Showing posts with label Legal Aid Society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Legal Aid Society. Show all posts

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Mayor Bill de Blasio blocks homeless shelter in Upper West Side

Is Mayor de Blasio backpedaling on homelessness in New York City ?

Mayor Bill de Blasio has opposed the conversion of a building into a homeless shelter after NIMBY opposition to the homeless shelter came from Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, The New York Post reported.

With growing numbers of people turning to the city's shelter system for housing, progressives have escalated pressure on the de Blasio administration to address the underlying determinants that are exacerbating the homeless population in New York City.

"Last year was the first time the number of homeless people sleeping each night in shelters exceeded 50,000," The New York Times reported.

On the eve of Mayor de Blasio's inauguration, the Legal Aid Society filed a class action lawsuit against the city on behalf of homeless youths, demanding from the city the full resources to provide shelter to homeless youths, as required by law. But many liberal groups, including the administrators of homeless LGBT shelters, have tried to de-escalate the pressure on the administration into making piecemeal or token gestures to address homelessness.

Friday, March 28, 2014

Will Bill de Blasio truly reform aid and services to homeless ?

The New York City Mayor is seeking a change in New York State's budget in order to help provide rent subsidies to homeless families.

Mayor Bill de Blasio has been engaged in a public public relations battle with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo over the city's request for a state budget amendment that would provide rent subsidies for up to 2,800 families a year, "costing a total of $21 million in the first year and growing to $115 million annually by the fifth year," The New York Times reported.

While the mayor tries to shame the governor into approving the city's request for a state budget amendment, the mayor has yet to publicly commit to settling a class action lawsuit filed by homeless youths against New York City for failing to provide adequate shelter, as required by law, to minors.

As the mayor tries to use the state budget amendment to shore up the publicity of his efforts to address skyrocketing homelessness in New York City, former mayoral candidate and head of The Doe Fund George McDonald faulted New York City law enforcement for arresting and incarcerating a homeless former Marine for the sole crime of seeking warmth over a freezing February evening. The homeless former Marine, Jerome Murdough, was placed in deplorable conditions at Rikers Island, where he died while in custody as a result of neglect by city correctional officers.

After recent political popularity polls showed the mayor's favorability ratings sinking after his personal vendetta against charter schools leader Eva Moskowitz, Mayor de Blasio has been trying to shore up his credentials with the liberal wing of city Democrats.

But his efforts to deal with homelessness have thus far been incremental and do not address the larger determinants that make people lose shelter.

The state budget amendment, that will benefit less than 3,000 families, will take five years to fully roll out, if it secures and keeps its precarious funding. After another scandal over the mayor's motorcade openly violating traffic safety laws, the mayor's office announced reforms to two of the largest city-owned family shelters, according to The New York Observer. The mayor's move to reform those two shelters followed an exposée by The New York Times that revealed that homeless families with children living in the two shelters endured deplorable conditions, including "cockroaches, spoiled food, violence and insufficient heat."

Several weeks ago, one homeless man, who suffered through many indignities at the hands of the city's impossible homeless system, demonstrated that New York City makes it a practice to deny housing social workers to people who come in and out of the city's shelters, leading some activists to charge that the city cynically doesn't have to provide shelter if it doesn't first provide housing social workers.

Thursday, March 27, 2014

de Blasio, Cuomo Playing Tit-for-Tat Politics With Homeless

PUBLISHED : TUES, 25 MAR 2014, 08:49 PM
UPDATED : THURS, 27 MAR 2014, 09:04 AM

Mayor de Blasio shaming Gov. Cuomo over state homeless budget request ; meanwhile, Mayor de Blasio ignoring homeless youths class action lawsuit

Andrew Cuomo Bill de Blasio photo andrew-cuomo-bill-de-blasio_zps07f38878.jpg

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is deeply involved in brokering the backroom deals that will produce the state's budget. Since there's been a very public conflict between the governor and the mayor over the mayor's stalled request to increase taxes for the most wealthy New Yorkers and the mayor's plan to close charter schools, both of which the governor has opposed, the mayor appears to be seeking political retribution against the governor by making it look like the governor is, in turn, stalling on the city's request for a change in the state's budget in respect of homeless resources.

