas and saying, "How can we start you on your journey to recovery?" That's two pillars, housing and health care.

The third pillar is community because you can have a roof over your head and you can have medications in your body, but if you have nothing to do and no one to share your life with, there's no way to stay stable and recover. That's why we're investing upstream, as the mayor said, in programs like clubhouses. We've just doubled our investment in something called clubhouses, which are day centers, lifelong communities, for people who live with serious mental illness where you can find people who are going on the same journey, you can find people who are at different points in their journey, and it can serve as an early warning system for crises as well. When you stop coming, or when you behave erratically at one of these clubhouses, we can wrap our arms around you, ensure that you don't end up on the street, or in one of our emergency rooms.

I just want to say, we didn't get here overnight. Our mental health system has been neglected for a very, very, very long time. We closed our asylums, we started closing our asylums in the late 60s into the 70s. Nationally, we never made the kinds of investments into mental health that we needed. Only in the last couple of years and especially under this administration, are we focusing on severe mental illness and staying focused and the solutions are not easy, but we're going to stick with it. The mayor talked a lot about NYCHA and this long-standing problem of neglect. Well, we've neglected our mental health system too, and we're not doing that anymore. We're glad to partner with you to do it and I'm just very glad to have a great group of colleagues here to do it with.

Mayor Adams:Well said, thank you. We here lined up together, it just so happened we're sitting together. This is Dr. Katz, he runs Health + Hospital. This is Jess, I'm going to be screwing up your name. Jess is in charge of ACS. Molly is in charge of our whole homeless operation. Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom is not here with us, but when Molly has done around the migrants and asylum seekers, think about this for a moment. As it was indicated, 180,000 migrants and asylum seekers was dropped into our city. 180,000, 1.5 to the size of Albany into the city.

We have no authorization to stop buses from coming in. Only the federal government can do that. We can't. We don't have any authorization to deport anyone, even if they commit a serious crime. The federal government can do that and then our laws that were passed in 2019 changed that we couldn't even do that. We have a requirement to feed and house and give basic needs. Over 30,000 children went through our educational system. We are required to do that.

When I go to the HERRCs where the asylum and migrants are, they only ask for one thing. They say, "Eric, we don't want your money. We don't want your housing. We don't want you to feed us. We don't want anything from you. We just want to work." I cannot give them authorization to work. The federal government tells me you can't do that. They gave us a problem. They put people in this circ*mstance, won't give us the resources. We spent $4 billion they gave us and we had to fight for a 100 million from them of a $4 billion price tag.

When you look at this city due to what Molly and Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom and others, not one child or family sleeps on the streets of the city of New York because of what we have done. When I say we, not only our administration, but this entire city. The volunteers that go to these centers, the e-moms, the rabbis, the preachers that go and have services there. We had to step up because the federal government has not stepped up.

Congress needs to have real immigration reform, and we need to give people the authorization to work. Think about this for a moment. We had thousands of Ukrainian migrants and asylum seekers that came here after the war. Do you hear about them? You know why? They have the right to work. If you have the right to work from Ukraine, why can't you have the right to work from Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico, and Columbia?

Something is wrong here. Something is wrong. Imagine where you would be, your family would be if you are first or second generation if your family did not have the right to work. Work is more than just what you do in the AM hours. It's the precursor to sleep that allows you to experience the American Dream. You deny a person the right to work, you deny them the dignity that they deserve. You should see what is happening at these HERCs. You have thousands of people who are sitting around all day, every day, can't get a legal job.

We're creating sweatshops. This is creating an atmosphere where women are going out doing illegal things because they have to provide for their families. This is something that should not be happening, not only in New York, but in Chicago, in Denver, in Los Angeles, in Boston. Now check out what I just said. Houston, Chicago, Denver at one time, Boston, Los Angeles, you know what's familiar in all those places?

Audience:Black mayors.

Mayor Adams:Black mayors. Think about it. Think about it. Is it accident? The sister in Philadelphia, the day she got sworn in, you know what they did? They sent a plane of migrants to her. Mayor Bass in Los Angeles, the previous mayor was getting no migrants. Mayor Bass became mayor, what did they do? They sent migrants to her.

That's how you destabilize the city, then you come away saying Black mayors and mayors of colors cannot govern. No, you destroy our cities and hurt our cities. That's when you have a problem governing, but with all of that, we're still moving the city forward because of what we're doing and the ability of this team that's sitting up here right now. The city is not surviving, folk, it's thriving. All the numbers show how the city is doing well. We're the safest big city in America, and our economy continues to recover, even with what they're throwing at us. Next table, Mona.

Commissioner Kreizman:Table seven.

Audience:Six.

Commissioner Kreizman:Six.

Mayor Adams:How are you, sir?

Question:Hi, Mayor Adams. It's great to see you here.

Mayor Adams:Thank you.

Question:Thank you for coming out. I'm a little young, but you're the first mayor I've seen in my neighborhood, so it feels really good to have you here.

Question:Thank you to all the deputy mayors and the deputies.

Mayor Adams:Well, you're a little young, but I'm a lot young.

Question:I want to congratulate you on the amazing things that you've done so far, and I want to give you the opportunity to do another amazing one. I'm here representing a group of about a thousand people from 155th, the Polo Grounds to 125, who are deeply concerned about the development at 1727 Amsterdam Avenue. The site right now houses a community health center.

People are concerned about who's coming in, how it might relate to some of the issues, develop possibly that the plan is not following land-use laws, but we have done our part. We've come up with a better plan. A plan that would address the mental health crisis and affordable housing. We're trying to make it lighter because we know you've been left out. The community board has approved a plan. Well, they want a plan that would build 50 percent more affordable housing and allow the health services to return to the site. My question for you is, would you come out in support of the community plan tonight front of us all?

