Homeless Persons

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Candidates Clash Over New York City’s Future in Final Mayoral Debate

      by

      The eight contenders jousted over their policies on public safety, homelessness, education and mental illness with less than a week left in the campaign.Clashing over public safety, education and crises of mental health and street homelessness in New York City, the leading Democratic candidates for mayor on Wednesday promoted radically different post-pandemic visions for the city as they made their closing arguments before the June 22 primary.It was the Democrats’ final major debate of the primary, and, like the first three, the event was a contentious affair that focused heavily on issues of policing and public safety, as well as on questions of the candidates’ personal and professional preparedness to lead the nation’s largest city.Much of the fire at the previous matchups was trained at Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, and to some extent at Andrew Yang, a 2020 presidential candidate.Similar dynamics played out again on Wednesday, though the two-hour debate was one of the most substantive of the primary season, spanning issues from how the city can combat climate change to the best ways to manage affordable housing and homelessness.Indeed, the eight candidates constantly jostled for advantages, trying to position themselves as the most qualified to lead the city as it begins to recover from the ravages of the coronavirus and its effects on the economy, education, crime rates and inequality.Recent polls indicate that Mr. Adams is the front-runner, with Kathryn Garcia, a former city sanitation commissioner, and Maya D. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, showing late momentum. But Mr. Adams took on the fiercest attacks, as Mr. Yang and Ms. Wiley sought to put him on the defensive over matters of both judgment and policy, in particular around public safety.Mr. Yang, who led the early public polls, has been among Mr. Adams’s sharpest critics and is airing television ads attacking him. He began the race as a celebrity candidate whose sunny optimism and pledges to be New York’s cheerleader appeared to resonate with a city on the cusp of reopening.Eric Adams, left, a front-runner in the race, was the focus of several attacks from his rivals, including Andrew Yang, right.WNBC-TV and NYC Campaign Finance BoardBut as issues of public safety moved to the forefront of voters’ minds, and Mr. Yang faced scrutiny over his grasp of municipal government, he has stumbled in the sparse public polling available.At the debate, co-sponsored by WNBC-TV, he took aim at Mr. Adams’s public safety credentials, where polling suggests the borough president has a strong advantage. Mr. Yang was endorsed by the Captains Endowment Association, the union that represents police captains, as well as a major firefighters’ union, and on Wednesday he sought to undermine Mr. Adams on that subject.“They think I’m a better choice than Eric to keep us and our families safe,” Mr. Yang said. “They want someone honest as a partner who will actually follow through.”Mr. Adams, a former police captain, declared that some of the captains recalled his efforts to change police conduct from within the system while he was serving, and suggested they held it against him. When the candidates were asked to name the worst idea promoted by a rival, Mr. Yang cited Mr. Adams’s past remarks about carrying a gun in church, while Mr. Adams ripped Mr. Yang’s cash relief proposal for the poorest 500,000 New Yorkers, likening it to “Monopoly money” and suggesting it was less serious than his own proposals.Ms. Wiley has also frequently clashed with Mr. Adams on the debate stage, but unlike Mr. Yang, she has often challenged him from the left over issues of policing, and she did so again on Wednesday.“The worst idea I’ve ever heard is bringing back stop and frisk and the anti-crime unit from Eric Adams,” Ms. Wiley said. “Which, one, is racist, two, is unconstitutional, and three, didn’t stop any crime, and four, it will not happen in a Maya Wiley administration.”Maya Wiley sought to contrast her stance on public safety with Mr. Adams, criticizing his idea to bring back an anti-crime unit.WNBC-TV and NYC Campaign Finance BoardMr. Adams vowed that the abuse of stop and frisk would not return in an Adams administration and questioned Ms. Wiley’s authority on the subject, noting reports of private security in her neighborhood.Mr. Adams has come under growing scrutiny in recent weeks over matters from his fund-raising practices to questions about his residency, and his opponents have sought to cast doubt on his commitments to transparency and ethical leadership. On Wednesday, the nonprofit news outlet The City reported on issues of disclosure around Mr. Adams’s real estate holdings.But those issues were not a central focus of the debate on Wednesday, and with early voting already underway, it was not clear how much the barbs aimed at Mr. Adams would affect his standing.As in previous debates, questions of public safety were among the most divisive of the night. Ms. Garcia and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citi executive, blasted the “defund the police” movement, while Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, challenged Mr. McGuire over how that slogan is received among voters of color.