Mayor de Blasio is seeking "permission to use state funds for rental subsidies," Capital New York is reporting, and it's not clear why the mayor submitted his request so late into the state's budget process.

"As everyone knows, the budget is due in less than a week so we can assume the city's proposal will be for next year, because at this point it's too late to take up anything significant this year," the governor's spokesperson Melissa DeRosa was quoted as having said, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

“According to the governor’s office, the city’s efforts on its homelessness prevention plan paled in comparison to its push for prekindergarten financing : Mr. de Blasio’s preliminary proposal was less than two pages and omitted crucial details, and the city never scheduled a meeting," The New York Times is reporting, adding that, "The mayor’s office said Cuomo administration officials did not respond to a request for a meeting from an official in the Department of Homeless Services. The governor’s office said the request was merely a text message to an assistant to the deputy secretary for human services.”

While Mayor de Blasio has managed to crash Gov. Cuomo's intricate backroom budget dealmaking, Gov. Cuomo has had to play down the latest public flashpoint between the two. "Anything we can do, I would want to do," Gov. Cuomo said during a press conference, according to Politicker. But, Gov. Cuomo said, "It’s late in the day to put something in the actual budget because the budget train has basically left the station,” he added, sounding irritated, “So, to start a new proposal, it’s too late.”

As Mayor de Blasio is shaming Gov. Cuomo over the unlikelihood that the state will grant the city's homeless budget amendment, Mayor de Blasio has yet to settle in his own right the class action lawsuit filed by homeless youths, who are denied shelter by New York City, a violation of law. If the mayor were truly committed to help people in homeless shelters, then the mayor would settle the homeless youths' lawsuit.

Recent revelations further show that New York City systematically denies housing social workers to people, who seek shelter in its homeless program. By denying housing social workers, the city government does not become obligated to finding permanent housing for people in and out of its homeless shelter system, one of the largest reasons that people in homeless shelters face a catch-22.

  • UPDATE : Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo reopened the door Wednesday to Mayor Bill de Blasio's bid to secure state funds to combat homelessness, with a Cuomo administration source saying the governor is "trying to actively resolve" the issue. (Cuomo relents on NYC homeless aid request * Newsday)

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Bill de Blasio, New York Liberals, and the Veal Pen (Updated)

PUBLISHED : WED, 08 JAN 2014, 11:11 PM
UPDATED : MON, 21 APR 2014, 04:10 PM

A moment of truth for "liberals" in New York City, as they are corralled into veal pens.

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Calves have no choice and would certainly not volunteer to be trapped in veal pens, where cattle factory farmers intend for calves to atrophy into valuable sources of veal, but liberals in New York City, following the lead of liberals in Washington, DC, check into proverbial political veal pens, eager to take their stated, if cramped, place with conscious volition.

The backroom selection of Melissa Mark-Viverito as City Council speaker on January 8 signaled the end, according to The New York Times, of "weeks of bitter, behind-the-scenes jockeying among county political leaders, union officials and others, who tussled over the speakership using such municipal prizes as committee chairs and patronage jobs as bargaining chips," adding that before Ms. Mark-Viverito was unanimously selected, there had been "rumors up until the noontime vote of a possible floor fight." Although the discord was real, it was safest to tussle in private, because none of the backroom fighters carried on their battles outside of the restrictive confines of the veal pen. There were certainly some expressions of exasperation shared with the media, but for the most part, the large activists groups, good government groups, corporations, and even billionaire business leaders publicly kept mum. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm....? Why was that ?