Mayor Adams:I love when people do that. I love when people do that. Dr. Katz, would you come out in support of this plan in front of everyone tonight? Is it on? Come on, come on. You're the doctor.

Dr. Mitchell Katz, President and CEO, NYC Health + Hospitals:Very good. Jess, help me. Just to start. I'm standing up because the building itself belongs to Health and Hospitals. The history of this building is that Health and Hospitals wanted to use land that we weren't really using, was not well used to build housing because we've talked before, and mayor has talked very articulately about how important housing is.

We see this site as a potential for 200 apartments. Now, if there's a way to do more than 200 apartments, I have a great brother, Adolfo, who's the specialist in building, which I am not. I'm the primary care doctor, and our interest is in housing people because we believe that housing leads to health, but if with my colleagues, there's a way to do more units, we'd always be open and interested.

Mayor Adams:It's an empty building now? Tell me. Give him a mic. Where did DJ go?

Question:It's a health center on the corner there. Right now, it has three community centers that were started by people in the community 50 years ago. They currently provide mental health services, one of the oldest couple houses in the city. They provide all sorts of medical and one of the first ophthalmologists north of 125th Street. Some of those people are being forced out in the current plan, some of them are returning. Our plan not only allows for more space, but for more health services to return to the site. I've met people in the neighborhood, people who are grandparents, whose parents went to the ophthalmologist, and whose grandchildren go to the ophthalmologist.

Mayor Adams:What is it now, doctor? It's a space? What is it now?

Dr. Katz:It is a mostly not used building, but agreed, there is the Bowen Clinic, the Heritage, and there's the ophthalmologist. We've been working with all three to figure out. Bowen has a specific plan to come back. That's part of the building with the other two. We've been working at what is the best location for them going forward, but again, to me, the big issue is 200 units. These are going to be great units in a city that is desperate for housing, and that's our big motivation.

Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer:If I could just add. Thank you. Thank you for saying that it's important to address our housing issues, as we think through the very important issues of continuity and stability for clearly what are neighborhood anchors and critical institutions. We've been working very, very closely with your council member who has also been a champion of making sure we try to address all of the goals. Here's what I'll say as we work with a council member and would love to see the plan because we don't have a monopoly on good ideas, we want all of these objectives to be accomplished. We'll take a look at the plan really quickly.

I just want to add one more thing, Mayor. When you all see projects that either go through the community board and you're about to see a major initiative called the City of Yes for housing opportunity. It's going to raise I'm sure a lot of questions on your end about what is it that we're trying to do, and we want to build housing in every neighborhood. What I just encourage everyone here to do, is to actively engage in that, because if we don't build a little bit more housing in every neighborhood of the city, you know what doesn't change? The fact that we have a 1.4 percent vacancy rate in this city.

That is a challenge, not just for people who want to come to the city, like many who are in this room, or your ancestors, it's about your elders, it's about your children, who want to live in this neighborhood but can't afford to. I encourage everyone to work with us. Whether it's supportive housing, that is permanent housing with supportive services, or affordable housing, which is available to low-income families across the city, just keep that open mind because we're going to need your help if we're to make a dent in the housing crisis that has for too long make too many New Yorkers suffer, but we'll follow up on your ideas. Okay?

Mayor Adams:Let's connect and let's see. I'm really interested in this, especially if we can get more housing out of it. I don't know, is Tiffany here? Was just assisted that–

Oh, I didn't see you. Tiffany brought a project to our attention a couple of months ago, where it's a beautiful building, new building, developer walked away from it. We were one-time moving migrants into the place as a temporary spot, then we were looking at a homeless, Tiffany said, "Wait a minute, why don't we try to turn this into affordable housing?" Now we're sitting down, figuring out, how can we convert it into affordable houses?

We're not the type of people that say, "Wait a minute, we have all the answers." No. That's why we have these conversations and if this brother has a good idea that we could get more units of housing and get people permanent housing, that's what we want. We want to place people in permanent housing. Growing up in a homeless shelter is not housing. If you grow up in a homeless shelter as a child, you're less likely to graduate from high school. If you don't educate, you will incarcerate. We need people in permanent housing. That's our fight. Matter of fact, what are our numbers, deputy mayor, on permanent housing?

Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer:In the last calendar year, we had a record year. We financed over 24,000 units of housing. In that larger number, and so Commissioner Carrión and other colleagues were really part of that. Within that larger number, here's what's most important. It was the highest number of new construction, new homes will add to our supply. It was the highest number of homes for the formerly homeless.

It was the highest number of supportive homes. This model that I mentioned that is tried and true, permanent housing plus support services, but it was also the highest number of marketed units. What does that mean? That means we didn't just finance it, we didn't just build it, but we made sure that the most number of New Yorkers got into those units. All of that we are proud of, but we know that the job isn't done because we still have that 1.4 percent vacancy rate.

We're working really hard with the City Council, with the state government, and with the federal government so that we have the resources that we need. That we clear the zoning barriers that exist. Again, all of this we can only do with your partnership, so we're all ears.

Mayor Adams:Right. Highest numbers. All those highest numbers she stated in the history of this city, history of the city. That's what we are doing. You're not going to read about it, though. All the haters, go back. "Oh, well, he's outlaid. Oh, he has a nice suit. Oh, he does this, he does this." No, not Eric Adams, David Dinkins. Remember what they said about David Dinkins? Who do we get? Giuliani.

