Blueprint for Investing in Women Ages 25-59 Full Report by The New York Women's Foundation

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

BLUEPRINT FOR INVESTING IN WOMEN AGES 25-59 NOVEMBER 2018

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

BLUEPRINT FOR INVESTING IN WOMEN AGES 25-59

NOVEMBER 2018

THE VOICES FROM THE FIELD SERIES The New York Women’s Foundation’s Voices from the Field series is comprised of four Blueprint for Investing in Women reports that explore the position, needs, and strategies for supporting the security and contributions of low-income NYC women during one of four major developmental periods (i.e., ages 0-8, 9-24, 25-59, and 60+). The series is based on a “Voices from the Field” approach that draws on data obtained from academic and policy research and from interviews with a cross-section of on-theground leaders – including members of each age cohorts. Its goals are to: (1) broaden understanding of the key role and issues of NYC’s low-income girls and women; (2) stimulate broad, productive discussion of how best to support those roles and address those issues; and

Written by: Susan Leicher, Thompson & Columbus, Inc. Graphic Design: Paula Cyhan

(3) catalyze bold investment into promising strategies and solutions. THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

THE “BLUEPRINT FOR INVESTING IN WOMEN” SERIES The New York Women’s Foundation’s Blueprint for Investing in Women series comprises four reports that

•D iscussions of:

explore the roles, the strengths, needs, and best strategies for promoting the well-being and progress

– The

and

handedly address all the global and structural

of NYC women, across the full span of their lifetimes. In line with The Foundation’s core mission, the

challenges of girls and women at that

issues that diminish low-income women’s

series particularly focuses on the situations of women whose opportunities for progress are limited by

stage of development.

opportunities

constraints rooted in attitudes about initial economic position, race, ethnicity, immigration status, and

strengths,

Foundation and its partners cannot singlepositions,

roles,

and

stability

from

earliest

– The overall framework of programs and

childhood through the farthest reaches of old

services for those girls and women–with

age. Nor can they single-handedly reach enough

analyses of the best practice approaches

individual women to make a measurable dent in

The goals of the series are to: (1) broaden understanding of the roles and issues of the city’s low-income

and the main gaps or inefficiencies in

the city’s grimly persistent poverty rate of more

girls and women; (2) stimulate broad, productive discussion of how best to both support those roles

service delivery.

than 20 percent.

sexual orientation or gender identity.

and address those issues; and (3) catalyze bold investment by all stakeholders capable of expanding relevant opportunities and resources.

public,

The Blueprint series was conceived as a

nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors can

first step in marshaling the multi-player,

• Recommendations

for

how

the

Each of the four Blueprints covers a major

The Blueprint series is based on a “Voices from

work separately and jointly to promote the

coordinated awareness and action required to

developmental period in a woman’s life :

the Field” approach. It draws on qualitative

best-practice approaches and address the

create equitable and just paths to progress. It

•0 –8: the years of girls’ most intense and rapid

and quantitative data obtained both from the

gaps and inefficiencies.

is offered with the conviction that there is no

physical, cognitive, social, and emotional

best academic and policy research and from

development.

a cross-section of on-the-ground leaders–

Each year, the pioneering efforts of The

economic strength than supporting the women

the prime years in which girls and

including members of each age cohort and their

Foundation and its grantee-partners enable

who provide the cultural wellspring and the

women

supporters. Each Blueprint includes:

thousands of individual New York women to

economic and caregiving bedrock for the city.

• An overview of the size, scope, and overall

build safer, healthier, more economically secure

demographics of the girls and women in the

lives for themselves and their families. But The

•9 –24: young

acquire

core

knowledge,

competencies, and good habits. • 25–59: women’s typically most intense years of paid employment and of raising and supporting

better strategy for boosting New York’s overall

particular age cohort being considered.

families. • 60+: the diversely productive and contributing years of older womanhood.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

Organizing issues and solutions within rigidly age-based phases clearly has certain limitations. Individuals clearly can acquire skills and competencies–and assume roles and responsibilities–at many different points; challenges to health, safety, and economic security can extend across whole lifetimes. It is also true, however, that certain activities and issues tend to cluster within particular periods of a person’s developmental trajectory; and that policies and programs–whether related to health, housing, education, employment, or violence prevention– tend to be formulated and delivered within those age-segregated silos. The four Blueprint reports, thus, will stick to that rubric–while also making note of the themes that transcend particular phases, that link phases together, and that call for a more integrated approach.

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS I.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY......................................................................................................................................6

II. INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................................................17

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Blueprint for Investing in Women Ages 25-59 is based on the input of experts across a range of fields. I spoke with the leaders of city agencies, with directors of both established and nascent grassroots nonprofit organizations, with advocates and academics, and—most importantly—with the women on the ground who are the true authorities on their own strengths, challenges, and needs. The collective wisdom and forceful words of this diverse group shaped and illuminated the narrative and I am deeply grateful for the information and insights that they provided. Strong thanks are also due to the staff of The New York Women’s Foundation, whose guidance and suggestions greatly improved the overall architecture and text of the report and whose ongoing partnerships with women across all the communities of the city was its main inspiration. An impressive cadre of organizations, funders, policymakers, and individuals are channeling their best thinking and energies towards improving the safety, economic security, health, and voice of the low-income women who are the backbone of New York’s families, communities, and economy. The foundations for progress have been laid and the leaders are in place and are fiercely determined to see the work through.

