Housing Migrants in NYC

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Happy Columbus Day, Indigenous Peoples Day, and/or Italian Heritage Day, depending on what you observe or emphasize. The New York City public schools, if you didn't know this, tried to thread the needle by de-emphasizing Columbus Day, but calling it both Indigenous Peoples Day and Italian Heritage Day to recognize how Columbus, being the first European here, had become not just about him or colonization but a symbol of Italian-American pride and achievement.

The website, newyorklatinculture.org, puts it in historical context this way, "Columbus was evil," it says, "but Columbus Day was founded to stop Confederate white supremacists from lynching Italian Americans." A reminder in that sentence that Italians weren't always considered white in this country, but now they are because it's all relative and politically constructed anyway. The History Channel's website, history.com, adds to that.

It says, "Controversy over Columbus Day dates back to the 19th century when anti-immigrant groups in the United States rejected the holiday because of its association with Catholicism." From the "Columbus was evil" part of that equation, history.com reminds us, "That October 1492, Columbus sighted Cuba and believed it was Mainland China. In December, the expedition found Hispaniola," now Haiti and the Dominican Republic, "which he thought might be Japan. There, he established Spain's first colony in the Americas with 39 of his men."

History.com says, "His first day in the New World, he ordered six of the natives to be seized, writing in his journal that he believed they would be good servants. Throughout his years in the New World," it continues, "Columbus enacted policies of forced labor, in which natives were put to work for the sake of profits. Later, Columbus sent thousands of peaceful Taíno 'Indians' from the island of Hispaniola to Spain to be sold and many died en route."

That was from the History Channel, which also reminds us Columbus returned to Spain in March of 1493, after arriving here in October 1492, having declared Hispaniola Spain's first New World colony. Within five months of landing in a place he thought was Japan and where other people were living, he had the hubris to declare that Spain now own the place and, from day one, took people already living in the place he just arrived at as his slaves.

Here we are, Columbus Day still in some places, Indigenous Peoples Day, understandable why as we come to grips with the full history as opposed to the mythology, and also Italian Heritage Day in the New York City public schools, to try to not erase Italians and their achievements and the historic discrimination against them that Columbus Day also came to signify. Later in the show, we'll talk to a founder of the North American Indigenous Center of New York.

We start with a different kind of migrant story, not a story of conquest and the search for wealth and power, as in the case of Spain and Christopher Columbus, but the story of fear and desperation that's driving millions of Venezuelans to flee their country and thousands to be sent to New York by the officials in Texas, as you all know, after many arrived there seeking political asylum, leading Mayor Adams on Friday to declare this.

Mayor Adams: Today, I'm declaring a state of emergency in the city of New York and issuing an executive order. This executive order will formally direct all relevant agencies to coordinate their efforts to construct the humanitarian relief centers. We're also suspending certain land use requirements to expedite this process. New York City has already done more than nearly any other city to support this influx of asylum seekers. We cannot deprive longtime New Yorkers of support and services even as we address the needs of these new arrivals. It's not sustainable and it is not right.

Brian Lehrer: Mayor Adams declaring a state of emergency on Friday. We'll explain in more detail now what that means. We have a really great guest today as we continue to cover both the humanitarian and political aspects of the situation. Former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is now president and CEO of Win, the largest provider of shelter and supportive services for homeless families in New York City. Among other things it does, Win says it is now housing 250 families seeking asylum. Chris, it's always good to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Christine Quinn: Thank you very much, Brian. I'm happy to be on this morning.

Brian Lehrer: Can you first just explain with your knowledge of city government powers more of what it means that Mayor Adams declared a state of emergency? It's more than just hyperbole, "This is bad. This is an emergency." It gives him certain powers, right?

Christine Quinn: Absolutely. It, one, sends a message, uses the bully pulpit. That's important. The mayor's bully pulpit is probably second to the president, biggest in the country. What it also does is say, "This is an emergency." Some of the normal procedures, the normal requirements, the normal legal mandates can be circumvented. The mayor, I believe, mentioned land use and what we call ULURP, the Uniform Land Use Review Process. That can take a year or two to get a proposal to build a building approved.

