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0918askyouradvocatebblock

All right, welcome back to ask your advocate. We're here with Juan Williams taking your questions. The number of the call is 7188616800. To get in the conversation right now. We're going to go to Courtney from Bushwick Brooklyn. She's got a question for the public advocate, Courtney. Hey, you know, everyone's going on about wanting to do something about affordable housing and homelessness. But there's an easy fix that I feel that is being overlooked. Landlords are getting away with murder with over 100,000 apartments illegally destabilized and the tenants don't even know and also they warehousing more. It also takes DH cr almost I've been with Dr it's been 10 years in court over overcharges in my apartment, which is ridiculous because by that time most tenants have been priced out or evicted. What's being done to streamline the DHC R overcharge process and also start holding these landlords accountable. And that's a, that's a great question and, and thank you for that. It can actually take up the entirety of not just half an hour but an hour or two. Just to be clear. Uh HCR. And uh, I think, uh the caller goes back with me because we back in the day we called the DH CR it's now called uh HCR. It's actually a state agency. Um, so it doesn't fall on the city jurisdiction, but many of us have been pushing uh HCR to try to streamline the process. Like it's being uh spoken about. It's very difficult for tenants to navigate even if the tenants nowhere to go. Because most people think of H PDH P doesn't handle uh some of the rental uh things that the discussions and that will go to HCR. But the my office can help uh deal with a lot of those things that I would ask people to reach out to that as well. And hopefully that caller will get trouble damages, which is what she should get a triple the amount that that was lost. But in terms of destabilizing and warehousing, those are problems that we're fighting right now. Um The warehousing of apartments is tabulated. It is known about, I've heard from 6 $10,000 10,000 units up to 60,000 units and that's a lot of units in a, in a housing crisis. And we're trying to find a way to make sure that landlords can't wear house. We're also trying to encourage them and uh shout out to uh President Antonio Renos who's been pushing a plan to try to get the city to pay those owners to house some of the long time New Yorkers who are waiting for housing so that we could move some of the uh New New Yorkers into uh the shelter system, which is uh just burgeoning at, at this, uh which is just, you know, blowing up at this moment in time. Um So there are things that we've been pushing. Um It's very hard and I would say, you know, a lot of times elections do have consequences. And often time we're putting folks in positions, uh, that are getting a lot of money from the folks who are rich off of the system the way it is. And many times they're putting, you know, small one or two or small homeowners in the front line because they actually are struggling. We have to make sure we system, but sometimes they're covering the bigger guys, uh who actually are not doing as bad, but we wanna make sure that everybody can succeed in New York City, but you shouldn't succeed off the backs of other folks. And right now tenants are really, uh really suffering. So we wanna make sure we're doing work for both folks who are dealing with issues, but housing is a real, real problem and has been for decades and it's only gotten worse. And again, uh I've been dealing with issues for 27 years as an organizer, as a councilman now as a public advocate. And if we can get our, our leaders to listen and not just follow whoever is giving the biggest donation, so many things can get better for that caller and other folks as well. And if we're building housing, something is a, you know, I, I always worry about affordable housing because something is always affordable to someone. We have to be building income, targeted housing in a way that we just haven't been in. That's part of the reason that we got into this in the first place. Let's go to another question from Brooklyn. We have Leo in. This is a question that we got during the week for the public advocate about uh mental health, Leo public advocate Jamali Williams. This is a question for you. What has been put in place to improve mental health uh which is really destroying every fragment of the society topic long discussed. You know, here we are September 2023. What's being done? I mean, it's huge. What I was, I'm so happy of the amount of people who are speaking about mental health in a way that we weren't a decade ago. Um So that is a positive uh what is a negative? We still don't have the continuum of health that we need for people, particularly those who have acute um mental health uh issues and that's part of the problem and part of the things that we're trying to fix. But I will give a shout out to um the uh chancellor who has been trying to put some things in place for uh students to address this, but we need a whole bunch more. But like we have some schools that don't even have the adequate amount of social workers and even nurses to address this. But and what we have to realize is that I believe everybody needs a mental health checking in whether they have a mental health, acute crisis uh issue or not. Just like you need to check in the doctor, hopefully going to the dentist, let's get a check in and see how you doing. And what we do know is after the pandemic things have gotten worse. We have adults that are doing some of the wildest things and our, our, our temper and our anger has sparked like this because we haven't really addressed many of our mental health um issues that all of us are dealing with. And if we don't know how to deal with it positively comes out negatively. Now, imagine that in the young mind, right? And imagine that in our young people's mind uh in a way uh that we see how it plays out on the streets. And that's a problem. As a matter of fact, uh uh a good amount of people who are uh detained in Rikers Island are dealing with mental health issues. Probably the largest mental health institution in, right in North America is Rikers Island. And so until we address that issue in the way that that Paul has said, uh, we're gonna have a big problem and we can't send people with mental health issues to Rikers Island think it's gonna get better. That makes no one safer. And so unfortunately, there's still a lot more room to go. But I, I would, uh, you know, encourage people to call 1 800 NYC. Well, uh, they can also call 301 to try to connect, uh, to folks who can, who can assist. And I love what you said there. Just a simple check in, you know, it doesn't have to be a long time. It doesn't take a lot of effort. Just checking in with friends and family can really go a long way if everybody did that. I feel like we would be making some ground here. We're going to be here for a little bit longer with the public advocate. The number is 7188616800. Jean Williams is here answering your questions. We'll be right back.