The city was thriving and coming back under David Dinkins, go look at the records, but they created a narrative that everybody started buying into. His base started buying into the narrative. They started listening to all the noise and started making it seem like David Dinkins didn't inherit a mess. After 12 years under one mayor, he came in, he did safe city, safe streets.

Crime was going down, the economy was recovering and they put this narrative out there and everybody started buying into how terrible he was. He was an excellent mayor that showed this city on recovery, and we turned on him and we got Giuliani instead. Boy, that sounds deja vu to me. Next table.

Commissioner Kreizman:Table seven.

Mayor Adams:How are you, ma'am?

Question:Good evening.

Mayor Adams:Good evening to you.

Question:My name is Ebony and I'm a parent and the PTA secretary at PSMS 161.

We would like to know how can you ensure that NYPD is building stronger relationships with school and the community's youth in a proactive way in and outside of schools?

Mayor Adams:Love it, love it, love it. Commissioner Howard, we did youth town halls with young people throughout the summer. We did a few of them. What were the number one and number two issues that they talked about?

Commissioner Howard:Number one issue was mental health and trauma. Number two was relationship with NYPD.

Mayor Adams:Number one and number two, mental health and trauma. Dr. Vasan heard them. He did Teen Space. We were using technology where young people are able to get mental health professionals 24/7. Number two was law enforcement. All those young people that stood up at the meeting overwhelmingly stated we want a good relationship with our police department. All the adults were running around saying take school safety agents out of school. Young people were saying we don't know what y'all talking about. We want our school safety agents in the school.

We want them there and that's why we have them there, but the young people overwhelmingly, all of this talk about young people don't like cops and they dislike cops. I want you to go into what you're doing with young people around, this is Deputy Commissioner Stewart, but finish saying what you're saying, you are dead on, sister.

Commissioner Howard:Not only are you dead on, but NYPD, DYCD, we heard the young people and Deputy Commissioner Stewart, Police Commissioner Caban, 1,000 young people in Summer Youth Employment Program, the largest city agency, to have young people work side by side with police officers, understanding the job, and understanding the relationship and how important the relationship is.

Mayor Adams:Commissioner Stewart came in. When he came in, he was a former detective, went on to the district attorney's office. He was giving me ideas for years, and I said, please come and join our team. What he's doing with community affairs is just unbelievable. Police are not just crime fighting. We don't believe solving problems is locking people up. Create conditions that people don't have to go out and do criminal behavior in the first place. Go into some of the stuff that you're doing as the commissioner over there.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart:Good evening. My thing is you don't have to arrest, we have to invest in our communities. School safety agents, gentleman read, we have 3,700. We are down 171. We have a class going in in May. There's 150. We'll be up to par. School safety agents, I must say this, you don't know how valuable these school safety agents are. I walked the hall with them, and they look at the school safety. They call them mom, auntie, uncle.

They not only solve crimes, but they prevent crimes. School safety agents, my hat's off to you. I've been saying this for the last two years now, underrated, but you do a great job if you're school safety agents. All right, listen, so about our kids and our youth, I like sports, but we just can't be about sports. It has to be sports and education. See, community affairs officers. Every precinct, we have sports, we have football, basketball, we have volleyball. I just put into golf for our kids too.

We also have college tours that we do with our kids. We did 12 already. It's a collaboration with DOE, collaboration with SUNY and CUNY. We take 40 kids to these colleges, these universities, and when they get off these school with our PD buses, you should see their faces in these universities. We show them we have an admissions and we have somebody to give them a tour.

A lot of these kids live in a four-block radius. We have to take our kids out of this radius. We have a set-up aviation program for our kids. 15 Black kids to be pilots who are certified and trained by our aviation unit. We had a graduation on March 8th. 15 Black kids, aviation. We have a drone program. They can learn how to work drones. See, the sports is good. That's the engagement part. How to read the retention part. How do we do it? We got to have these conversations.

Every time I come to these town halls, sometimes a member will listen to your problem. You, I'm listening to your problem. Our Black communities, how come you don't know your commanding officers? The captain's right here. Does anybody know him? Chief Stevenson, community person. Does anybody know him? How come we don't form these relationships in our communities? We have a generational dislike for the police department. Our kids.

Add 20 Black females, 14 to 16. I asked each and every one of them, "Do you like the police?" Not one said yes. That's a problem. I always get the question, "How do we change it?" We got to keep showing up. I always use the same phrase. I met my wife 38 years ago. I wasn't her first choice, but I kept showing up. It was like on the borderline of stalking, but we have to keep showing up for our kids. We have to let them know that the police department cares. We have to have these programs. We have to have these conversations in our communities. We have to let you know that we care. This ain't the police department in the 60s, the 70s and the 80s. I know what happened. I'm a Black male. My father was Black.

I know we weren't treated fairly. We weren't. This is a new police department now. The diversity in our Police Department as is dais. We have to have that relationship and this conversation to let you know that's a new police department. We're transparent and we're here for you. We have programs, we have an explorer's program, 14 and 19 with Commissioner Kaz. He was out 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, one night with these kids, taking them all over the city. See, that's the engagement. The conversation is the retention. Commissioner Howard, we work hand in hand. When I came here to Summer Youth Employment, we started out with 800 kids.

With his help and the mayor's help, we have over 1,000 kids now. We have a YPA program for the summer, 6 weeks, 1,700 kids. We have a program in the Bronx, in Harlem, and Queens where The Giants help us fund the program. Over 3,000 kids. We do sports with them, but we also tutor them in schools. It's a collaboration again with DOE. Everybody works side by side. Chief Chell, his NCOs, they work with our Community Affairs. This program is for our kids. As parents and grandparents, you can't sit around the house and say, "There's nothing for the kids to do." There's a lot for the kids to do.