“For Black and brown communities, neither defund the police nor stop and frisk,” Mr. McGuire said.“How dare you assume to speak for Black and Brown communities as a monolith,” Ms. Morales, who identifies as Afro-Latina, said. “You cannot do that.”“I just did,” Mr. McGuire, one of the highest-ranking and longest-serving Black executives on Wall Street, shot back. “I’m going to do it again.”Issues of housing and mental illness also illuminated key contrasts among the candidates.Mr. Yang struck a note of outrage as he declared that “mentally ill homeless men are changing the character of our neighborhoods.”After some of his rivals sketched out affordable housing plans, Mr. Yang said he was “frustrated by the political nature of these responses.”“We’re not talking about housing affordability, we’re talking about the hundreds of mentally ill people we all see around us every day on the streets, in the subways,” he said. “We need to get them off of our streets and our subways, into a better environment.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“That is the greatest non-answer I’ve ever heard,” said Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, who had spoken of the need to build tens of thousands of units of “truly affordable housing,” as he pressed Mr. Yang on the costs of such a proposal. “This is a teaching moment.”Mr. Yang later returned to the subject, arguing vigorously that people with untreated mental illness should not be on the streets. He noted that people of Asian descent have increasingly been the targets of attacks that have often been linked to people struggling with mental illness.“Yes, mentally ill people have rights, but you know who else has rights? We do: the people and families of the city,” Mr. Yang said. He proposed doubling the inventory of inpatient psychiatric beds in the city.Others took a starkly different tone, as candidates including Ms. Wiley argued for more outreach by “the right people,” instead of the police, and Ms. Morales warned against treating people with mental illness as criminals.The final debate arrived at a moment of significant uncertainty in the mayoral campaign.Ranked-choice voting, in which voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference, has injected an extraordinary degree of unpredictability into the race. One recent poll found Mr. Adams garnering the most first-place votes, but ultimately finishing second to Ms. Garcia; others have shown him ahead, but surveys have been sparse.It is also unclear what a post-pandemic electorate in a June primary will look like, and some candidates could still cross-endorse each other in the final stretch, which could further scramble the contest.Throughout the debate, battle lines emerged between candidates who are casting themselves as proud political outsiders — a message Mr. McGuire hit repeatedly — and those, like Ms. Garcia and Mr. Stringer, who emphasize government experience at every turn.Some of the more substantive moments of the evening also unfolded around the best ways to account for educational losses during the pandemic, and many of the candidates argued that school quality and better integration go hand-in-hand.Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, said she would attack climate change as a legacy-making initiative.WNBC-TV and NYC Campaign Finance BoardMs. Garcia described plans for creating new high schools, promised to “stop screening 4-year-olds with a test — that’s insane,” and said she would ensure schools have robust art, music, theater and sports programs.Ms. Wiley promised to hire 2,500 teachers to reduce overcrowding in classrooms, while Mr. Stringer promoted the idea of placing two teachers in every classroom, kindergarten through fifth grade. Others reached for their own experiences — Mr. Yang as a public school parent, for example, or Ms. Morales as a former educator — to take on the issue.“This is a false choice,” Shaun Donovan, a former federal housing secretary, said, when asked whether he would prioritize desegregation or improving school quality. “After a year that’s hurt every one of our students and widened the inequalities that we see in our schools, we need to get our schools open safely and quickly, but we also have to make sure that everyone is recovering, particularly those who are furthest behind.”Kristen Bayrakdarian More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      N.Y.C. Mayoral Candidates Debate Homelessness and Mental Illness