We don't have two years. We don't have a year, so this would, in most cases, allow us to jump that process. As an example, there may be other building rules in the Department of Buildings that we'll be able to jump over. Nothing in a state of emergency allows the city to do anything unsafe or dangerous, but it does take some of the review procedures out and lets us move more quickly. Given the rate at which asylum seekers are coming to New York, speed is of the essence.

Brian Lehrer: That one specific power that he mentioned in the clip and that you just referred to was suspending certain land use requirements to expedite the process of creating what he called an emergency response and relief center on Randall's Island and, apparently, more such response and relief centers to come. How do you see the land use challenge ahead and what the mayor can do and should do with this emergency set of powers that he's declaring?

Christine Quinn: I think the mayor should, and it was correct to declare an emergency. I think the mayor and his administration should have latitude and relief as it relates to land use powers. That's it. I just want to be clear. We at Win do not support the kind of facility that was set up at Orchard Beach or is proposed for Randall's Island. We don't think that's good for singles. We support families and think it's really terrible for families.

The challenges that the city has now, Win has now, most importantly, the asylum seekers have now, fall into three or four buckets. One, social service emergency. Where are they going to stay, and making sure it is a quality place with the social services these families and individuals need to, one, move forward and get the benefits they deserve as New Yorkers, as Americans, and to deal with, particularly in the case of folks from Venezuela, the trauma and violence that they have suffered?

Two, they need legal assistance because there are many categories that these individuals can fall into. Asylum seekers, temporary protective status, U visa if they've witnessed a crime. We need legal service so we can get folks really established more as women get all of the rights and responsibilities of Americans and then we need to move to the future. Those who want to stay as New Yorkers, how do we get them permanent housing? That is a place where being free of ULURP could really make a difference. I'll give listeners an example. We at Win are building a new shelter and a big, supportive, permanent housing facility in the Bronx. We were in ULURP for 16 months.

Brian Lehrer: Just so people know, again, ULURP is an acronym that stands for the Universal Land Review Process.

Christine Quinn: That's right.

Brian Lehrer: That's a whole bureaucratic thing that the city has to go through before it uses land for certain purposes to respect community interests and things like that, but it is complicated. That's what ULURP is.

Christine Quinn: It's appropriately complicated, but if we want to, for example, open a rehab or build new shelters quickly, that would really just slow us down. Normally, that could be fine, but no one could have planned for this, right? We don't have that time built in, but I do think it's important for the city to, in this emergency, take a step back and realize that they're focusing too much on short-term answers that don't address the depths of the problems and challenges these asylum seekers have. What we don't want is to, again, have them shuffled from place to place without real plans. I have to say, Brian, this--

Brian Lehrer: Let me stay on the short term, though, for a minute because we have to get through the short term in the city before we can get to the long term. The Randall's Island tent plan has been controversial for exactly the reasons you said. Advocates for asylum seekers of all kinds say they should be given shelter better than a tent city. They say New York City's right-to-shelter law demands something more protected from the elements, especially as winter is coming. I'm curious how you see the realistic options for the mayor with an estimated 10,000-plus in the last few months needing shelter and more arriving every week.

Christine Quinn: Right, so I see it in a couple of different ways. One, add more into the pipeline. Now, one way to do that is to take hotels that are empty or not totally full and make them shelters. Now, for families, you're supposed to have a kitchen in every unit, but we could temporarily, I believe, put that on hold. Take these hotels. The critical thing, Brian, is when we put homeless individuals or families into hotels, that category, usually, it is not a placement with full social service.

Let's take these hotels, work with the owners, but put a full complement of social services in there just as you would in a full-service shelter. One, that gets us more rooms, they're indoors, meets the social services' needs. We could take a couple of rooms, make them offices, et cetera. Two, in the short term, let's take the small steps that we can and get people out of shelter more quickly.