Commissioner Howard and I found out we weren't like that cool because we were putting these programs out on Instagram and Twitter, now X. Nobody goes to the Police Department and say, "What's popping?" We got an influencer who's a younger guy. We're going to use him to get the message out to our kids we have a lot of programs. Hopefully that we can get it together.

Listen, don't sit around and wait for the police. Your situation too, the Police Department, Commissioner Kaz, Chief Shell and I, we go through stats and crime reports, and we deploy police officers in these positions. If we don't know what's happening, how can we fix it? Commissioner Kaz has talked about the WhatsApp. That's a hot plan. Something's happening in your building, in your neighborhood, text it and we'll be there because we'll address it. All right? Thank you.

Question:Mayor, I just wanted to add on to what Commissioner Stewart says. He talked about the explorer program. I'm a product of that program. I was mentored under Chief Magi back when I was 13 years old. I'm getting old now. I'm 45 and look at me now. This is from being engaged in the youth explorer program, hanging out in a precinct when I was young, and to be able to come back as the deputy commissioner, go through the ranks from police officer, detective, and then to be appointed by the police commissioner, it's an honor to be up here.

I'm a product of the Law Enforcement Explorer program. I'm sure people probably see me with the drones. I love drones. I love technology. Just so you know, when I talk to these companies, and these are billion-dollar companies, the last thing I ask them before we close on a Zoom call is, "What type of programs can you do for the kids in our city?" They say, "Oh, we can do this, this, this." I go, "Great. This is what I want you to do and you're going to pay for it." That's how we make– They have to come back and give to our youths in our city because a lot of the times, the youths in our city cannot afford programs that other municipalities have, other parts of the city may have.

Nassau County, Suffolk County, upstate. I always make sure that I try to include something in regards what can we use, what can they do for our use in our city with the drones? Guess what? The Skydio company taught a free drone lesson, a couple of them down at Fort Hyde, to about 150 high school kids.

Mayor Adams:That's the good stuff. Commissioner Stewart, he didn't even touch on all the stuff he's doing. He does an amazing baby shower with these mothers that don't have the basic supplies, diapers, playpens, and all the other items. He gets almost a thousand new mothers at these baby showers that he's doing. Check out the programs that he said. Aviation, pilots. There's a pilot shortage. We should be building a pipeline. Golf, you know how many deals are made on a golf course? Many of our young people don't think golf is something they should do. We got to expose our young people to know that living in one square mile is not your destiny.

You can't grow up in one square mile, go to school in one square mile, have your home in one square mile. He's saying, let's take our children beyond that one square mile and realize that you don't fall off the planet because you leave your neighborhood. That's what this commissioner is doing. I'm so happy he has joined our team, and we see the productivity from that. Where am I?

Commissioner Kreizman:That's for table eight.

Mayor Adams:How are you, ma'am?

Question:Good evening.

Mayor Adams:Good to see you.

Question:Good to see you.

Mayor Adams:Thank you.

Question:Good evening. Welcome to you and your team.

Mayor Adams:Thank you.

Question:Annette Robinson here, lifelong resident and community board member. You and Councilman Abreu opened with Montefiore Plaza and it's nice to see that it is now on your radar. My question though, steadily since Covid, those folks do not live in this neighborhood. They're here because of the consistent narcotic trafficking. We need to know what is going to be done about the sale of drugs. I have one more question. The Landmarks Preservation Commission consistently approves historical districts and white communities.

Yet our community has presented a request to designate a portion of our community as the West Harlem Historical District. The commission has dragged its feet, instead removed many blocks. Gentrification and displacement is an issue. Historical districts save the contextual fabric of our community and homes. We need support.

Mayor Adams:The Plaza, that's what we walk through?

Councilmember Abreu:Yes. I can speak to that. I want you to know that we've already had two meetings in just the past two months alone with– Oh, yes, you were at the meetings. Nice seeing you again. At these meetings, we've met with the local precinct, the 30th precinct. What we're looking for is a targeted effort where anyone in here, if you know of a specific location where you're seeing narcotics or distribution, go to your local police department.

There's going to be a coordinated way by working with them, working with the Manhattan DAs to make sure that we get drugs off our street. I know that I have a lot of faith in the 30th precinct. They've been coming to our meetings, they've been giving us updates, and you can count on me to reach out to them and continue to have that conversation. It's going to come down to targeted enforcement in that area, which the 30th precinct has already told us that they're committed to doing.

Mayor Adams:What's the problem there? What's the problem? Is it open drug use, drug sales?

Question:All of it. It's been steady.

Mayor Adams:There's a mic.

Question:All of it and it's been steady. Those guys and women are out on the street because there are narcotics being sold in this community. They're not here because they just decided to find a park to lay up on. That whole 136th Street stretch at one time, they were openly selling drugs. Now they went inside and you may need the community to let you know, but you guys know where the drugs are being sold at, and they have to be consistent about doing what they need to do.

Mayor Adams:Yes. You're going to get to John Chell, but we are big on this open drug use. We're big on this. A whole lot of folks who we elect in office push back when we go after these quality-of-life issues of over-drug use. Everybody call me Mayor Popo, you don't want to do this. I don't think people should be sitting on my stoop injecting themselves with drugs. I don't think people should be in my park where I see needles all over the place.

What I need, I need, this is so important when we hear your voice, because when I start talking about what's the expectations are in our community that we should not have these open drug uses, you'd be surprised that people want to follow Portland, Oregon and legalize hard drugs, okay?