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0918askyouradvocatecblock_2023-09-18-19-47-00

All right, welcome back to ask your advocate Jumana Williams is here. We're gonna kind of go a little faster now with their calls, we have Ken Roy on the phone from Concor Village with a question for the public advocate Ken Roy. Yes. Go ahead. What's your question? Yeah, good afternoon, Mr Mr Williams. Um Yeah, my problem is um crime, crime mom. I live in, you know, I live on 100 and 67th street, um bordered by the Concourse and um Morris Avenue, um Morris Avenue, um near Yankee Stadium and um it's like really rampant, you know. Um it, it's as though the criminals are just running um, the streets. I can't, I, you know, IIII I do a out after six o'clock at night, you know, you can hear the shots going off. You see no cops, nowhere people are dropping like flies and um I don't hear anybody trying to um to, to solve this issue, you know. Um All I see is people that is on the street that's been released, released, released. Nobody's getting put away for the crimes that they're committing. And it's frightening. I live in New York since 1970 and I've never seen it like that. You know, what do you say to, to New Yorkers? Like Ken Roy that are a little scared. Yeah, I'm so sorry that, uh, Ken Roy feels that way and he's experiencing those things and I think it's expressing the feelings of a lot of New Yorkers and we can't ignore it. One. I wanna make sure that we're always talking about people being safe and actually feeling safe. You can actually be safe and not feel safe. And both of those things are really bad and we don't want to know what people are actually dealing with. And I, I would say there are some, uh, data points mean nothing if you're a victim of crime. But thankfully, murders and shootings are down, there are some Felonious crimes that have gone up but some of the way that we've discussed this, no one would believe that murders and shootings are down. No one believe that we're doing, uh, making arrests with gun arrests, which we are. I'm not sure that people believe that there's more folks in Rikers Island now than before the pandemic. It seems like based on what people have been pushing and partly actually even the administration who was erroneously pushing bail as an issue for the crime rising, which it just never was even now, they can't even benefit from some of the lower crime numbers because they've done such a good job of hyping everybody up. But with that said, there are some real things that we have to be doing. And I do have to say if you've been, if you lived in the city through the eighties and nineties, like I have, you've actually been through a period where things were just much worse. The murder rate, the shooting rate was incredible. So I wanna take space to just say actually, we're doing a little bit better, but that means nothing to Kroy. It means nothing to the people or victims of crime. We have to do so much more. We know that our law enforcement partners, we want to see them do their job. The problem becomes when we rely on them solely to do that. And that's part of the problem and we have to make sure everybody plays their part. And even when we're discussing mental health, uh, one of the things that we can do, even as human beings, when people say, hey, what's up? How you doing? We should actually listen. A lot of times we don't, sometimes we see young people in the street. We don't say hello. We don't say good morning, we don't say good night. That's an issue as well. So what we wanna do is put forth a plan that has been put forth with the, the, the, uh, the mayor and really push that forward and hopefully when I come back, we could expand this a little bit more because I know we're about to wrap up, but that's an important question for Ken Roy and he's right to bring it up and we're right to respond. We got about 30 seconds. There is a way to keep in touch with you, bro. Uh Public advocate. I rather uh tell, tell us about that. Yes. The QR code that you see now we have a chat bot. We introduced the last time we were here, we're excited about it. Uh, please uh get that QR code. You can talk to our office. You can sign up for our newsletter for our magazines that go out. Find out about what we're doing around public safety, around gun violence in particular, please uh check it out. Get involved. Absolutely. A chance to stay in touch with Juan Williams. We appreciate you giving us the time on this Monday evening. Public advocate. Thank you, peace, everybody.