If we get those in shelter, asylum seekers or not, out of shelter more quickly, more shelter rooms open up for asylum seekers. How do you do that? One, we eliminate the old-fashioned, out-of-date, Giuliani-era rule that you have to be in shelter 90 days before you can even start looking for housing. That's just a Giuliani punishment kind of a rule. There's a third of Win clients today who can't look for housing because they haven't been there 90 days. That's going to move people out more quickly.

Three, four, I don't know, I've lost count, we need to fix the administrative problems with the housing voucher processing at the Department of Homeless Services because we hear on a regular basis from landlords who say, "I've been holding this apartment for your client, but I now have another family that wants to rent it. I can't walk away from cash in the hand." If the city would process the vouchers more quickly, people wouldn't lose apartments and we could open up units and shelters for asylum seekers.

Another thing is we still have very high levels of discrimination against homeless individuals looking for housing. The city's Human Rights Commission should, next week, announce they're going to do a SWAT team effort against landlords who discriminate. That way, clients will also not lose apartments. There are other steps we can take, but those are some of the most critical. That way, you're adding capacity and opening up capacity and also helping individuals who aren't asylum seekers get out of shelter.

Lastly, let me just say, right now, the asylum seekers are not eligible for any of the housing vouchers that exist in the city. You and I talked last year about our successful efforts to get the voucher to have more money in it. We need to get things like temporary protective status given to these asylum seekers. Folks might remember. We did that for Haitians after the terrible earthquake. If we do that, they will be eligible for vouchers the same way as if they have witnessed a crime and they get a U visa. How do we do all that processing?

Well, there's a lot of legal machinations involved, and really not something a case manager can do. Catholic charities are doing a good job on that, but we need the city. I know it's money, but we will fight to get it back from FEMA and from Texas. We need to get more legal services online for asylum seekers. This week, it's Monday, I'm going to start reaching out to some of the big white-shoe law firms in the city and ask them if they could create a pro bono response that could get us more lawyers. If any of the managing partners are listening, give me a call.

Brian Lehrer: All right. If this is a day off for the courts, maybe some of those lawyers are out there right now. Are you listening to Christine Quinn? Can you help? Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're talking about Mayor Adams declaring a state of emergency on Friday with respect to so many asylum seekers coming to New York in such a concentrated period of time with my guest, former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is now president and CEO of Win, the largest provider of shelter and supportive services for homeless families in New York City, among other things, including housing 250 families seeking asylum.

She knows this problem on the ground from a provision of services perspective. She knows this problem from a running-the-city perspective as the former city council speaker. Listeners, we can take your questions or comments on this or help us report the story if, like Christine Quinn, you're involved in the system of helping the asylum seekers in any way or, for that matter, if you're an asylum seeker yourself. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Chris, you mentioned the money in the abstract that this will take to provide all these services for so many people arriving so quickly. Let me play another clip of the mayor from his speech on Friday and get your reaction. This is specifically about the shelter system and the threat to the city's finances and other services that the city provides from how this is being handled nationally. Here he is.

Mayor Adams: Our shelter system is now operating near 100% capacity. If these trends continue, we will be over 100,000 in the year to come. That's far more than the system was ever designed to handle. This is unsustainable. The city is going to run out of funding for other priorities. New York City is doing all we can, but we are reaching the outer limit of our ability to help. We're putting people up in emergency hotels, but the holiday season is right around the corner and space is limited. We're trying to find better ways, faster ways to get people into permanent housing, but years of delays have kept low-income housing from being built.

Brian Lehrer: There's Mayor Adams again on Friday. Chris, he cited the number elsewhere in the speech, $1 billion projected for this fiscal year. That's on top of the $100 billion annual budget that city council already approved to match revenues. When the mayor says the city is going to run out of funding for other priorities in that clip, that's scary. With your experience as city council speaker, what choices will the mayor face in the coming months unless something changes regarding city services?

Christine Quinn: He has to focus on making things change, to focus on getting the federal government to have FEMA reimburse the city and FEMA reimburse groups like Win because these folks are not eligible for food stamps yet. We are buying them three nutritious meals a day. We don't get money for that from the city, right? The mayor needs to, and we're all there with him, fight to get the money from FEMA and have the federal government fight to get the money from Texas and from Florida.

