Main Immigrant Advocacy Group Releases NYC Agenda, Countering Mayor’s Funds

Make the Highway New York (picture: Ed Reed/Mayoral Pictures Workplace)

With Mayor Eric Adams quickly to launch his government price range plan, Make the Highway New York, a number one immigrant advocacy group, is releasing a coverage and price range agenda to push the mayor and Metropolis Council to undertake a extra immigrant- and worker-friendly price range.

With 25,000 members throughout the state, Make the Highway is the most important member-based group of immigrant advocates within the state and a outstanding voice for progressive laws. The group will launch its “Dignity, Neighborhood and Energy” agenda at its neighborhood heart in Jackson Heights, Queens on Wednesday afternoon, advocating for immigrant protections, a proper to shelter and housing, schooling fairness, stronger employee protections, expanded well being care, equity for nonprofit human-services suppliers, and a discount within the “bloated” annual NYPD price range.

The agenda contains each coverage proposals and funding measures that Make the Highway believes must be included within the metropolis’s price range for the subsequent fiscal yr, which begins July 1. Among the measures echo efforts from the Metropolis Council, particularly its Progressive Caucus, the place Make the Highway has many allies.

The mayor’s $102.7 billion preliminary price range, launched earlier this yr, has been a supply of broad controversy as he has mandated spending cuts throughout metropolis companies that critics say will additional harm primary metropolis companies. Adams has repeatedly mentioned that he has been pressured to make robust monetary selections as town faces a number of main challenges, mainly an inflow of tens of hundreds of migrant asylum-seekers, a disaster that his administration initiatives will value town about $4.3 billion by July 2024.

Elected officers, together with Metropolis Council management, and immigrant advocates have spent months pushing again towards the mayor’s strategies that funding companies and shelter for migrants will come at the price of taking good care of New Yorkers which have already been right here. They usually have referred to as on him to make use of billions in anticipated surplus income to spend money on town’s most susceptible populations.

Make the Highway’s agenda straight outlines measures to realize that purpose. “It’s a community-based and -guided platform which we hope that, this subsequent fiscal yr, town  can fund, and appears at points the place brown, and Black and immigrant New Yorkers, the working class, are going to see aid of their on a regular basis lives,” mentioned Natalia Aristizabal Betancur, Make the Highway’s deputy director, in a cellphone interview. The mayor and Metropolis Council should agree on a brand new metropolis price range by the July 1 begin to the subsequent fiscal yr.

A chief criticism of Adams has been that he’s proposing vital cuts to companies that serve the neediest New Yorkers and has didn’t extra aggressively get hundreds of budgeted however vacant personnel positions stuffed, whereas making little try to rein in ballooning prices on the NYPD and Division of Correction. The police division, which prices town about $11 billion yearly in working bills and fringe advantages, has already exceeded its extra time price range for the present fiscal yr by $100 million and rising, regardless of guarantees by the mayor to deliver these prices below management. Make the Highway’s agenda takes direct intention at these prices, calling for substantial cuts to police funding, although with no particular greenback determine in thoughts, and higher transparency and accountability from the division.

“The way in which that Mayor Adams has been dealing with the price range has not been centering the individuals who want essentially the most assist in New York Metropolis,” Betancur mentioned, particularly highlighting cuts to varsities whereas the police price range stays largely unchanged. “We hope that this yr, he understands that he must be delivering extra for the individuals who voted for him and never for (rich) New York Metropolis pursuits.”

The group can also be calling for an finish to the NYPD’s Faculty Security division, and to redirect its $450 million price range to highschool assets, employees, psychological well being companies, and restorative justice practices. The agenda urges town to right away place a hiring freeze on faculty security brokers, get rid of 600 vacant faculty security positions, get rid of $47.5 million allotted for “enhanced safety measures” together with surveillance, and disband the Youth Coordination Officers program that prices $106.2 million.

Make the Highway can also be calling for eliminating the police division’s VICE unit and utilizing its $25 million in funding to supply well being, authorized, and academic companies to employees within the intercourse trades; eliminating the NYPD’s Psychological Well being Co-Response Groups (which value $5.7 million) and cops inside the Division of Homeless Companies (which value $30.1 million); in addition to the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group and its public relations price range, which altogether value town about $138.7 million yearly. All that funding, the advocacy group argues, ought to as a substitute be reinvested in community-based public security options reminiscent of ending homelessness, constructing housing, increasing psychological well being companies, hurt discount packages, schooling, and youth companies.