Question:Mayor Adams, when I say to you open drug use, that's the effect. The cause is that narcotics are being sold in the neighborhood. The last time I checked, law enforcement has a responsibility to stop the sale of drugs. Would that be accurate?

Mayor Adams:Yes. Not only are you accurate, and there's a process to do so in doing that because we do have to follow the whole due process of identifying the person. We do operations to do that. Our narcotics arrests are up. The goal is you can't just go in and say I think you're selling, so I'm going to lock you up. That's just not how the process is. We send narcotics there, they do some observations, they do buy and bust. You build a case with the district attorney so you can really eradicate the problem.

That is how you resolve the problem. Now, you put this on our radar, we're going to focus in there, we're going to bring in a district attorney, we're going to bring in a team, our narcotics team, and let's see if we can find the source of this so we can eradicate the problem.

Question:Now my second question.

Mayor Adams:Now, the landmark– go ahead, John.

Chief Chell:Just, I bet you don't know this, when you call 911 and you say, and you can do this anonymous, you say, "Hey, they're selling drugs on 123 Main Street." That automatically generates a complaint report that in this case goes right to our Manhattan North narcotics teams. They have to investigate that complaint, like you were talking about, inside drug sales.

Do we send undercovers in? Do we do search warrants? Like the mayor said, do we build a case? Afterwards, we can talk about what you're talking about. I know what you're talking about. Some key locations. Well, we invest about an extra 200 detectives last year in narcotics as we saw to your point, an uptick in narcotics violence.

I just want to state how the process works. When you call up, you stay anonymous. That generates a case for that narcotics team. They have to go in and do a case, and it'll be a long-term case, a short-term case, but it could be just a simple buy and bust operation, but it does get handled. Afterwards, we can talk to exactly what you might be talking about offline and get some locations from you. Does that work?

Mayor Adams:What they have done, they've ignored street narcotics. They basically said, "Leave it alone." We came in and said, "No, we're not doing that. You're not selling narcotics on our streets." It was ignored for years. It emboldened people to believe they can be out there and just selling it. The problem just really got aggravated. We are not ignoring it. We put 200 new cops into narcotics. We're going back to doing our real quality of life the same way we did TNT enforcement and other types of enforcement. Because you should not have to deal with that. We're with you. Deputy Mayor.

Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer:Yes. On the question about landmarks.

Mayor Adams:We hear you.

Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer:Really glad that you mentioned it because I think if you look at the history, I think you're right, of where the city has designated landmarks or historic districts, they're in more affluent, wider communities. What has that meant over time that only those stories get told. You know what else? We can't build there. Growth is inhibited. In this administration, we've been really focused on ensuring that the Landmarks Preservation Commission prioritizes equity and transparency.

If you look at what happened in the last calendar year, and I can list, I'd be happy to share, you see that the individual landmark designations as well as more district-wide designations are telling the fuller and richer story of diverse communities in this city.

With respect to the particular either expansion of the Morningside Heights Historic District or any other individual landmarks or individual sites, I'll follow up with you to understand more, but I'll say two things. In order to ensure that we are being fair, it has to have merit. There's a rigorous process to make sure that we are being fair and that any individual landmark or expansion of a district, that it is meritorious. Because those who own the buildings in any particular area, they have different opinions. They have strong opinions about what happens when a district or a building gets landmarked.

The second thing that I'll say is we have to be cognizant because of the history that I mentioned, because for too long the landmarking of a building or the designation of a district seals that neighborhood in ember, and so when we think about our housing crisis, when we think about the need to grow, we have to take that into consideration, so it's definitely a balancing act, but I'd be more than happy to follow up to make sure that the review that is happening, that there isn't foot-dragging, but there's honesty and transparency in that process.

Mayor Adams:So true. Because as the DM stated, that locks in that community, and the homeowners in that community, there's some communities in Brooklyn where a landmark and the homeowners, particularly our older adults who were at the homes for a long time, you have to use only certain contractors to get your building painted, to get your repairs, many of them couldn't afford it, then you look at the list of contractors, there was no diversity on that list. We got to be really conscious when we make that decision, all the people in that area need to know what it means. It's great to say I live in a landmark community, but there's a lot that comes with that.

That if you have to do repairs, particularly external, you got to deal with only certain people who can do work on landmarks. Everybody got to be engaged in that process, but it has to be fair and not ignore other communities. Far too long we have.

Commissioner Kreizman:Table number nine.

Question:Good evening, Mayor.

Mayor Adams:How are you doing? You got the loudest applause tonight.

Question:That's how it goes sometimes. I got to say. Affordable housing.

Mayor Adams:Yes.

Question:We in this district don't see much affordable housing going up. They built a building not too far from me the other day, studios started 3,200, so people, young people go to college, come back, can't afford that. My building is an older building. Went condo about five years ago. Apartment started 800,000 to a million dollars. What can the city do to encourage low-income, not affordable, because affordable is affordable for whom? Low-income housing.

Even the building they spoke about 1727, when I met with BRC the developer, they said they would take– the rents would start at 80 percent of area medium income. Those who don't know what that is, that's a $125,000. Not too many people make that. 80 percent was still 80,000 at that area. What can be done so people can stay in this area? People go away to school and come back. They have to go somewhere else. I just don't think it's fair. I have one more question.

Mayor Adams:What we have to do, brother, we have to build low and moderate housing because if you are husband and wife and you work full-time at McDonald's as a fast food worker, we've done so well of raising minimum wages to living wages for people that now they can't afford some of the affordable housing that we're building.