Let's, one, change that. Two, if that fails or doesn't work out successfully, though I am confident that President Biden will come through in the end, the mayor and the city council will have to look through the budget and find areas where they can move money around. There is usually that ability because you thought X was going to cost Y and it ends up halfway through the year costing less and so you have some money there you can move around.

I hope we don't end up in cuts. The mayor has already instructed his commissioners to come up with cuts, which is more of an exercise to see where things can be trimmed and not have an impact. I hope a little bit of what the mayor was saying was hyperbole that can send a message to the federal government. Look, it is not fun. I lived through the budgeted speaker in the beginning of the Great Recession and it's hard.

It is hard. There is no question. I think that Governor Abbott, his goal was to make it hard for New Yorkers to create pain and more pain. That's why we have to respond in a really humanitarian, empathetic, holistic way to these asylum seekers, who, once we're able to process all of the legal stuff, that's a technical word, the legal stuff, we will see folks who will be able to go back to work, who will then be adding to our tax base. That will help us as well in the slightly longer term.

Brian Lehrer: Why $1 billion? Here's the part of his speech where the mayor cites and explains that number.

Mayor Adams: The asylum seekers arriving here need more than a hot meal or a bed for a night. Without the ability to work legally in this country, they need long-term shelter, health care, and a great deal of institutional support. It is straining the limits of our ability to provide care for New Yorkers in need and it is burning through our city's budget. We expect to spend at least $1 billion by the end of the fiscal year on this crisis. All because we have a functional and compassionate system. Our right-to-shelter laws, our social services, and our values are being exploited by others for political gain.

Brian Lehrer: "Exploited by others for political gain." Chris, the mayor-

Christine Quinn: That's a fact.

Brian Lehrer: -in saying that, those others would be, primarily, the governor of Texas right now. From your experience as a policymaker, is Governor Abbott down there making kind of a legitimate point that Texas is facing the kind of financial and logistical pressure that Adams is now describing and that we've been discussing for New York and Abbott is trying to get more places to share that burden and to feel they have skin in the game by putting pressure on them like this for a national solution?

Christine Quinn: Well, look, if Governor Abbott needed help, he could have reached out more to the federal government. He could have reached out to governors from other states and said, "This is a national crisis. Let's all get in this together." That would not have been inappropriate. Instead, he literally forced people onto buses in the middle of the night, schlepped for days, and they get off in Port Authority, somewhere where they have really almost no idea where they are.

We really had no idea they were coming or how many would be coming. I'm not cavalier about what Texas has had to bear, but there is a way to organize for more support, ask for more support, and get more support in a way that is compassionate and humanitarian. A way that recognizes individuals who have suffered under a dictator and under terrible violence, not the way the governor has done it.

Brian Lehrer: I guess that Governor wants a different kind of help from the federal government. The Republicans call President Biden's policy an open borders policy. I'm curious if you would call it open borders or how at the federal level should we, in your opinion as somebody who's been a high-level policymaker as well as does service for homeless people now, deal with the competing pressures of people mostly from Venezuela right now, experiencing the need to be refugees in large numbers because of political and economic collapse there and the burden that so many arrivals all at once, places on Texas and New York and other locations. What should federal policy at the border be and can we hear in New York say that should be part of the solution?

Christine Quinn: Well, look, there is no question that our immigration system in this country is broken. It's been broken for quite some time. The dysfunction that is Washington, DC, keeps it broken. What we really need is a bipartisan-- which seems to be a dirty word in Washington right now, but a bipartisan response, a bipartisan working group to come up with an immigration policy and an asylum policy that works for this country.

I just want to note "appropriately." Appropriately, New York and other parts of our country responded with open arms when Ukrainians had to flee their country because of what is happening and the terrible things Putin is doing. That was the right thing to do. Now, we see individuals fleeing Central and South America and we have a different response. You have to wonder, is that because of the color of their skin? You have to wonder that.

We need New Yorkers to keep in mind and embrace, which we are, "You step foot here, it doesn't matter what color your skin is, where you're from, you're a New Yorker." Our response in a holistic way, I believe, can send a message to folks in Washington. Get together. I certainly know that our majority leader, Senator Schumer, would be ready to do bipartisan work, but both far ends of the party need to get together and fix this problem.