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News 12's Dan Serafin sat down with New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams for the September 2023 edition of Ask Your Advocate. 

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All right. Well, let's check back in now. We are dealing with this bitter blast still. We're checking in with teen meteorologist Scott Skoff. Now, Scott, you said today is not the end of these cold temperatures. I know it's the holiday season so I need to just get used to it. But man, yeah, there's a song that comes to mind. Follow la la la, la, la la oy because that's what we're looking at with colder temperatures. Even on the way into tomorrow, we're gonna be seeing these feels like temps staying in the twenties. But as we go to the end of the week, things are gonna be warmer but it comes with a catch rain is on the way, but those feels like temps can be the twenties all day long. So bundle up, keep yourself warm layer, have your jacket, your gloves, your scarf or hand warmers, reduce your time outside even with your furry friends too. Because as we go into the rest of the day today, we are going to be seeing these temperatures drop into the teens. That's what it's going to feel like for the start of your hump day tomorrow. So definitely even colder air ahead of us as we are looking at. Yes, a little bit of, I say it's snow. These have produced snow squall warnings over in northeast Pennsylvania and northwestern New Jersey. These snow showers are continuing to push on in towards us here in the city and you could even see those snow bands look to the north and west. This is a view from Kingsbridge and the Bronx. You can see those snow bands moving towards the city. So definitely the possibility is there towards the afternoon. I'm thinking between two and six o'clock in the afternoon, it's going to be some festive flakes, nothing accumulating but still be pretty to look at. Make sure to use the hashtag and 12 Storm Watchers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even post them to the news 12 app for the latest. And if you want to send your pictures in because it is going to be beautiful and by 67 o'clock should be done, we are going to be seeing that cold air come on and going to be in the twenties by the morning will feel like the teens and with that wind, that's going to be the big driving factor behind it. 20 to 30 mile per hour gusts through the rest of the day today and that will be lingering into tomorrow as well. So it's gonna be cold, it's going to be windy. It's gonna feel like the twenties even though the high temperature around 40 degrees with those blustery brisk winds gusts up to 30 MPH twenties overnight. But we feel like the teens because that breezy wind and all that cold air, the good news is we are going to be seeing that feels like temp go way up Thursday into the forties. So that's light at the end of the tunnel and then Friday fifties with the chance of rain. Same story, Sunday, Monday with milder temperatures as we enter the month of December on Friday.