The Mayor Of Magical Thinking

When Mayor Bill de Blasio argued for a special income tax surcharge on the wealthiest New Yorkers, a tax that is certainly needed to help fund a needed expansion of social services, he said that the income tax surcharge was needed because the annual budget dance of proposed service cuts and minimal budget restorations would make pre-kinder students unnecessary political victims of the vicious annual city budget negotiation process. “When the budget cuts come, children are often the first to take the hit. The vulnerable take the hit,” Mayor de Blasio said. Little did he own up to the fact that now that he's in charge at City Hall, it would be Mayor de Blasio, who would throw pre-kinder students under the bus. (It's the mayor, who plays the leading role in the annual budget dance, a sleazy process where the mayor first proposes budget cuts, then the Council speaker pretends to put on a show to restore the budget cuts, and then once the budget passes, the cuts are restored, and the City Council get to look like heroes, even though this process makes it impossible for city agencies and community groups dependent on city grants to adequately plan any kind of medium-term fundraising or long-term budgets.) Even though the mayor is proposing that the high income tax surcharge be dedicated to expanding pre-kinder, the mayor's failed to propose any budgetary mechanism to ensure that the mayor and the City Council don't cut other areas of public education during the annual budget dance. What does earmarking a dedicated revenue stream for pre-kinder mean if funding for kinder remains insecure ? Seems like it's almost double-speak to make such a big deal about ring-fencing the monies from the high income tax surcharge, doesn't it, if it leaves kindergarden students at risk for budget cuts ?

It's precisely because of this sick and twisted annual budget dance that homeless youths have grown wary of the shady municipal budget negotiations : a few brave homeless youths have turned to the Legal Aid Society to make a full, legal demand for the complete resources to finally provide shelter to homeless youths rather than take a risk that the new mayor will force homeless youth shelters to play along with the disingenuous annual budget dance. More on this shortly.

Going into today's speakership selection, Mayor de Blasio had received resounding criticism from the Editorial Boards of The New York Times, The New York Daily News, The New York Post, and even amNew York. An anonymous attack video catching Mayor de Blasio in actual hypocrisy over having criticised former Council Speaker Christine Quinn for having been former Mayor Michael Bloomberg's puppet only to want to install his own puppet in the municipal legislature went viral.

Some bloggers dared to stick their necks out, but they were not joined by any large activist groups. The two good government groups in New York City, for their part, either danced on the graves of the County Bosses or issued toothless Cover-Your-Ass editorials, never mind that the deposition of the County Bosses is only replacing one corrupt political machine for another. But for the most part, given the mixed messaging, folks essentially stayed in the familiar surroundings of the veal pen.

Some Calves Refuse To Take Their Place In The Veal Pens

With the exception of the police reform protest group New Yorkers Against Bratton, the pro bono service agency Legal Aid Society, and the AIDS activist group ACT UP, many activists say that they will keep Mayor de Blasio accountable, but they agree to stay put in their veal pens.

For weeks before the new mayor was inaugurated, a group of activists seeking to fully end stop-and-frisk in New York City came together to protest and reject the appointment of William Bratton as the new NYPD commissioner. Even though the new mayor had campaigned to "end the stop-and-frisk era," the mayor appointed the man widely credited as the architect of stop-and-frisk, Mr. Bratton. The group has been the leading force to keep Mayor de Blasio accountable to his biggest broken campaign promise thus far.

Two days before the new mayor was publicly sworn into office on the steps of City Hall, the Legal Aid Society filed a federal lawsuit against the City of New York, demanding the full resources to provide shelter to homeless youth. They did so, because the New York City budget never before provided the full resources to make shelter available to homeless youth, as required by law, because before the Legal Aid Society stepped forward, all the homeless advocacy groups had remained in their veal pens like good little calves. The Legal Aid Society, tired of the annual budget dance of proposed cuts and minimal restorations, decided that homeless youth shouldn't become political victims to the way City Hall and City Council probably plan to only concentrate on social service groups or causes that hire The Advance Group as their lobbyists.

Like the Legal Aid Society, ACT UP sees the writing on the wall : they'd been patiently waiting in the veal pen for the last few months, stretching back to before the mayoral primary, hoping to get a meeting with the mayor's campaign team, then his transition team, and now his administration team. But the mayor has not deigned to receive AIDS activists, to hear out their demands for a comprehensive city-wide AIDS agenda that begins by appointing a responsive city health commissioner.

When too much time passed, ACT UP broke free of the veal pen, and they protested outside of the mayor's inauguration ceremony.