If we don't think about the accountant and the teacher as well as the messenger who is trying to raise the family. You need low and middle-income because the 200,000 that we're leaving are middle-working-class people that are leaving the city because it's no longer affordable. They don't qualify for low and they don't make enough to have a market rate.

That's what the deputy mayor was talking about with the City of Yes. We've had racist zoning laws in this city where people create these zoning heights so you don't build in their community. You have too many communities in this city that have access to good hospitals, access to good school, access to good food, access to good transportation, but they have built no affordable housing in their community. We're saying let's build housing in every community so when our children come home from school, they went to school, they come home, and they get a good high-paying job.

We don't want them to leave, we want them to be able to stay and have roots in their community. That's what this City of Yes initiative is. Is saying, "Every community in this city should play a role in building affordable housing." Hats off to Julie Menin, the council person. She just had one of the first affordable units built on the Upper East Side in her community. Too many communities don't have affordable housing. People run around saying housing isn't right, but on Monday, but on Tuesday, they say, "I'm building in my backyard."

No, we got to build throughout the entire city so that everyone can have the right to live in this city and walk a few minutes to a park. You're dead on, but right now, we have a 1% vacancy rate, even lower for low-income housing when you have less of an inventory that raises the stock. We need Albany to give us a housing deal. That's what we've been up and back and forth to Albany. Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer has been back and forth to Albany.

We need Albany to give us a housing deal to repurpose a lot of these apartment buildings. We could repurpose into housing. We need to build higher, we need to make sure we have an incentive to build, we need to push through a tenant protection. I'm with that all the way, but we need to build more housing. We have an inventory problem in this city. Got to build more. Thank you so much for that question.

Commissioner Kreizman:Question number 10.

Question:Hello, Mayor Adams. How are you?

Mayor Adams:Quite well. How are you?

Question:I'm doing okay. My name is Jakari. I was born and raised in Harlem. A lot of our concerns from our table were already addressed, so I'm just going to discuss the one topic that wasn't, which was the disability for our disabled residents. It came up that between 128th and 68th Street that there's no ADA accessibility for the disabled. We wanted to know, is there any consideration for elevators or buses? Just how could we address this basically?

Mayor Adams:Who has Mayor's Office of Disability? Not here tonight?

First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright:Was it the DOT? Could you say that address again?

Question:Between 128th…

Question:Between 96th Street and I think 16…

First Deputy Mayor Wright:The train?

Question:The train and 168th Street, I don't believe that there's an elevator.

First Deputy Mayor Wright:DOT is here.

Borough Commissioner Ed Pincar, Department of Transportation:Hi, good evening. I'm Ed Pincar. I'm DOT's Manhattan Borough Commissioner. I'm happy to connect you with our colleagues at New York City Transit to talk about elevators and accessibility on the subway system or on the buses. I have my card, and we'll make sure that we're talking to the right people.

Mayor Adams:Wait, what's happening over there? The elevator's out? Grab the mic. Grab the mic.

Question:I know. I'm being shy. There's a long strip on Broadway without elevators. If you're from 96th Street, there's an elevator, and I don't believe that there's another one up until–

Mayor Adams:Got it.

Question:168th near the hospital. You can't even really get to Columbia Presbyterian on Broadway. If the trains are out, there's an issue, and so you don't have accessibility. Then we were asking if you could consider having more buses run that route so that people can get up and down Broadway. That would be really helpful.

Mayor Adams:Got it. On Broadway from what street to what street?

Question:I believe it's, what, 96th Street. I'm trying to think when the next elevator is. 168th Street.

Mayor Adams:Got it. One of the most challenging things when you are mayor, whatever goes wrong, people look at me. I tell people all the time, a guy got divorced the other day. He said, "I'm blaming you, Eric." MTA is a state authority. We don't control the MTA. The state controls the MTA, but what we are going to do, we're going to reach out to the MTA and our partners with DOT and do an analysis of that area. See, we got Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer. I mean, Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi.

Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, Operations:I got the honor of being nominated by the mayor to join the MTA board. You have four board members that are appointed by the mayor. One thing that we all know with congestion pricing, that money goes into capital improvements, and capital improvements can always be shiny new stuff. A lot of times it has to be in state of good repair and correcting the old stuff, but one of the main things the MTA's focused on, and what my job is as a board member is to ensure that they stay focused on, is improving accessibility in our transportation system. Transportation is the equalizer. Accessible transportation is the ultimate equalizer. We want to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to get around, to work, and socialize in our great city.

Mayor Adams:We're going to look at that. We're going to connect with DOT, we'll ask them to look at it, do an analysis over there to find out…

Councilmember Abreu:Mr. Mayor?

Mayor Adams:that they have access. Yes.

Councilmember Abreu:I have something to add there. We have been working with the elevator lobby. It's made up of the Morningside Heights Commuter Coalition, WE ACT, and they have made a big difference here. We're actually in negotiations with Columbia University and the MTA. Columbia to fund an elevator potentially, but we have to work out the numbers. We are in conversations with Columbia University and the MTA to get a deal done. I'm very optimistic. Now that we know we have a board member there, we could apply the pressure, but really, really grateful for you, mayor, for your attention to this as well.

Mayor Adams:System has to be accessible. It has to be accessible. Not for some, but for all. Yes. Give her the mic. She has one more thing. She didn't even want to talk earlier. She heard the brother talk now.

Question:All right now. The next request, I have a bunch now, is the little kiosk or those sort of electronic notification systems for the subways. I noticed some neighborhoods have more than others, and I know that there's some subway stations where you're really walking down and around. It would be very helpful to have that signage when you enter the subway that says when the train is coming. I know I wait to see three minutes and then I'm going downstairs, and I also see them on the platform.