      by

      The city’s chronic homelessness has taken on greater urgency over the course of the campaign this spring, as New York has seen an apparent rash of random assaults, often carried out by people who appeared to be homeless, mentally ill, or both.The candidates clashed Wednesday night over whether this was more of a problem for those who are afflicted with mental illness and homelessness, or for everyone else.Andrew Yang said the solution was simple. “We need to get them off of our streets and our subways into a better environment,” he said of mentally ill people on the streets and subways. “There will be no recovery until we resolve this.” He promised to double the inventory of inpatient psychiatric beds in the city, a nod to the fact that many hospitals have gotten rid of psychiatric beds to build Covid-19 units.Scott Stringer, who had spoken of the need to build tens of thousands of units of “truly affordable housing,” went on the attack. “That is the greatest non-answer I’ve ever heard in all of our debates,” he barked at Mr. Yang. “Not one specific idea.” He defied Mr. Yang to tell him how much his plan would cost. The exchange came hours after Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans to move 8,000 homeless people from the hotel rooms they were moved into during the pandemic back to barrackslike congregate shelters by the end of July, to make way for tourists. Many of the hotels are in Manhattan neighborhoods where long-term residents have complained that the hotel guests use drugs and create other nuisances.Other candidates shied away from Mr. Yang’s harsh rhetoric. Maya Wiley mentioned the struggles of a formerly homeless man who goes by the name Shams DaBaron and emerged as a spokesman for the residents of one of the hotels, The Lucerne. “When the response was to send more police into the subways where he was riding because the congregate shelters were so dangerous, he asked for help, and what he got was handcuffed and taken to jail,” Ms. Wiley said, adding that outreach to try to get people to accept placement in shelters needed to be done by “the right people,” rather than the police. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      New York Has a Housing Crisis. How Would the Mayoral Candidates Fix It?

      by

      New York City’s affordability problems were laid bare by the pandemic. Mayoral candidates offer solutions, but steep political and logistical obstacles remain.New York City’s leaders have been vexed for decades by a problem that has helped turn the city into a worldwide symbol of inequality: As years of prosperity gave rise to soaring luxury apartment towers, public housing crumbled and affordable neighborhoods vanished.The current mayor, Bill de Blasio, had made addressing the city’s housing crisis an imperative during his tenure. But now, the Democratic candidates vying to succeed him next year are confronting a crisis that may be even more severe as a result of the pandemic.All the leading candidates agree that housing is a top issue with huge implications for New York’s future, and each has offered a sweeping plan to tackle the problem. While their proposals overlap in many ways — every contender wants to spend more on public housing, for example — the candidates differ in the solutions and strategies they emphasize most.Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, and Raymond J. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, have made the creation of tens of thousands of new homes for the poorest New Yorkers a top objective. Maya Wiley, a civil rights lawyer and former counsel to Mr. de Blasio, and Shaun Donovan, a former housing secretary under President Barack Obama and a onetime city housing commissioner, say they would steer hundreds of millions of dollars to struggling renters to help keep them in their homes.Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, is taking aim at private developers by calling for a hefty increase in the number of affordable units the city requires in big new residential buildings. Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, wants wealthy neighborhoods to make way for more affordable units. Andrew Yang, a former presidential candidate, and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, have keyed in on converting hotels to housing.Many of the plans face steep political and financial hurdles. But experts and housing advocates say that a failure by the next mayor to address the crisis in a meaningful way could jeopardize New York’s cultural fabric and stunt its economic comeback by making the city even more unaffordable for low-wage workers and residents of color.