Brian Lehrer: Alec in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Christine Quinn. Hi, Alec.

Alec: Good morning, Brian and Christine. I'm wondering if there's any effort to connect asylum seekers with the large number of New Yorkers who actually have extra space in their homes. In my work, I'm in and out of people's homes all the time. There are plenty of people whose kids have left the nest. They might be happy to host and also have the resources to know the city and help them navigate services.

Christine Quinn: Navigating services is really a critical issue. They've done that in other parts of the country. It particularly happened a lot when the Ukrainians came to the United States. Mayor Adams last week, I don't remember what day, announced that the city is now looking into that. I don't have any update beyond his saying they're looking into that. That's certainly something Brian may be able to update folks on later. If you reach out to the mayor's office, they are researching the legality of how that could be done.

Brian Lehrer: Alec, thank you very much. I hope that answers your question. Actually, Chris, why don't you go a little further into that if you can? Maybe you want to take this opportunity to talk a little bit about Win's role in this. I see from your press release that you're housing 250 asylum-seeker families. Does that include some of the ones coming in the last few months, mostly from Venezuela? How can individuals who want to participate work through you or should they work through others if they want to take individuals into their home, for example?

Christine Quinn: At Win, Women in Need, we're the largest provider of shelter and permanent supportive housing to homeless families with children in the city. We have 250 asylum-seeking families. Brian, that is from this wave of folks, right? From the folks who have come on the buses from Texas. It doesn't include any we had before that. Those families collectively have 700 children.

I do want to give the Department of Education a shout-out because they really had a very smooth first day of school for the 700 children that we are working with. How we would work with placing people into individuals' homes, I honestly don't know. We've never done anything like that. If there's that possibility, we'll figure it out with the lawyers or whomever on how we do that. I do want to say to listeners, we need help, right? As the mayor has said, we at Win are, right now, purchasing food.

We have three healthy meals for what makes up three healthy meals for the families to cook in our units in the shelters. If you go to Win's website, winnyc.org, two N's, you can see our shopping cart. You could buy the things that we are needing, diapers, diaper wipes, chicken, other things for the families, as well as make a financial contribution. We also need translators. If you are someone who is Spanish-speaking, Russian-speaking, French-speaking, speaks any African languages or dialects, please go to our website to the volunteer section.

We have gotten approval from the state to use volunteers as translators. Basically, none of the asylum seekers speak English. A usual intake at Win is 45 minutes. Now, it's taking about three hours because we're moving the staff around. Our maintenance staff has been terrific and helpful as translators, but we need more. I'm having conversations with CUNY and hoping maybe we could get some of their students to be translators and maybe get credit for it. That's something where we really need assistance.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another call. Neil in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Neil.

Neil: Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I had a couple of comments. One is that New York City has such a huge homeless problem as it is. Yesterday, we were walking from Christopher Street to Chelsea. Practically, on every block, there was a homeless person just passed out on the street. We have this existing problem and most of the existing homeless are African Americans. These newcomers are competing for limited resources for people who are born and bred Americans. How are we going to address this? That's one thing.

The other thing is if you live in New York City, you just notice that homeless services aren't doing much. We have $3 billion paid to homeless services. Do they provide outreach like psychiatric outreach to the homeless? The city councilman, in the few months he's been in the office, has done more for the homeless in terms of mental health outreach than the $3 billion homeless services. We need to address this. Where are our tax dollars going? I'm paying taxes. Where are my tax dollars going to help the homeless long term? Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Neil.

Christine Quinn: A couple of things, one, I agree with you--

Brian Lehrer: Big question, right?

Christine Quinn: Yes. One, I agree with you. Erik Bottcher is doing a terrific job as a city council member. He used to work for me when I was speaker and he is doing a great job. You said the word "mental health." You hit the nail on the head there as a significant portion of the homeless population suffers like the rest of the population does from mental health issues. Expanding mental health services is a critical thing that we at Win are fighting for.

