The local paper for Downtown CAMP GUIDE 2019
p.11
WEEK OF january-February
31-6 2019
SAVAGING THE SAFETY NET housing In hundreds of apartments across Manhattan, the elderly, the disabled and the poor have lived in fear and confusion since the federal shutdown on Dec. 22. Their troubles aren’t over yet.
THE GEOGRAPHY OF PAIN A breakdown of 662 housing units at 11 separate Manhattan locations where the poor, disabled and elderly were potentially at risk. Federal contracts that provide supportive housing and rental assistance had expired, and they could not be renewed during the government shutdown. Some critical locations:
BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
many, and among them are big business interests and some old school market realities. In 1977, New York state decriminalized possession of up to 25 grams of cannabis provided it is not in the public view, in which case it becomes a misdemeanor. Gradual easing of the laws in New York City began in 2014, when Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered the NYPD to treat marijuanarelated offenses more like speeding tickets than criminal affairs. That same year, the state legalized medical cannabis in limited forms for a select number of chronic illnesses. In the summer of 2018, de Blasio took things a step further when he forbade police from making marijuana-related arrests except in special circumstances. In November, voters ended Republican control of the state senate, removing a major roadblock to legalization. And just last month, Governor Andrew Cuo-
From Avenue A to West 145th Street, roughly 2,000 of the city’s most vulnerable residents just got the scare of their lives. For 35 harrowing days, as the government shutdown dragged on, they faced the threat of being forced from their homes. It didn’t happen. But the abrupt cutoff of federal funding for supportive housing programs had placed them at huge risk. And though the government reopened last week, they’ll be endangered anew if there is another shutdown on Feb. 15 when a three-week stopgap spending bill passed on Jan. 25 runs out. At issue are three subsidized programs that came to a screeching halt when the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development suddenly lost its Congressional authorization to bankroll them. The shortfall impacted HUD’s Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance program, which contracts with private property owners who then rent to households with incomes averaging $13,500 a year or less. It also threatened two other HUD lifelines — the Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly Program and Section 811 Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities Program. The three rental-assistance mea-
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Patients with prescriptions for medical cannabis products can purchase them at MedMen, a dispensary at 433 Fifth Ave. Photo: Michael Rock
visions of marijuana business As legalization looms, we still don’t know what the business will look like in New York By Michael Rock
The evolution of New York’s marijuana laws could culminate this year with the passage of legislation legalizing recreational use by adults. But city and state drug policy advocates could see their visions of the new era go up in smoke. The items on their wish list include allowing adults to grow their own plants, the establishment of social consumption venues, voiding the sentences of people convicted on marijuana-related charges, ensuring that small business can compete fairly and healing the damage of the “war on drugs” by having the bulk of tax revenues from cannabis go to the communities most affected by it. But the obstacles are
South Side of weSt 48th Street Between ninth and tenth avenueS Program type: Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance for Housing Month of expiration: Jan. 2019 53 assisted units
South Side of weSt 53rd Street Between eighth and ninth avenueS Program type: Section 8 Project-Based Rental Assistance for Housing Month of expiration: Jan. 2019 40 assisted units
City Council Member Mark Levine South Side of eaSt Second Street Between avenueS a and B Program type: Project Rental Assistance Contracts / Section 811 Supportive Housing for Persons with Disabilities Month of expiration: Jan. 2019 24 percent seniors 100 percent disabled persons 20 assisted units SOURCE: National Low-Income Housing Coalition | GRAPHIC: Nick Korn
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We are in uncharted territory here.”
SPRING ARTS PREVIEW
WEEK OF APRIL
< CITYARTS, P.12
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MANHATTAN'S APARTMENT BOOM, > PROPERTY, P.20
2015
In Brief MORE HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESS
FOR HIM, SETTLING SMALL CLAIMS IS A BIG DEAL
presided over Arbitration Man has three decades. for informal hearings about it He’s now blogging BY RICHARD KHAVKINE
is the common Arbitration Man their jurist. least folks’ hero. Or at Man has For 30 years, Arbitration court office of the civil few sat in a satellite Centre St. every building at 111 New Yorkers’ weeks and absorbed dry cleaning, burned lost accountings of fender benders, lousy paint jobs, and the like. And security deposits then he’s decided. Arbitration Man, About a year ago, so to not afwho requested anonymity started docuhe fect future proceedings, two dozen of what menting about compelling cases considers his most blog. in an eponymous about it because “I decided to write the stories but in a I was interested about it not from wanted to write from view but rather lawyer’s point of said Arbitration view,” of a lay point lawyer since 1961. Man, a practicing what’s at issue He first writes about post, renders and then, in a separatehow he arrived his decision, detailing blog the to Visitors at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want whether they unreally want to know and why I did it,” I did derstood what don’t know how to he said. “Most people ... I’d like my cases the judge thinks. and also my trereflect my personalitythe law.” for mendous respect 80, went into indiMan, Arbitration suc in 1985, settling vidual practice
The effort to help small seems to businesses in the city be gathering steam. Two city councilmembers, Robert Margaret Chin and Cornegy, have introduced create legislation that wouldSmall a new “Office of the within Business Advocate” of Small the city’s Department Business Services. Chin The new post, which have up told us she’d like to would and running this year, for serve as an ombudsman city small businesses within them clear government, helping to get through the bureaucracy things done. Perhaps even more also importantly, the ombudsman number will tally the type and business of complaints by small taken in owners, the actions policy response, and somefor ways to recommendations If done well, begin to fix things. report would the ombudsman’s give us the first quantitative with taste of what’s wrong the city, an small businesses in towards important first step fixing the problem. of for deTo really make a difference, is a mere formality will have to the work process looking to complete their advocate are the chances course, velopers precinct, but rising rents, -- thanks to a find a way to tackle business’ is being done legally of after-hours projects quickly. their own hours,” which remain many While Chin “They pick out boom in the number throughout who lives on most vexing problem. said Mildred Angelo,of the Ruppert construction permits gauge what Buildings one said it’s too early tocould have the 19th floor in The Department of the city. number three years, the Houses on 92nd Street between role the advocate She on the Over the past is handing out a record work perThird avenues. permits, there, more information of Second and an ongoing all-hours number of after-hours bad thing. of after-hours work the city’s Dept. problem can’t be a said there’s with the mits granted by nearby where according to new data jumped 30 percent, This step, combinedBorough construction project noise Buildings has data provided in workers constantly make efforts by Manhattan to mediate BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS according to DOB of Informacement from trucks. President Gale Brewer offer response to a Freedom classifies transferring they want. They knows the the rent renewal process, request. The city They 6 “They do whatever signs Every New Yorker clang, tion Act work between and go as they please. some early, tangible small any construction on the weekend, can come sound: the metal-on-metal or the piercing of progress. For many have no respect.” can’t come p.m. and 7 a.m., of these that the hollow boom, issuance reverse. owners, in business moving The increased beeps of a truck has generto a correspond and you as after-hours. soon enough. variances has led at the alarm clock The surge in permits
SLEEPS, THANKS TO THE CITY THAT NEVER UCTION A BOOM IN LATE-NIGHT CONSTR NEWS
A glance it: it’s the middle can hardly believe yet construction of the night, and carries on full-tilt. your local police or You can call 311
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for dollars in fees ated millions of and left some resithe city agency, that the application dents convinced
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