“If we want to see New York City actually recover, start with housing,” said Annetta Seecharran, the executive director of the Chhaya Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit group based in Jackson Heights, Queens, that advocates the creation of affordable housing. “If we don’t do housing, we’ll be spinning our wheels for decades.”By several measures, the situation is dire. Even before the pandemic, about half of the city’s households spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent, according to an analysis by New York University’s Furman Center. The New York City Housing Authority — the largest public housing entity in the United States, with more than 400,000 tenants — estimates that it needs $40 billion to fix leaky roofs, dilapidated heating systems and other problems.The pandemic has added a troubling layer of uncertainty. Federal aid is on the way, and a moratorium on evictions is in place. But renters’ arrears have risen to hundreds of millions of dollars. Despite the moratorium, landlords have been allowed to file new cases that could lead to the eviction of tens of thousands of residents — particularly in Black and Latino neighborhoods — once the moratorium ends. A spike in homelessness could follow.The winner of the Democratic primary is almost certain to become the city’s next mayor. And while the leading candidates have indicated with their plans that they would build on Mr. de Blasio’s strategies, they have also criticized the mayor, implicitly and explicitly, for not providing enough financial support to the poorest New Yorkers.In a report released this year, the Community Service Society, an anti-poverty group, said Mr. de Blasio’s administration had significantly expanded investment in affordable housing. But most of the efforts, the group found, were directed toward those who earned at least $53,700 for a family of three, equivalent to half of the area’s median income — when the need was greatest among those who earned less.Ms. Garcia said that she would borrow and use state incentives and federal money to help build or preserve 50,000 rent-stabilized housing units that would be affordable to people making less than half the area’s median income, as well as 10,000 housing units that incorporated social services for homeless people. She did not offer a price for her plan, but the money would be used to build new apartments, buy existing buildings, or offer subsidies and incentives to nonprofit or private developers.Mr. McGuire said he would borrow $2.5 billion a year over eight years, which would help finance the construction of more than 350,000 housing units. Most of that money would be earmarked for subsidies and incentives for developers to include rent-stabilized units in mixed-income developments that are affordable to those making less than half the median income. He said he would spend up to $500 million to create about 3,000 affordable units for older people with little income.“It is a departure from what we have built for the past few years,” he said.Mr. Yang and Mr. Donovan said they would spend billions of dollars a year to build or preserve 30,000 units meant for families in a range of incomes.Ms. Wiley is focused on distributing more than $1.5 billion in subsidies to New Yorkers who make less than half the median income to ensure they do not pay more than 30 percent of their income in rent. Initially, she said, federal coronavirus aid would cover the subsidies.She said the program would help keep people from becoming homeless, freeing up money that would have gone to shelters to finance the subsidies instead.Mr. Donovan has proposed something similar, a rental-assistance program that he said could be paid for partly with $330 million that would otherwise be spent on shelters.“Although building allows you to provide affordable housing, solving the affordability crisis has more to do with income and rent subsidy than development,” he said.For many candidates, investing in the housing authority, or NYCHA, is crucial to helping the poorest New Yorkers. Ms. Wiley and Mr. Donovan said they would borrow and spend $2 billion a year in city money to improve public housing; Mr. McGuire and Mr. Stringer said they would borrow and spend up to $1.5 billion..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Adams said he planned to raise $8 billion for NYCHA by selling the so-called air rights for some of its properties to private developers, something the authority has already begun to explore.Ms. Garcia said she would push state officials for approval of a complex authority plan that could raise $18 billion to $25 billion, in part by letting a new public benefit corporation manage some buildings. Mr. Yang said he also supported the creation of the new corporation, which could potentially tap into federal funding.Some residents and activists have argued against the plan, asserting that it could open public housing to the influence of private investors at the expense of tenants.Ms. Morales said she would reject the plan, which she characterized as the “privatization of NYCHA,” and would seek state and federal aid instead.Several Democratic candidates said the rules governing development in the city should be overhauled.Mr. Stringer has proposed that every new development with more than 10 units permanently set aside 25 percent of those units for low-income tenants. The proposal would expand the requirements placed on private developers substantially. But the real estate lobby would most likely fight it aggressively, arguing that without significant subsidies from the government, such buildings could reduce profits and thus any incentive to build.