Right now, there are mental health services in shelters for singles. Your taxpayer dollars are paying for that. We probably need more of that, but there is no dedicated funding to mental health and psychiatric services in the family system. Erik Bottcher, at Win's request, has introduced a piece of legislation, which would create a fund and require mental health services in family shelters as well.

Two, the city does do psychiatric outreach and they do it now by contracting with social service providers. If you see somebody repeatedly living on the street or the corner and you call 311 and report that address in, at some point later that day or week, the organization, I believe it's breaking ground, but I could be wrong, will go out and look for that person and try to bring them into shelter.

One of the most important things we can do to help single individuals and families who are homeless is build more supportive house. What's that? It's permanent housing, apartment building, but it has services on-site, caseworkers, psychiatric social workers, psychiatric nurse practitioners, et cetera. That's something that I'm happy to say, your taxpayer dollars, both on the city and state level, is now going forward.

Brian Lehrer: We're almost out of time, but I want to follow up on what you just said or part of what you just said, which is something that the mayor also said in the last clip we played. I'm looking for that part of the quote. Dot-dot-dot-dot-dot. Well, it's about space is limited here. He said, "Space is limited. We're trying to find better ways, faster ways to get people into permanent housing, but years of delays have kept low-income housing from being built." Just give us your perspective from your long experience in city leadership and now running a housing nonprofit, how you see the main causes of the years of delays he referred to there in building enough low-income housing.

Christine Quinn: Well, I think there's a couple of things. One, I don't think it was necessarily the priority that it should have been in the de Blasio administration, right? When you say "affordable housing," you say affordable to whom? Given the situation in New York right now housing-wise, we need affordable housing for folks leaving shelter, for low-income folks, and for middle-income folks because prices are so crazy. In the first iteration of Bill de Blasio's affordable housing plan there wasn't one unit set aside that was affordable for people leaving shelter, right? That's one delay right there.

Two, we didn't push as aggressively historically to get things that are for low-income people through the ULURP process as quickly as possible. We could have managed that better. Three, we endlessly have battles in communities about whether they really want affordable housing and if building out affordable housing means making a slightly taller building than the neighborhood is used to. Is that trade-off worth it? That's a debate, Brian, you know that becomes epic in the city of New York. We need to have more of those debates, ending with a couple of more floors and housing for really low-income people and homeless individuals.

Brian Lehrer: Let me--

Christine Quinn: I mentioned mental health before.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead. Go ahead.

Christine Quinn: Studies have shown that sick mothers who have mental health services are more likely to remain out of shelter in permanent housing than those who don't.

Brian Lehrer: Since you critique Mayor de Blasio's housing policy, give us one last follow-up thought on Mayor Adams' housing policy because he says, as I understand it, that he's emphasizing quality low-income housing, not a big numerical goal for more units like the last two mayors had. I'm curious how much you think he's on the right or wrong track.

Christine Quinn: Well, I think it's still early as it relates to Mayor Adams' housing plan. I know that he was rightly criticized in his presentation not having goals and numbers. I've had follow-up conversations with Jessica Katz, who's the mayor's chief housing officer who is amazing. New Yorkers should really feel good about that. She understands that we need to have goals and numbers. She says there actually are more goals and numbers in there than had been presented. I think we have to do quality and we have to do number.

If the mayor wants to start off a little slower in the first year, we can accept that. For the rest of the four years or eight years, we need both quality and quantity. This is a situation where size, as it relates to numbers, really does matter and we need it all. We need to fix the Housing Authority because there are units there that are offline because of issues, broken things, et cetera that should be online and should have individuals in them. The homeless set aside we have at NYCHA is one of the best things we have as it relates to solving this problem of homelessness.

Brian Lehrer: Former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is now president and CEO of Win, Women in Need, the largest provider of shelter and supportive services for homeless families in New York City, including 200 families seeking asylum who have arrived recently. Chris, thanks for all your wisdom on this and all your perspectives. We really appreciate your voice.

Christine Quinn: Thank you very much. Go to our website, listeners. We need volunteers and we need donations.

 

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