Mayor Adams:When you're up on platform level?

Question:Both, sir.

Mayor Adams:Got it.

Question:Outside and on the platform.

Mayor Adams:Interesting. Do they have them outside?

Audience:Yes.

Mayor Adams:Okay. You know what, we should do an analysis of where are they? What stations have them? Is it spread out throughout the entire system or is it just in certain areas? We should do an analysis of that. Since you are on an MTA board.

Deputy Mayor Joshi:I will say, listen, if the train's going to be late, it's frustrating if you don't know when it's going to come. There's some solace in knowing it will be five minutes away or four minutes away. Those countdown clocks are really important for commuters.

Mayor Adams:Yes. We're going to have the MTA do an analysis, where are they? See if they are fairly spread out throughout the entire system. Thank you. They are very helpful, those countdown clock. Do you know Deputy Mayor Joshi runs 52-mile marathons? Unbelievable. Yes, sir?

Commissioner Kreizman:Table number 11.

Question:Good evening, mayor.

Mayor Adams:How are you?

Question:I'm great, sir. I'm Reverend Dr. Derrick Shahem Johnson, Sr. I wanted to thank you and your office for giving the Black Liberation Church a citation for Women's History Month to Jennifer Jones Austin. Thank you for that.

Mayor Adams:Thank you.

Question:Some of the seniors they had left, but they charged me with a question. There's a construction going on outside here on Amsterdam, it's closer to, I think, 131st. There's a new building going up and there was a parking lot there where the Access-A-Ride used to come and people with wheelchairs, and then things they can go and get access to the Access-A-Ride. It also is taking up a lot of parking, so they don't have access to get into the Access-A-Ride. This is a quick question. It's not really a question, it's a statement, but I had a quick statement. If I could just take one quick minute. I am the pastor at a Black Liberation Church, and this is–

Mayor Adams:Let me answer the Access-A-Ride DOT. The Access-A-Ride is blocking, the Access-A-Ride? Let me get that then get what you want to say, okay?

Question:Thank you, sir.

Borough Commissioner Pincar:I'm happy right after this I'll walk over and I'll take a look at the site and we will double-check the permits, and anything that they're blocking, we can have them clear out working with the contractor. I'll do that right after tonight.

Question:Thank you, sir.

Mayor Adams:Yes.

Question:I'm just being on the…

Mayor Adams:Go ahead, pastor.

Question:I did a lot of work in the community. There's so much support on the dais. I see a lot of former friends and people who I work within the community. I've been working with the youth over 20 years. I just planted a church in the community, and this is more a statement to everyone on the dais. I just want to say that, and to you, Mr. Mayor, if you all are interested in the healing, restoration and the development of the descendants of America's former slaves, I invite you to support us at the Black Liberation Church in our mission to help aid and assist America's most damaged demographic of people in this country.

We need healing. That's one of my statements as Black people in America. I'm for everybody. I'm for immigration, I'm for all of us to come together and collaborate and work together. Black people, we need your help. The Black church, we need your help. We need resources, and we want to collaborate with partnerships with the mental health. We have a lot going on with conservation, crime. Everything is connected. A lot of it is connected to community trauma and the harm that has been inflicted upon our people.

I'm here as a vessel and as a person who's doing work, I need help. I'm willing to collaborate with all of these great people and these agencies. You can reach us atwww.blackliberationchurch.orgorinfo@blackliberationchurch.organd I'll be on it to serve side by side to help all of the American people, but my heart is definitely– I have a lot of empathy for the pain and suffering of Black people in this country. Thank you.

Mayor Adams:Thank you. Appreciate you, all of your help. Pastor Monrose is the brother. We would love to collaborate together. Listen, we need to be among the least of thee. I always say if Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John was here right now, where would they be? They would have been on Rikers Island with me when I got rebaptized with those inmates to show them that they matter and that I care for them. Sometimes we think we are so great, but then by the grace of God go why? We need to stay among the people. You would never be a good shepherd if you are not among the sheep.

Commissioner Kreizman:Mr. Mayor, before we go to the last table, I just want to thank Tiffany Brown, our Manhattan Borough Director for helping us put this event together.

Thank you, Tiffany. Now, we'll go to the last table, table number 12.

Mayor Adams:Okay, brother. Tiffany got a lot of applause than you, you know that, right? [laughs]

Question:[Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams:[Laughter.]

Question:Thank you. Thank you. All right. Good evening, everyone.

Mayor Adams:How are you?

Question:Good evening, departments and chairs. I'm happy to see you all. Good evening, Councilman Abreu. Good evening, Assemblywoman Rajkumar. All the deputy mayors that have joined us, thank you so much for attending this evening. Your Honor-

Mayor Adams:Thank you.

Question:Thank you so much. All right. We've addressed a lot of issues in the room, but– Oh, that was wild. Our table is concerned about the lack of youth resources. You've mentioned earlier that we've been abandoning children. You said that earlier this evening. That's a common theme, especially since Covid. A lot of us have seen our youth just take the wrong turn and it really is going downhill.

Including but not limited to the DOE cuts, the teacher and staff cuts at schools, the library cuts, additionally, the correlation from that to the increased crime, drug use, and mental health issues that we see in our community, we want to know what the mayor, what these wonderful, esteemed people here are going to do to support not just the mental health, because someone spoke on that earlier, but the resources, the support of our youth.