"By Your Command" : The Calves Know That The Veal Pen Is Guarded From The Inside

When Mayor de Blasio saw that the Legal Aid Society was challenging it on government policy, how did the de Blasio administration respond ? The mayor recruited the top attorney at the Legal Aid Society, Steve Banks, into his administration. To further neutralize the field of outside activism, the de Blasio administration also lured the noted government reformer Lincoln Restler and at least three Spanish language journalists : Maibe Ponet, Roberto Perez, and Erica Gonzalez into the veal pen, just to be sure. Other activist groups have folded, like Queers for Economic Justice and the Brecht Forum, because now that a Democratic mayor has taken office, entrenched political interests don't want to encourage political pressure from the Left. A large foundation that funds non-profit community groups, the North Star Fund, accepted monies from lobbyists loyal to the mayor, Dan Levitan, a vice president at BerlinRosen, told The New York Times. For the few activists and community groups, which do not fold before the mayor's pressures to impose his top-down policies, there are growing numbers of civic leaders, who are being silenced and rendered immobile by the veal pen.

In contrast to the bold leadership of New Yorkers Against Bratton, two former prominent critics of stop-and-frisk have actually turned their backs on the overwhelming community demand to keep the NYPD accountable. After the Bratton appointment was announced, Councilmembers Ydanis Rodriquez and Jumaane Williams said that they supported the controversial appointment, leading to a sense of betrayal among police reform activists. Even the notoriously independent head of the NYCLU, Donna Leiberman, has climbed into the veal pen. Police reforms that the prior police commissioner never adopted remain outstanding, and Ms. Leiberman has not dared to confront the new police commissioner with the NYCLU's recommendations made following the massive 2003 anti-war protest and the 2004 Republic National Convention. Supposedly, the police department enacted some reforms in 2008, but the NYPD's promises were short-lived, because reforms of controversial police tactics were proven to be situational. Witness the police's militaristic response to Occupy Wall Street.

The message being telegraphed to the community is clear : climb into your veal pen and shut up.

Similarly, the LGBT poster child of police entrapment and unconstitutional sexual orientation profiling, Robert Pinter, has disappeared from any public demonstrations condemning the new police commissioner. Prior to the selection of Mr. Bratton, Mr. Pinter had visibly taken part in demonstrations calling for reform of the NYPD, including having once called for the end of stop-and-frisk. Apparently now, Mr. Pinter takes cues on police issues from Bratton-enablers.

Even Yetta Kurland, who I love, because she saved my job for me when they were trying to fire me at Credit Suisse, does not want to encourage ''left leaning friends'' who ''bemoan'' the appointment of the controversial new NYPD commissioner. The message is clear : the new mayor's supporters want to silence critics.

Other activists noted for their work during the primary campaign have also become muted.

The activist-administrator of one very active Twitter account keeping tabs on the corrupt Councilmember Maria del Carmen Arroyo from the Bronx in the time leading up to the municipal primary elections, @arroyowatch now seems to want to stop short of calling for reforms, and only seems content with changes in figurehead politicians without getting to the root of the broken political system.

Separately, in an article in Gay City News, Charles King, the CEO of Housing Works, said of Mayor de Blasio, "I think the community needs to hold his feet to the fire," but Mr. King's done nothing to actually hold the mayor's feet to the fire.

When a corrupt lobbyist tied to both Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito was exposed for working to defeat LGBT candidates for the City Council, no LGBT civil rights group dared speak out against the politically-connected bigot. Indeed, a corresponding Change.org petition only attracted a few signatures. At today's selection of the new Council speaker, LGBT Councilmembers voted for Ms. Mark-Viverito, even though she had rigorously defended her close working relationship with the bigot lobbyist.

The LGBT community fought so hard to come out of the closet only to, out of political expediency, climb into the veal pen.

Animal rights activists used to carry the banner against the corrupt record of Speaker Quinn, but now they are quick to denounce any activist who tries to hold the de Blasio-Mark-Viverito administration accountable for delivering reforms.

Even powerful business leaders, seeking to do billions of dollars worth of "business" with New York City, have obediently kept quiet, "saying they are worried about the consequences of offending the mayor," wrote two City Hall reporters for The New York Times.

Noam Chomsky photo Noam-Chomsky_zps93db4798.jpg

The Council speaker takes her post in the veal pen.

