Apartheid in New York?

Starting on July 1, the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation plans to charge fees at six previously-free recreation centers located in low-income, minority neighborhoods. These are public facilities, financed through our taxes. But now the city wants to charge New Yorkers an additional fee in order to use what they've already paid for.

This is the latest instance of publicly-financed facilities charging extra for admission. The effect will be to price many, largely minority, working families out of the use of public facilities important for reasons of health, well-being and community.

This latest development follows a trend of increasing costs to use some of the city's most valuable public assets. Not so long ago, the City University was free to city residents; a student seeking an education there only had to pay for books. Then, in the economic crisis of the 1970s, CUNY started charging fees, which have increased every few years. The city's museums were once free; now some charge as much as $20 for you to get in the door.

Already, the Parks Department charges fees at 22 recreation centers. Now the city intends to require admissions at those centers in low-income neighborhoods that have been excused from visitors' fees. What's next -- a ticket to use the parks?

The city insists that these new fees would not affect the city's parks, playgrounds and outdoor pools, which thankfully remain free. But for how long?

Fees Discourage Use

Ours is a city where more than a third of the population lives near or below the federal poverty line; where more than 70 percent of all low-income New Yorkers have less than $100 in savings; and where 65 percent of poor households spend more than half their income on rent.

In Hunts Point and Mott Haven in the Bronx, Central Brooklyn, East Harlem, and the Lower East Side (sites of these six recreation centers), residents are least likely to be able to afford "membership fees" of $50 to $75 a year to continue using their local recreation center.

A report by the city's Independent Budget Office reveals (not surprisingly) that charging fees to use recreation centers discourages their use; attendance plummeted when previously-free facilities charged for membership. The income for the 22 centers already charging fees and the six now facing fees is expected to bring in a total of about $4 million annually. This tiny revenue stream -- less than one one-hundredth of a percent of the city's current $50 billion budget -- seems way out of proportion to the impact this policy would have on the lives of New Yorkers who depend upon these facilities.

Recreation centers, pools and parks are important to life and health -- where New Yorkers can go for relaxation, relief from the stresses of everyday life, and a sense of community with their neighbors. These centers are also places for physical activity, necessary for good health, in neighborhoods that already suffer a lack of public facilities. [The Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, where I live, has less in the way of afterschool facilities now than it did when I was growing up there in the 1950s.]

With heart disease and diabetes rates at their highest in low-income neighborhoods, the loss of access to these centers -- by residents who need them the most -- would have devastating consequences for those with no means to attend other exercise facilities.

Moving toward
a divided city

New York State has the greatest disparity between rich and poor of any state in the nation, and the disparity is even greater in the five boroughs. Pricing low-income New Yorkers out of public higher education, public cultural facilities, and now out of public recreational facilities is unconscionable.

More and more, New York is moving toward a city divided by race, class and income -- a sort of local apartheid, where many whites can afford public amenities while many minorities are being priced out. The tax dollars of all are spent to support segregated amenities that are kept within reach of a progressively narrowing number of New Yorkers. This is unacceptable.

Where are our elected officials on this issue? Whom do they represent? The City Council can and should do something to halt and reverse this trend. Recreation centers should not be turned into exclusive health clubs, segregating New Yorkers on the basis of race and low income.

From the New York Amsterdam News
May 18 - 24, 2006