That gentleman there talked about not just having sports, but also having things that they can grow on. Aviation is amazing. I don't know if people know how expensive it is to take an aviation class. That's a fabulous thing that you're doing. What else can we do? Because our youth need us and without building up our youth all that we're doing in this room is for naught. Thank you.

Mayor Adams:100 percent. I thank you for that, and you're right. We were going through some issues pre-Covid, but Covid just aggravated it beyond belief. A lot of young people of enrollment going back to school. A lot of young people have been traumatized from Covid. I mean, it's unimaginable two years of your life, you lost the socialization that comes with it. I think the long-term impacts of Covid is going to be really haunting us for a long time.

Yes. We're going to do our job, but also this is a moment where we all can step up as individuals. I think sometimes people believe that their presence, it does not matter, but it does. After the Million Man March, the call was to join an organization, get involved with something, go back to your local community and get involved with something. Covid must inspire all of us to get involved with something. Join us. Start a sport league. Do volunteering with your church. Go back and do something to complement what the government can do, because there's a gap in what the government can do.

We have a real financial crisis with the $4 billion we had to allocate, closing our union contracts, all those fiscal responsibility, but we have done an amazing job of making sure that the hurts, the cuts are not devastated. We got a budget that we're getting ready to settle now with the City Council. Let us do this thing. We're going to land this plane, and trust me, we're going to minimize the pain to make sure we don't create and aggravate other issues. Give the sister back the mic. She has something she wanted to say.

Question:Just to add to that. I didn't mention my name is Shaneeka Wilson. I am the Co-chair of the Youth Education Libraries Committee on Community Board 9. I am trying to step up, and many of us in this room on Community Board 9, we're trying to step up.

One of the things I hear the most from youth organizations is that they aren't able to get into schools, because the schools don't have the budgets. These are organizations that are dying to get into schools. They want to teach music, they want teach art, and they want to teach literacy, they want to teach skills, but the schools don't have the budget because, as you mentioned, I realize you have fiscal responsibilities, but it's taken away from our kids and we cannot afford to abandon our children.

Mayor Adams:Yes. The system was just saying the school don't have the budget. When I was borough president, I started something called Extended Use. We notice that we tell our children at 7:00 AM, you're welcome into the schools, then 2:00 p.m., get out and don't come back to the next day. We want to open our school buildings where the nonprofits and other organizations where they don't have to pick up the cause. Where we will pay for the school safety agent, we will pay for the use of the insurance. All of those cause that comes with it.

That is what we're trying to put in the budget now, and the chancellor has done an excellent job with Saturday Night Lights and other initiatives. We believe that if we give our nonprofit's local community groups the space, there's no reason with all the needs we have that we have empty auditoriums in the evening time, that we have empty gyms, some schools have pools that we're not utilizing. We have to utilize every piece of community resources to address these issues that we are facing. Thank you for your question. Go ahead, Commissioner.

Commissioner Howard:I guess we need to also understand exactly why you're not hearing about some of the good things that are happening with our young people. In this very community center along, we have a community-based organization, Graham Windham, who's running an amazing program for young people in this community center. Saturday Night Lights is in this community center. We have 17 programs throughout Community District 9. We have Summer Youth Employment Program, over 1,000 young people who have participated in Summer Youth. We are focusing in on with young people.

Targeted population for our Summer Youth and Program with Fair Futures and young people with disabilities and young people in NYCHA. We've doubled those efforts. We even have programs in Summer Youth Employment that're addressing undocumented young people in a program with DOE. Summer Rising. We're going to be rolling out again another robust Summer Rising program, 110,000 young people across the city. We have connections and partnership with the Nets. We have partnerships with the Knicks, we have a partnership with the Yankees running Summer Night Lights.

I need to connect with you so you can see exactly some of the wonderful things that are happening with our community-based organizations and running very robust programs. Again, if we're looking in-house, this amazing community-based organization is doing a magnificent job. I've come here on several occasions and I've seen yoga and intense breathing being done by this provider here. How do we get that? I think Commissioner Stewart had mentioned it. We have to be better at going on social media, talking with social influencers to be able to connect young people and show them about the magnificent and the youth agenda that this mayor has already invested in. Thank you.

Mayor Adams:We've done a lot, but we want to do more. We want to do more. Our goal is every young person should have a place they can go to develop their full personhood. That's our focus.

Question:Thank you, mayor. I do know about the wonderful program, trust me, but we have to stand and cross our fingers. We're not catching them all.

Mayor Adams:No, we're not.

Question:We're not catching so many and their effects are damning on our society.

Mayor Adams:Yes. Without a doubt.

Question:That's what I'm talking about. I'm not saying [inaudible]. That's why I'm so adamant about it.

Mayor Adams:We also have our Cure Violence groups. I think it's just a– Is Keisha here?

Commissioner Howard:She left.

Mayor Adams:Cora, is she here?

Commissioner Howard:She left.

Mayor Adams:She left. $100 million investment in our Cure Violence, unprecedented, but no matter how much we're doing, we have to catch them all. That's our goal. Yes, I want them all. Listen, I want to really thank our team.

Time away from their families, they come out. They're attentive. They really care. This is a group of people, I tell people all the time, I don't like my team. I love my team. When I look at all the times we have to respond to emergencies, Zach Iscol, a former military person. He's a person that pushed through all these emergencies, what Molly has done, I have Mollys on both end of the table, what she has done around the asylum seeker crisis night after night after night, you could go down the list. These folks are invested, invested. It is hard as hell to be working for Eric Adams.

Trust me, all night, every night, seven days a week, we're committed to this city. We're going to leave everything we have on the floor to do best for the city. Thank you so much for coming out.