“The big real estate developers hate this plan,” Mr. Stringer said. “For me, that’s a badge of honor.”Ms. Garcia, Mr. Yang, Mr. McGuire and Mr. Donovan have said they would move to rezone wealthier neighborhoods and those with more public transit options to accommodate additional affordable housing units. Such a strategy could touch off the kind of fierce local opposition that has torpedoed similar initiatives in the past. Mr. Adams said he would push for wide swaths of Midtown Manhattan, from 42nd Street to 14th Street and from Ninth Avenue to Park Avenue, to be rezoned for more affordable housing.“It is the job of the next mayor to break through the bureaucracy and cynicism to deliver the affordable housing needed to sustain our city,” Mr. Adams said.A core piece of Mr. Yang’s plan involves converting closed hotels and office buildings left unused because of the pandemic into 25,000 units of affordable housing by 2025, with building owners getting grants whose size is tied to how affordable the rents are.“The system is broken, and we need a new way of delivering affordable housing to New Yorkers,” he said.Mr. Adams and Ms. Wiley have also proposed converting hotels and unused offices, and Ms. Morales said she would specifically seek to convert the hotels into housing for 100,000 homeless youth and their families. She did not say how she would pay for it. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Rash of MTA Subway Attacks Raise Worries With Service Set to Return

      by

      Hours after mayoral candidates clashed over how to address crime in the transit system, the police reported a series of early-morning assaults.In the span of 12 minutes early Friday, the police said, a group of men attacked commuters aboard a moving subway train, increasing concerns about public safety in New York City’s transit system just as 24-hour subway service is set to resume on Monday.The attackers, striking together on a southbound Lexington Avenue express train as it passed through several stations starting at around 4:30 a.m., slashed three riders, two in the face and one in the back of the head, the police said. A fourth person was punched. The attackers took a phone and a wallet from one of the victims.The three slashing victims, all men in their 40s, were hospitalized and in stable condition, according to the police. One of the attackers, they said, slashed at the three men as another urged him on. The attacks came amid rising concern about crime in New York. Much of that concern has focused on the subway, which is about to resume nonstop service after it was curtailed last May for the first time in the system’s history because of the pandemic.Despite the flurry of reported attacks, the overall trend in subway violence is less clear. Data suggests that crime per rider may be lower so far this year than in 2020, when ridership plunged amid a citywide lockdown, but up from 2019.And now, even as the system gears up for a full return, at least a dozen attacks and other violent episodes have taken place on train cars or at stations this month alone.The police initially said that two men in their 20s were responsible for the three early morning attacks. But at a news conference later on Friday, officials said the assaults were the work of a larger group that was involved in a fourth attack around the same time. In that incident, the police said, a 48-year-old man was stabbed in the eye with a knife. Like the other victims, he was taken to a hospital, where he was undergoing surgery, the police said.Jason Wilcox, an assistant police chief, said at the news conference that the investigation was continuing but that it appeared that the victims had been attacked by a group of men who were coordinating their actions and occasionally splitting into smaller groups. “It looks like they were pairing off, mixing off, as the train was moving down along the 4 line this morning,” Chief Wilcox said.Four men were subsequently taken into custody in connection with the attacks, the police said. They had not been formally charged as of Friday afternoon, the police said. The spate of assaults prompted transit officials to renew their call for more police officers in the subway. An additional 500 officers were deployed to the