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ę©å®, New Yorkers āļø
Today we are reeling. Both Tennessee and California are hundreds of miles away, but the reality of police violence and hate crimes are all too real for our neighbors in New York who are feeling the grief.
What comes with the grief is a reminder of how close the issue hits home. The āhot spotā police unit responsible for killing of Tyre Nichols is similar to many that have been cropping up around the country. Here in New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul is planning similar initiatives, focusing on a grant program intended for law enforcement officials to āaggressively patrol crime-dense communities, closely monitor their members, and compile information on likely āoffenders.āā
NEW YORK FOCUS has the story:
In New York City specifically, the administration of Mayor Eric Adams, a former police officer, isnāt any different. HELLGATE explores current NYPD commissioner Keechant Sewellās level of impunity for cops.
New Yorkās asylum seekers camped outside a midtown hotel last weekend protesting their forced and unscheduled removal to a Brooklyn shelter they say is ājail-like.ā
I spent Sunday night speaking to many of them as they geared up to fall asleep in their tents and makeshift beds in the cold outside the Watson Hotel in Manhattan. The space had been a shelter for male asylum seekers but is now being readied to bring in families seeking asylum. The men are being sent to a cruise terminal in Brooklyn.
Pictures from the cruise facility show rows of beds (as one put it, ālike you find in the armyā). And I mean hundreds of beds in one big warehouse. Most of the asylum seekers were so terrified upon seeing the facility that they walked 30 minutes on foot to get to a bus station and return to Manhattan.
Many of the asylum seekers have jobs near the Watson Hotel and are concerned whether theyāll be able to keep them once theyāre settled in Brooklyn.
āThey have us over here, they have us over there. They never leave us on one site,ā Armando Carima told THE CITY. āHow do you move around to find work if you donāt have a place to live?ā
CITY LIMITS also covers the situation.
At the core of the housing concern in New York is an inability (or unwillingness? idk) to increase supply of housing in different ways. Gentrification, housing supply, displacementāthe conversation is a complex web of issues, and FAQ NYC explores that.
āWe canāt fight the housing crisis project by project,ā Annemarie Gray, director of the grassroots housing organization Open New York, shared with THE CITYās Alyssa Katz.
āWe really need a more comprehensive and more holistic approach, and we really have to be looking at city-scale policies but especially state-level policies which New York as a state has really not grappled with.ā
Listen to their conversation on the FAQ NYC podcast.
Remember that entire blowup re: gas stoves? Turns out all that smoke was gold. The pilot program that replaced gas stoves with electric induction units in 20 apartments in the Bronx is back with its results: those households showed āa 35% decrease in daily concentrations of the pollutant nitrogen dioxide and a nearly 43% difference in daily concentrations of carbon monoxide.ā
THE CITY has the good news.
Coming back to the police (because weāre just perpetually doing that), thereās something oddly confusing going on in Connecticut, where Democratic and Republican lawmakers want a raise for cops, but some Republicansā¦donāt? But then some in the GOP are also blaming Democrats for bringing down police morale by introducing accountability laws for the police following the murder of George Floyd.
And these two are connected how?šš½
THE CONNECTICUT MIRROR has more.
Before Adams, there was room to dance: at Rikers Island, following years of advocacy by the Department of Correctionsā LGBTQ+ Affairs Unit, Rikersā trans inmates were finally getting (or about to get) access to housing that would be consistent with their gender identities (including drag shows!).
During Adams' mayorship, the option has collapsed, leaving many trans inmates vulnerable to sexual assault and physical violence.
Read THE CITYās story:
You can discover more independent LGBTQ+ coverage here.
As we wrap up, letās take a moment to honor the victims of Californiaās lunar new year shooting, farm shooting, and Tyre Nichols in Tennessee. šļø šļø šļø
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