The prospect of Speaker Mark-Viverito, who was an organiser with the 1199SEIU, the healthcare union that backed Mr. de Blasio's winning mayoral campaign, serving hand-in-hand with the mayor has been invoked by big business interests in the manner of a menacing scare tactic : the rich are going to leave New York City in droves, business are going to close and move to Florida, and the de Blasio-Mark-Viverito administration is going to choke off enterprising new businesses from forming in an era of leftist over-regulation, like a planned nominal expansion of the paid sick leave law. Ms. Mark-Viverito also owes her speakership to the interventions of Mayor de Blasio. When some activists criticised the mayor's violation of separation of powers to advance Ms. Mark-Viverito's speakership, they weren't invoking "checks and balances" to help prop up a big business agenda, as some claim, but to, instead, question Speaker Mark-Viverito's resolution to challenge the mayor on controversial neoliberal moves, like the Bratton appointment or the decision to embrace a close relationship with real estate developers. The new mayor has a failed record of fighting for affordable housing in connection with large, controversial zone-busting development deals, like at the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. The tragic irony is that for everybody supporting a Democratic take-over of both Gracie Mansion and City Council, Speaker Mark-Viverito may not have the courage to openly challenge the mayor to deliver a truly progressive reform agenda that would include letting the calves know that they could very easily walk out, free from the confines of the veal pen. One need not look any further to how councilmembers refused to either criticise the Bratton appointment or to call for campaign finance reforms following the various scandals tied to the lobbying firm, The Advance Group.

In New York City, the calves get just enough water and feed brought to them that they willingly accept the inhumane conditions of their own existence, and they lash out at anybody trying to fix this system of atrophy and waste. Politicians, like factory farm ranchers, have successfully conditioned voters to mistakenly think that this is all there can be, too, except for the few brave calves who have learned to break free of the veal pen.

As was seen with Ms. Mark-Viverito's successful speaker race, even after the Editorial Boards of four major newspapers challenged the mayor and the Council speaker, the calves still defended their place in the veal pen. What will it take for them to escape this prison of their own making ?

Friday, February 28, 2014

Screw the Voters, Indignant Mayor Bill de Blasio Upset That He Should Be Held Accountable to Other Politicians, Even to the Press

Mayor Bill de Blasio does not believe in checks-and-balances, neither from other elected officials, nor from the fourth estate.

As New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio rolls out an agenda that includes the seemingly contradictory appointment of a police commissioner who was the architect of stop-and-frisk and task him to "end the stop-and-frisk era" ; the closing down of charter schools at the same time he tries to expand public school services, like universal pre-kinder and after school programs, which he plans to pay for by slightly increasing the income taxes of the most wealthy New Yorkers ; the close incorporation of political operatives and lobbyists in his administration ; and the combative relationship he's now developing with the City Hall press corps, he has begun to upset many folks, whose support he should not take for granted : people of color, working families, the affluent, government reform activists, and the media. Complicating matters is that the mayor has yet to completely fill in his new administration.

Instead of focusing on completing his own administration, the mayor began his term as mayor by focusing his attention on lobbying the City Council on behalf of his favorite to become the Council speaker. Typically, the race for speaker is a complex, post-election endeavor that largely takes place behind closed doors. For the mayor's favorite, Melissa Mark-Viverito to be selected as Council speaker, the mayor and the teams of lobbyists working on the campaign had to undermine the political influence of U.S. Representative Joseph Crowley, who chairs the Queens County Democratic Party. Rep. Crowley had supported the mayor's arch rival, former Council Speaker Christine Quinn, in last year's mayoral race. Because the mayor has been expending great efforts to extend his power and influence over every corner of city government, the mayor was interested in weakening any competing power-centers in New York City that might challenge the mayor on controversial aspects of his agenda. Because of his stature and importance, Rep. Crowley was seen as a threat not just to Speaker Mark-Viverito's leadership race, but also as a possible check on the mayor's agenda. Three months after Rep. Crowley's favorite in the Council speaker race lost, Mayor de Blasio recruited one of Rep. Crowley's district leaders, Rebecca Lynch, into his administration. Rep. Crowley is perhaps one of the only Democratic politicians left in New York City, who can serve as a check on Mayor de Blasio, and that is why the de Blasio administration continues to focus on raiding and weakening Rep. Crowley's authority and influence.