system in February after a homeless man was accused of stabbing four people in the subway.The issue of subway crime was among the issues discussed at a mayoral debate on Thursday. The eight leading Democratic candidates in the race all used the occasion to express concern about the system’s safety, but they were split over whether more officers were needed. Andrew Yang, Eric Adams, Kathryn Garcia, Shaun Donovan and Ray McGuire said they would expand the police presence in the system. Scott Stringer, Dianne Morales and Maya Wiley said they would not.On Friday Sarah Feinberg — who, as the New York City Transit Authority’s interim president, has consistently raised concerns about the system becoming a de facto shelter for homeless people — lashed out at Mayor Bill de Blasio over the attacks.“The mayor is risking New York’s recovery every time he lets these incidents go by without meaningful action,” Ms. Feinberg said in a statement.In a background note appended to Ms. Feinberg’s statement, the authority pointed out which of the mayoral candidates had expressed support for assigning more officers to the subway. Ms. Feinberg was appointed to the authority’s board by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, who has frequently clashed with Mr. de Blasio, a fellow Democrat, on policies related to the transit system, and to the pandemic and its impact more broadly.Last week, Mr. Cuomo compared the current condition of the subway to what it was like in the 1970s, and he blamed city officials for failing to address the system’s problem.A spokesman for Mr. De Blasio, Bill Neidhardt, responded to Ms. Feinberg, saying that the city had diverted officers from desk duty to subway platforms and trains.“We’re going to keep putting massive resources into this fight to keep our subways safe,” Mr. Neidhardt said in a statement. “Meanwhile, the M.T.A. sends out statements that point fingers and talk about mayoral politics.”Danny Pearlstein, the policy and communications director for the Riders Alliance, a public transit advocacy group, said in a statement that the subway remained overwhelmingly safe, and he urged Mr. Cuomo not to spread fear about the state of the system.“The reality is that the governor’s fear-mongering may be scaring people away from public transit and making riders who need to travel less safe,” Mr. Pearlstein said in the statement.The victims of the dozen subway attacks this month include: a 60-year-old woman stabbed in the back; two men slashed in the face on separate days; a woman hit in the face with a skateboard; a man visiting from Ecuador attacked with a screwdriver; a transit worker punched in the face, and a subway conductor chased off a train by a razor-wielding man.Several of those episodes resulted in service being shut down, as did other incidents that did not involve attacks on people.On May 5, a man shouting incoherently about Covid-19 vaccines broke into an operator’s compartment on a train car and holed up there for 90 minutes, and hours later another man pulled the emergency brakes on a train, smashed the windows and fled. More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Can Biden Save Americans Like My Old Pal Mike?

      by

      Mike Stepp in McMinnville, Ore., in 2018.Credit…Lynsey AddarioSkip to contentSkip to site indexOpinionCan Biden Save Americans Like My Old Pal Mike?A childhood friend’s deadly mistakes prompt reflection on our country’s — and my own.Mike Stepp in McMinnville, Ore., in 2018.Credit…Lynsey AddarioSupported byContinue reading the main storyOpinion ColumnistFeb. 13, 2021, 2:30 p.m. ET More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      No More Playing Nice: 5 Highlights From the Mayor’s Race

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceWho’s Running?11 Candidates’ N.Y.C. MomentsA Look at the Race5 Takeaways From the DebateAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNo More Playing Nice: 5 Highlights From the Mayor’s RaceThe candidates make stronger attacks against one another, as a Republican enters the race hoping to court Hispanic voters.Maya Wiley criticized Andrew Yang over his campaign’s use of nondisclosure agreements.Credit…Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesEmma G. Fitzsimmons, Luis Ferré-Sadurní, Katie Glueck, Jeffery C. Mays and Feb. 8, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETWhen New Yorkers vote in the June mayoral primaries, they will get to pick up to five candidates, in ranked order of preference.No one knows exactly how the system, known as ranked-choice voting, might affect the outcome, but plenty of voters were still confused about how it worked when it was used in a special City Council election in Queens last week.The new approach to voting was expected to make candidates refrain from attacks, but the friendly sheen among them is starting to wear off. They are more directly criticizing