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Weather

Bronx

BX | Weather

BXFORECAST

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0918askyouradvocateablock_2023-09-18-19-46-53

Ask Your Advocate: September 2023 Edition

Hello, everyone. And thank you for being here with us on news 12 or local matters. I'm Dan. And this is ask your advocate, we're gonna be taking your questions for the next half hour. Make sure to give us a call. The number will be at the bottom of your screen for most of this half hour. That number is 7188616800. And we're very happy to welcome to our studios tonight, New York City Public Advocate Juman Williams. Jui thank you so much for being here this month. Really appreciate your time. We're gonna, uh we're gonna start with, with the migrant crisis as the scene of a lot of the debate at least has kind of shifted now to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. Obviously, that was a talk of that as being a location for quite some time. What's, what's the latest now as we, we know that's gonna be a location and, and now what are we doing moving forward? You know, it's, it's, this is interesting and we, we always wanna make sure that we're not creating, sorry, not misdirecting our anger. And it was interesting to see what was going on, even in, with uh some leaders and some uh constituents because I remember in, I believe it was 86 or there abouts there was a film that was bombed when they sold the first Black House, the first house to a black person in, in, in to see it. Now, some of the that I've heard are some of the people who are teaming up with folks who are spot in Detroit. It's very interesting. Uh It's not uncommon and so what we wanna do is make sure that we're allowing people to be angry and they should be angry, particularly New Yorkers who have been trying to get their government to respond to them for such a long time, but haven't, but we wanna make sure that they keep that anger to the government that has failed them, not to the human beings who are trying to get away from things that are really dangerous. And most of us would want to get away with and be angry at the leaders who are not providing assistance to New York City, which is what they should be doing. And you wrote something that was, that was just published an op ed uh just this week. Uh a part of it that kind of struck me when you put that. Um you know, we need to look at our leaders who work to solve acute crises rather than addressing long standing harms that make those cries worse. That's kind of what you, what you just mentioned. And obviously, this is a difficult situation. We went on to say we need to find something that's physically responsible also must be morally responsible. Is that possible right now? It is. And so I wanna shout out to re Williams for, I wanna shout out uh Louis uh favors uh and Tamika Marie who helped uh co author that oped. Uh And basically, we were saying, you know, if these migrants were not here, the same New Yorkers, particularly black brown working class, New Yorkers would not be getting assistance. So the assistance that they should be getting, I should say uh and to pretend that somehow the reason that they're not getting the housing, they need the child care they need is because of the migrants is disingenuous at best. We have been through crisis moments before uh crisis that we didn't know when it was gonna end like the pandemic like the recession. Uh But the best leadership does that with hope and light. Uh Even if we don't know where we're gonna go. Now, the, the, the question is, can we sustain this as a city by ourselves? And we simply can't. Uh So uh I would say that we were looking at cuts to the budget before the migrants came and that's another disingenuous uh way to say that we're gonna make some cuts because of the migrants. But we do have to be fiscally responsible. I would say uh what was presented by the May and administration with 5% cuts three times in one bus fiscal year. Across the board is not fiscally responsible. We may have to find some cuts somewhere and we should do that with the city council looking at the budget as a whole, but across the board is gonna harm so many people. What we do need is the president to act and give us some funding. We do need the governor to give us some funding which we haven't got. We do need both of them to help us get deep compression strategies from the border and from New York City to other places in the state. We do need the governor to acknowledge that the right to shelter is not just New York City, it is across the state as well. We do need those things but how we handle the crisis, even if we're not getting those are up to us. And so there is a way that we can lift up uh the lifestyle and the, the normality that people want to see as long time New Yorkers without losing the humanity of the migrants who are here. Got you. Ok. Let's, let's go to our first question. We do have a caller. It's Gloria from Bushwick. She's got a question for the Advocate. Uh Gloria, are you there? Yes, I am. Good evening. Uh My, my question is, I don't mind helping the migraine is good. But what happens to the people that are here already? Get that need from you? It's a question that we've got as we go out in the streets and look for people to ask you questions also. Uh just like what, what Gloria said, what, what do you say to those people that are, that are currently homeless? 