In a new poll, over half of New Yorkers fear being unable to pay for basic health care, and nearly 70 percent believe they would be unable to afford care in the event of a major illness.
Before the pandemic, evictions were a major contributor to instability in low-income neighborhoods of color. Over the past few years, we have found a correlation between neighborhoods with a high share of black or Latinx renters and evictions, controlling for poverty levels.
Transit affordability is one of the lower hanging fruits on the path to an inclusive recovery. Fair Fares is an incredibly small fraction of the city’s budget, but will improve hundreds of thousands of lives, if not over a million lives should the program be expanded to reflect true poverty in NYC.
The pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing racial and class inequalities in our city. Today, nearly 220,000 renter households have been sued for eviction in housing court.
As New York City continues its recovery process, we provide the following recommendations to stabilize the lives of low-income New Yorkers.
Good Cause eviction protections strengthen not only individual tenants, but entire communities. They provide tenants with a baseline ability to plan their lives, have some housing stability, and live secure in the knowledge that they will not be arbitrarily driven from their homes.
For most of the past half century, workers’ rights and workplace protections have been sacrificed by corporations seeking to maximize their bottom lines. The result is ballooning inequality as corporate owners have been able to keep an increasing share of the fruits of workers’ productivity as profits, enriching themselves.
Street vendors are New York State’s smallest businesses, and they are an essential part of New York City’s cultural ecosystem and economy. Nearly 20,000 entrepreneurs, primarily immigrants, people of color, military veterans and women, are engaged in street vending, many existing as part of a shadow economy of workers unable to acquire necessary business licensing to legitimize their business.
Fair Fares NYC, a program that provides half-priced subway and bus fares for New York City residents living at or below the federal poverty level, is a critical transit lifeline for New Yorkers struggling to get to work, school and essential appointments.
Our mass transit system can be our city’s great economic equalizer, an engine for upward mobility, and a key to jumpstarting an inclusive recovery. It is more important than ever to strengthen Fair Fares and ensure eligible New Yorkers are enrolled.
CSS Housing Analyst Samuel Stein and CSS Senior Economist Debipriya Chatterjee argue that because 421-a is so expensive and ill-targeted to the city’s housing needs, and because previous efforts to rein in and refocus the program have failed, the best course of action is to let the program expire.
The respective chairs of the State Senate and Assembly Banks committees today joined several nonprofit organizations who advocate on behalf of the 2.4 million New Yorkers struggling with student loan debt to thank Governor Kathy Hochul for including funding for EDCAP (Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program) in her executive budget.
CSS is excited to announce our bold new brand identity, one that will make our megaphone as powerful as possible. Our new logo, tagline, and colors reflect who we are in 2022 and where we’re heading, while continuing to draw on our more than 175-year fight for a New York where everyone lives with dignity and economic security.