one another at forums, seeking to highlight their differences.And a new Republican candidate joined the fray. Here are some key developments in the race:The candidates began to take the gloves offScott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, suggested that some of his rivals should exercise better judgment while campaigning during the pandemic.Credit…Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesThe conventional wisdom around ranked-choice voting is that candidates should avoid insulting their opponents for fear of alienating those opponents’ supporters. After all, voters’ second choices could be critical.But now, less than five months before Primary Day, several of the mayoral candidates appear to be making a more straightforward calculation: The time for sharper contrasts has arrived.Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, laced into Andrew Yang over his campaign’s use of nondisclosure agreements, which he said had been discontinued, and highlighted complaints about the culture on his presidential campaign. Shaun Donovan pointedly raised Raymond J. McGuire’s Wall Street background. Mr. McGuire shot back by calling Mr. Donovan “Shaun Obama,” a dig at the former federal housing secretary’s regular mentions that he worked under President Barack Obama. Scott M. Stringer issued barely veiled rebukes of Eric Adams and Mr. Yang over their in-person campaigning during the coronavirus pandemic.And at a candidate forum on homelessness, Dianne Morales contrasted her experience with Mr. Stringer’s, calling him out by name.“Unlike Scott, I’ve actually been talking to the people that are homeless for the last 15 years,” Ms. Morales said. “I’ve been doing the work.”In the scheme of American political discourse, these were, at most, mild exchanges. But they reflect a growing recognition that there is limited time to break out of the pack — and that candidates cannot count on anyone else to negatively define their chief rivals for them.On Sunday, though, advisers to two top candidates certainly tried: Aides to Mr. Yang and Mr. Stringer broke into a sharply personal Twitter exchange tied to the issue of support from the real estate industry.The first ranked-choice election confused votersIt was the debut that wasn’t.A little-known special election in Queens became the testing ground for New York City’s ranked-choice voting system last week, the first time the new system was used ahead of the mayoral primary.How would voters welcome the ability to rank up to five candidates instead of picking just one? Would the system, which could trigger multiple rounds of vote tabulations, be a stumbling block for the traditionally dysfunctional Board of Elections?In the end, however, one candidate, the former councilman James Gennaro, seemed poised to receive more than 50 percent of the vote, making him the likely winner in the City Council’s 24th District. Were he to receive less than 50 percent, the last-place candidate would be eliminated, and that candidate’s votes would be redistributed to the second choices listed on the ballots of voters who favored the eliminated candidate. The process would be repeated until one candidate reached a majority of the vote.Still, the election served as a dry run for a new voting method that will require significant public education.Some voters said they were unfamiliar with exactly how ranked-choice worked, despite being contacted by the campaigns or receiving mailers explaining it.“It didn’t really quite sink in, and I really liked one candidate, so I just voted for him,” said Kanan Roberts, 71, who voted for Mr. Gennaro. Other voters were more aware of its intricacies and appreciative of the ability to vote for several candidates.“If you want to take a risk on a candidate that you don’t know whether they have a realistic shot of winning, but they’re your candidate of choice, they don’t have to be a spoiler anymore under ranked-choice voting,” said Peter Sullivan, 39. “You can pick them first, then pick the safer, ‘electable’ candidates second and third.”Could the city’s first Hispanic mayor be a Republican?Fernando Mateo in December, before he shaved his head last week during his mayoral launch.Credit…Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesA key question in the mayor’s race is which Democratic candidate will win support from the city’s sizable Hispanic community. Ruben Diaz Jr., the Bronx borough president who is of Puerto Rican heritage, was viewed as a top contender before he dropped out of the race last year.But what if that candidate turned out to be a Republican?Fernando Mateo, who was born in the Dominican Republic, announced his mayoral campaign in an unusual video on Facebook last week where he shaved his head — a nod to new beginnings as New Yorkers look forward to the end of the pandemic.