0 100% Gloria is correct. But what again, what I want to make sure is that we take that anger and focus it correctly the day before the first migrant bus came and this is important. There were 50,000 New Yorkers who had been in the shelter for multiple years already. Right now, the 50,000 New Yorkers, 50,000 New Yorkers who are in the shelter currently, who've been there for multiple years, they're not getting the assistance they need and they weren't. What I'm saying is that if we are not careful and we direct that anger to the migrants, then some people can get hurt. And as we mentioned, the op ed, we want a government that doesn't just respond to an acute crisis like the migrant, but recognizes the crisis that many New Yorkers have been in for decades. And so when we say we have to have revenue raising options in our budget, it and the administration does not support it. That's a problem because we knew that we had uh tens of thousands of long term New Yorkers who couldn't get the housing they needed. So if we had gotten that support, we might be in a better place. So there's so many things that we could have done. But what we have to do now is make sure that we're lifting up the cries of everyone. And I, I have been pushing models that say, listen, if we can get long time New Yorkers who are in the shelter now into the housing permanently, then we can move the the the New New Yorkers through the shelter system. So we have to take care of our long time New Yorkers, we can do that in a way which is what I'm pushing. Uh that we don't forget about the humanity of people who are just beginning their uh American experience right now. And this happens generation after generation and every generation will tell you why uh this time is different than the last time. And so we just have to be clear about and that's, that's difficult, particularly if you're hurting. And so we need leadership that's not gonna exacerbate the hurt but is gonna acknowledge the hurt and put some real plans forward to address it. One of the places that we, we've seen you on our air here on news 12 over the last couple of months has been uh with concerns for inmates in in city jails. Um a couple weeks ago, last week rather, we saw you talking about mental health for inmates and then last month, there was a rally for NYPD transparency that you were a part of as well. What can you tell us? Let's start with that NYPD transparency because it seems there's a lot of people that really are looking for that maybe to be pushed to the forefront as an issue. Well, what we've seen now and do have some concerns is some numbers came out of summonses and that's really interesting because nine out of 10 of the summonses that have come from the first six months have been black and brown, New Yorkers. Uh There's no way you can tell me that nine out of 10 things that people have seen are only black and brown New Yorkers. And so that's of concern and we think uh the, the NYPD should account for that and explain why that is. There were also some bills that passed uh previous uh city council that said we want to decriminalize some of the quote unquote quality of life issues. We don't want them to be ignored, but we do know now all of them has to be uh attached to criminality because people have to take time off of work. Uh They may lose their job. There's a lot of things that come with that and so we provided civil uh options as well as criminal. Uh But what has happened now is the NYPD is staying away from the civil uh and leaning toward the criminal and we don't know why and they should have to explain that was the civil not working. Uh, why are we going to the criminal? And we don't want to see a repeat of some of the worst kind of, uh, responses that we saw in the past. And I think those same communities would tell you they want their law enforcement partners but they don't want over policing. And so when you see something like, uh, bicycles on a sidewalk, but it only goes to black and brown New Yorkers, that's a, that's a problem. And so we should all be focused on why that is when you see tens of thousands, if not more car stops, that don't yield anything. Uh But most of them again are black and brown. Those are questions that we have to ask. Uh, we do know, uh, the quote unquote broken windows. Uh, the broken window doesn't have to necessarily be fixed by a law enforcement officer. As a matter of fact, the law enforcement officers time may be better spent, uh to something else, uh, that is happening, but we want that window fixed. And so that's why we would discuss the, the holistic approach of public safety and I'm excited to be going to a meeting. Uh, and I give credit to the administration, uh where they're gonna be at, believe the 73rd precinct really trying to do some granular level work, bringing everyone to the table so everyone can play their part, including law enforcement. But we have so many other agencies and community groups that have to be at that table to provide the public safety that's needed, that we can get them there. I am confident that we can get there if we have the political courage to stay the course because what often happens is people want to see some instantaneous change even though the instantaneous change has very harsh long term effects. And if we're gonna have an administration that comes in and says they're gonna do things different, then we should do things different. Ok. We're here with, ask your advocate with Juan Williams. The number is 7188616800. We're here till 7 30. Give us a call with your question.

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