Last week, it was announced that Council Speaker Mark-Viverito would endorse and campaign for a primary challenger to Rep. Charles Rangel. Rep. Rangel had endorsed another one of the mayor's rivals in last year's election, former Comptroller Bill Thompson. In his last re-election, Rep. Rangel barely won. Now that the mayor and his large new team of operatives occupy City Hall and City Council will be backing Rep. Rangel's opponent, if Rep. Rangel is defeated, then that would leave the Rev. Al Sharpton, a chief mayoral supporter, as the sole African American leader with the greatest influence up in Harlem. Anybody, who would potentially be in a position to criticise the mayor's agenda, is being systematically challenged.

After the mayor was sworn into office, he announced that his family would move into Gracie Mansion. Thus far, he has hesitated to make the move, and it could be that if the mayor remains in Brooklyn, his power and influence would keep former Assemblyman Vito Lopez and Brooklyn County Democratic Party chair Frank Seddio from eclipsing the mayor's influence over Brooklyn. Trying to eliminate or diminish the threat of criticism is important to the mayor, and it has taken up a lot of time and energy during his young administration. Because so much of the mayor's agenda may trigger criticism or resistance, the mayor is trying to neutralize that criticism not just to protect his agenda, but also as a way to clear the field of any possible primary challenger in 2017, when the mayor is expected to run for re-election. Mayor de Blasio doesn't want to end up as a one-term Democratic mayor, like former Mayor David Dinkins was.

When Mayor de Blasio was only a candidate, former Mayor Dinkins criticised the de Blasio plan to increase income taxes on the very wealthy in order to find the expansion of pre-kinder. As the de Blasio administration seeks to neutralise his critics, either real or imagined, it remains to be seen how the mayor and his political operatives plan to neuter former Mayor Dinkins.

As one political insider said on deep background, the cumulative effect of the mayor's heavy-handed machinations to neutralise critics and possible challengers will be the creation of a new political landscape in New York City that will yield a 20-30 year plan where the political insiders and lobbyists of the Working Families Party become the sole political power center of New York City.

"Access to information is essential to the health of democracy for at least two reasons. First, it ensures that citizens make responsible, informed choices rather than acting out of ignorance or misinformation. Second, information serves a "checking function" by ensuring that elected representatives uphold their oaths of office and carry out the wishes of those who elected them." (University of San Francisco - California)

Because so much efforting is being expended on this background campaign, the mayor is actually running two different governments : the actual functionality of governing New York City, and a permanent backroom campaign to solidify his power and influence over every other office holder in New York City, regardless of whether the office holder was elected to represent city, state, or federal office.

To keep these machinations hidden, the mayor has the monumental task of keeping as much of these machinations hidden from perhaps his harshest critics : the City Hall press corps.

Besides trying to lay the groundwork for a new political landscape across New York City, the mayor has pushed back any time the press has tried to hold the mayor accountable. The mayor has hidden controversial appointments from his public calendar, and he attends controversial meetings that are closed to the press. He ignores reporters questions on thorny issues of his young administration, and he and his reports do not shy away from telling the media what to report and when. Mayor de Blasio doesn't want the City Hall press corps to think that they can shake the mayor down for specifics about how his administration's governance.

To continue the mayor's plan to extend his influence across New York City, his administration has installed the lobbying and consulting firm of Berlin Rosen, political operatives who worked on the mayor's campaign, in the media relations role of the mayor's universal pre-kinder initiative. Berlin Rosen will be able to "control" the universal pre-kinder messaging for the mayor this way. Berlin Rosen also serves as consultants to a coalition of major police reform groups, Communities United for Police Reform. The latter allows Berlin Rosen to control the messaging coming from one of the mayor's most politically sensitive quarters : police reform activists. Tampering down police reform activists is all the more important to the mayor, even as the NYPD continues to become embroiled in more racial profiled controversies. It was reported that another political insider and lobbying firm, Pitta Bishop, helped Council Speaker Mark-Viverito with City Council staffing.

Left out in the lurch as a consequence of the mayor's machinations are voters, who will have no say in what the messaging will be that comes out of the universal pre-kinder or the police reform movements that are now controlled by the mayor's political operatives.