“I wanted to show my beauty,” he said in an interview. “I’m the cutest candidate in the race.”Mr. Mateo runs a restaurant, Zona de Cuba, in the Bronx and has led trade groups for livery drivers and bodega owners. He has been involved in politics for years but was also linked to a scandal over Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fund-raising.His campaign website boasts that he was once named “One of the Five Most Influential People in the Country” by The New York Times. That article, in 1994, reflected the results of a survey of senior executives shortly after Mr. Mateo had created a program to trade guns for toys.Mr. Mateo said he wants to to revisit bail reform, keep the jail on Rikers Island open and “re-fund the police” — instead of defunding the department. He distanced himself from former President Donald J. Trump and said he was embarrassed by the riot at the U.S. Capitol.“That’s not what the Republican Party is all about — that’s not what we’re about,” he said. “I’m an urban Republican. I believe in cities and immigration. I don’t believe in hatred.”There has been some debate over whether the city has already had a Hispanic mayor. John Purroy Mitchel, who was mayor from 1914 to 1917, was descended from Spanish nobility.A homeless expert on homelessness grills the candidatesShams DaBaron won praise for his aggressive questioning as a moderator at a mayoral forum on homelessness.Credit…Amr Alfiky/The New York TimesTen mayoral candidates took part in a Zoom forum on homelessness Thursday night, but the standout speaker was one of the moderators: a homeless man who goes by the name Shams DaBaron.Mr. DaBaron, 51, who emerged last fall as the self-appointed spokesman for homeless men battling to remain in the Lucerne Hotel on the Upper West Side over objections from neighbors, demonstrated a grasp of the issues that comes from having lived them.When the candidates were asked if they would disband the police unit that tries to move homeless people from street to shelter, one of them, Loree Sutton, said she would not, and that she would “team up police with peer-to-peer counselors.”Mr. DaBaron explained to her how “outreach” is practiced by the police. “Where they were telling me they were going to help me, and I submitted to the help, I ended up in handcuffs,” he said. “They brought me to a police station, made me take off my sneakers and threw me into a cell and then threatened to give me a ticket unless I entered the shelter system.”In response to a question about plans for the unsheltered people the city has placed in hotels during the pandemic, Shaun Donovan, a longtime government official, offered a mini-filibuster touting his college volunteering, his work with veterans under Mr. Obama and the importance of “reimagining the right to shelter as a right to housing.”Mr. DaBaron asked his co-moderator, Corinne Low of UWS Open Hearts, an organization that supports shelters on the Upper West Side, to pose the question to Mr. Donovan again, suggesting that the candidate had not really answered it.Mr. DaBaron, who tweets as Da Homeless Hero, garnered some raves on Twitter.One person praised him for “not letting any candidate talk about anything other than the content of the questions”; another suggested he might consider running for office.“@homeless_hero for mayor!” the user @SoBendito wrote.Maya Wiley chose Gracie Mansion over her own TV showTwo candidates had to abandon high-profile jobs as television pundits to run for mayor: Ms. Wiley, a legal analyst at MSNBC, and, Mr. Yang, a commentator at CNN.But for Ms. Wiley, the sacrifice might have been more substantial. Speaking to more than 170 women on a “Black Women for Maya” virtual event on Wednesday, Ms. Wiley said she had an opportunity to audition to replace Joy Reid’s weekend talk show “AM Joy” as Ms. Reid was being promoted to host her own prime-time show.Ms. Wiley, a civil rights lawyer, said that she “loved MSNBC” because “it felt like a family” and that she was proud of being a Black woman who was being paid to deliver legal analysis.After Ms. Reid “broke a Black glass ceiling” and received her own prime time show, “MSNBC knew one thing; They’d better put somebody Black in that seat, they knew it,” Ms. Wiley told the audience.She said that she decided not to take the network’s offer of an audition, because “as much joy and as big a paycheck as that MSNBC slot would have been, I knew we had so many treasures that could fill that seat.” She ultimately decided that “in this moment, to me, the greatest gift and privilege would be making people’s lives better.”Mr. Yang said he made a similar deliberation when deciding to leave his position at CNN.“I was very appreciative of my time at CNN. I made a lot of friends,” Mr. Yang said. “But I’m someone who is looking to help people at scale, and New York City is in a lot of pain right now. I’m more of a doer than an analyst.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More