The agenda requires a further $50 million in immigration authorized companies; $1 million in baselined funding for the Speedy Response Authorized Collaborative, a city-state operation first created in 2019 and offering authorized counsel to these in detention or dealing with deportation; and sustaining $16.6 million for the New York Immigrant Household Unity Undertaking.

The group can also be pushing for the passage of three payments earlier than the Metropolis Council – Intro. 158which might amend town’s civil immigration detainer legal guidelines to permit people to sue if they’re wrongfully detained by the NYPD, the Division of Correction (DOC), or the

Division of Probation; Intro. 184which might forestall the NYPD from detaining a person on a civil immigration detainer previous their launch date with no signed warrant; and Intro 185which might forestall the DOC from disclosing details about individuals of their custody to federal immigration authorities.

Because the housing and homelessness disaster worsens within the metropolis within the wake of the pandemic and given the arrival of so many asylum-seekers, Make the Highway is pushing for the administration to make sure that all New Yorkers have a “right to a roof” by increasing eligibility to undocumented immigrants for the CityFHEPS vouchers – a rental subsidy which helps people who find themselves both dwelling in homeless shelters or dealing with homelessness discover everlasting housing. The group can also be calling for a complete housing plan that ensures New Yorkers can stay in secure and wholesome properties, together with by higher penalties on landlords who fail to make repairs to properties.

Among the many extra outstanding criticisms leveled towards the mayor’s price range is that it’s going to scale back funding to Division of Training faculties, CUNY, and public libraries, with low-income communities of shade experiencing the worst results of these funding cuts. Make the Highway’s agenda requires restoring as much as $500 million in schooling funding, whereas stopping any additional cuts. It additionally urges town to baseline $20.4 million for grownup literacy packages run by the Division of Youth and Neighborhood Improvement (which the Metropolis Council has additionally pushed for); pushes the Metropolis Council to resume a $4 million discretionary grownup literacy initiative, and renew and develop a separate $5 million discretionary grownup literacy pilot challenge. It additionally requires restoring $9.2 million in funding for 52

neighborhood faculties, which give extra holistic companies to college students and households.

The agenda contains a number of employee protections together with help for the passage of Intro. 837additionally referred to as the Safe Jobs Act, which might prohibit terminating an worker with out simply trigger. It requires renewing and increasing the Low-Wage Employee Help Initiative to $3 million; restoring $2.4 million in funding for the Division of Client and Employee Safety to keep away from emptiness reductions; restoring $3 million in funding to make sure satisfactory staffing on the Legislation Enforcement Bureau of town’s Fee on Human Rights; and $5.3 million for the Consortium for Employee Training “Jobs to Construct On” program and $2.4 million for Employee Service Facilities.

Increasing entry to well being look after immigrants and employees has been a serious precedence for advocates. Make the Highway’s agenda contains a number of proposals to realize that purpose together with $4 million to develop funding for the Entry Well being Initiative; $2.3 million for the Managed Care Client Help Program (MCCAP); sustaining $7.7 million for the Ending the Epidemic initiative targeted on ending HIV; and $2 million for the Immigrant Well being Initiative.

The agenda additionally requires $100 million yearly to develop the NYC Care program, which is overseen by NYC Well being + Hospitals and offers low- to no-cost well being companies to people who don’t qualify for or can’t afford medical health insurance, together with undocumented New Yorkers. Moreover, Make the Highway is asking for a brand new Neighborhood Well being Employee Undertaking to assist community-based organizations rent Neighborhood Well being Staff that may help navigation of the system at health-care amenities.

Even previous to Adams’ tenure, metropolis authorities has lengthy been criticized for failing to pretty pay nonprofit human-services suppliers. That, together with prolonged delays in funds, have led a lot of the business to the brink of insolvency. In its agenda, Make the Highway urges town pay suppliers “what we’re price,” in-full and on-time by first offering a 6.5% cost-of-living

adjustment to all suppliers by $200 million within the subsequent price range after which offering them a multi-year pay settlement on par with DC37, town’s largest municipal union that not too long ago ratified a brand new contract with town. The group additionally requires altering the Oblique Price Charge guide to make oblique funding a set price range value that’s absolutely funded and to make sure on-time registration and cost of contracts with authorized enforcement for delays and late cost.

Lots of the gadgets on Make the Highway’s agenda align with the New York Metropolis Council’s recently-released preliminary budget response and the Council Progressive Caucus’ budget prioritieseach of which name for rolling again schooling cuts, investing in inexpensive housing and increasing psychological well being companies, whereas broadly investing in working New Yorkers, notably low-income communities of shade.