Already, it appears that some members of the City Hall press corps can already sense that the mayor's energies and efforts are not adding up. In an article that purported to show that the mayor has been inducing many of the city's activists into drinking the Kool-Aid of his administration, The New York Times still pointed out the nagging concern that the de Blasio administration may be becoming an "echo chamber, since almost no one in the city’s new political hierarchy seems poised to challenge Mr. de Blasio’s policies publicly." Indeed, reform activists had been pinning their hopes that some true advances were going to made after the Legal Aid Society sued the City of New York in Brooklyn federal court for the full resources to provide shelter to homeless youths, but then it was announced that to perhaps undercut the Legal Aid Society's efforts, the de Blasio administration had hired their top attorney, Steven Banks, to become commissioner of the city’s Human Resources Administration. The timing of the Legal Aid Society's lawsuit had raised hopes that some cornerstone community groups were going to stop playing the annual budget dance between the mayor and the City Council, but with Mr. Banks' departure only weeks after having filed the lawsuit against the de Blasio administration, homeless youths may have lost their only opportunity to demand and get the full resources to provide them with shelter.

Perhaps it won't be too long before the press corps catches up to the fact that the mayor's unprogressive power play machinations are deliberately creating a new political landscape whereby nobody can challenge the mayor's policies publicly ?

Friday, January 3, 2014

Homeless Youths File Federal Lawsuit Against New York City

"Homeless youths sue city for not providing enough shelter" : NYPost

The Legal Aid Society has filed a federal lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York, in Brooklyn, against the City of New York on behalf of several homeless youths. The plaintiffs fault New York City for failing to provide sufficient shelter.

"The Brooklyn federal court lawsuit claims that while the city is legally obligated to provide beds for all homeless people ages 16 to 20, it turns away hundreds of applicants every night," The New York Post reported earlier this week, adding, "With 3,800 kids currently homeless in the city and only 253 shelter beds available, the waiting lists are growing, the suit states."

A coalition of LGBT organizations, including the Ali Forney Center headed by Carl Siciliano, created the Campaign for Youth Shelter, which would press the city to provide additional funding in a lockstep rate of "$3 million in annual funding to create 100 new shelter beds every year," according to a report in The Advocate.

Perhaps the Legal Aid Society's lawsuit was inspired by the activism surrounding the Campaign for Youth Shelter, as one insider said, but the lawsuit has a larger ambition : seeking the resources to provide shelter for every homeless youth today. If successful, the Legal Aid Society's lawsuit would appear to be the answer to this social issue. If so, now would be the time for the Campaign for Youth Shelter to update its plans for how a larger shelter system could be created once all the resources become available.

In the past, Mayor Bloomberg would seek budgetary cuts to homeless LGBT youth programs, but these cuts would get restored during the budget negotiations.

2013-12-30 Legal Aid Society USDC EDNY NYC Complaint Re Homeless Youth by Connaissable

Some noted the irony that the lawsuit would not be defended by the Bloomberg-Quinn administration, which was largely responsible for growing inequities between a new guilded generation of the very wealthy and the famous 99%, a term coined by Occupy Wall Street to describe everybody else. But the flip side to former Mayor Michael Bloomberg always playing the boogyman was the fact that the City Council, headed by former Speaker Christine Quinn, was always comprised of a supermajority of Democrats, yet the City Council never confronted the mayor to demand the resources to fully address any social ill. By the same token, the Public Advocate's office was never visible in the fight for full budgetary resources, either.

This lawsuit seeks to address the deprivation of homeless youths, who have nothing. One activist noted that Mayor Bloomberg's successor, Bill de Blasio, will now have to put his newly-confessed economic sensibilities about "A Tale Of Two Cities" to the test : it will be incumbent upon Mayor de Blasio to fully fund the resources that homeless youth community groups need to provide adequate shelter to homeless youths.

That litigation is being brought now is a sign that the Legal Aid Society means to force the city's hand, and that homeless shelters would no longer be willing to engage in the annual, farcical "budget dance" -- the cut-and-restore budget negotiation process that leaves important community groups unable to adequately plan long-term operating budgets. Based on how the former Public Advocate failed to champion the cause of homeless shelters, the Legal Aid Society seems to not want to take chances now that the former Public Advocate has become mayor.