III. OVERVIEW OF DEMOGRAPHICS......................................................................................................................19 IV. ECONOMIC SECURITY: Pursuing Equity, Opportunity, and Fair Financial Practice..........................................26 V. SAFETY: Countering Violence and Promoting Healing....................................................................................38 VI. REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE: Supporting Autnomy, Holistic Health, and Psrenthood..........................................45 VII. VII. EMPOWERMENT: Strengthening Collective Clout, Leadership, and Alliances..........................................52 VIII. FRONTIERS FOR ACCELERATED ACTION: Affordable Permanent Housing and High-Quality Child Care........56 IX. CONCLUSION: Key Takeaways........................................................................................................................61 APPENDIX A: Experts Consulted .........................................................................................................................62 APPENDIX B: Bibliography...................................................................................................................................67 APPENDIX C: Programs Visited............................................................................................................................77

Susan Leicher Thompson & Columbus, Inc. November 2018

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY “ In America, we tend to frame the concept of economic progress in terms of personal strengths or failings. It’s the ‘Lean-In’ mentality—the idea that if a woman is just sufficiently forceful and intelligent and persistent, she’ll get ahead. Sure, if a woman has been lucky enough to have had a good education and a life relatively free from trauma, that kind of thinking makes some sense. But too many low-income women of color have no guarantees of a ‘good education’ or a ‘life free from trauma.’ They are up against systemic failings, not personal ones. They have plenty of strengths. They’ve just never had a fair chance.” – Nancy Rankin, Vice President for Policy, Community Service Society of New York In New York City, women of color and immigrant women, age 25-59 bear the main brunt of responsibility for both raising and providing for their own families; for furnishing the labor force that undergirds the economy; and for leading the projects that sustain their communities. They also face systemic barriers and threats that: • Mire them in jobs that fail to pay a living wage and offer few viable paths for advancement. • Put them at uniquely high risk for intimate partner, sexual, bias-based, and state-sanctioned violence. • Deny them basic tools of health, reproductive health, and well-supported parenthood. • Keep them under-represented at the tables at which the policies that shape their lives are set. For more than three decades, a roster of determined grassroots women-led organizations have worked to improve the economic security, safety, health, and empowerment of this critical segment of the population. Through advocacy, community organizing, and direct service programs, they have been helping women and LGBTQI individuals across the city’s low-

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

income communities to access better employment options, escape and heal from violence, enjoy better health and reproductive health, and achieve more meaningful representation in vital decision-making forums. The report that follows is based on interviews with a cross-section of the leaders, staff, and constituents of a range of those organizations—as well as with relevant public, academic, and philanthropic stakeholders. It offers: (1) an overview of the demographics and situations of the women and LGBTQI individuals with whom the organizations principally work; (2) analyses of their main areas of focus—and descriptions of some of their most effective programs; and (3) recommendations for ongoing or new action. In particular, it highlights the experts’ across-theboard observation that the areas that are most pivotally important for the future economic security, safety, and health of their constituents—and thus most in need of broad-based accelerated investment—are: (1) affordable permanent housing; and (2) affordable, accessible, high-quality, high-paid child care.

DEMOGRAPHIC OVERVIEW Examination of the latest sources of demographic data reveals that: • New York City’s female-identified population is extraordinarily diverse. As documented in the latest (2016) NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) “Summary of Vital Statistics,” the 2,250,000-strong cohort of New York City women age 25-59 is 31 percent White, 27 percent Latina, 23 percent Black, and 16 percent Asian. In addition, as reported in the 2013 City Planning Commission’s “The Newest New Yorkers” study, an average 40 percent of each of those groups is comprised of new immigrants with roots in a wide range of regions and countries. And, as recorded in DOHMH’s 2016 EpiQuery survey, a measurable percentage of the individuals in each group self-identify as LGBTQI. • Across the board, New York City women are overwhelmingly responsible for both caring for and financially supporting their families. There are, however, major differences in the degree to which women in different demographic cohorts tend to work outside their homes, to be their households’ primary or sole providers, and to earn a livable wage:

– Women of color and immigrant women hold paid jobs—and are the primary or sole providers for their families—significantly more frequently than White, U.S.-born women. Across New York State, the rate of workforce participation for women with children under the age of six is 81 percent for Black women and 64 percent for Latina women—and only 50 percent for White women.2

– Women earn less than White males across all job categories—but the size of the wage differential varies greatly by race and ethnicity. White women earn 84 cents to every dollar earned by White men; Asian women earn 63 cents; Black women, 55 cents; and Latina women, 46 cents.3

–P overty rates across different demographic communities vary in nearly inverse proportion to the degree to which: (1) the women in those households are primarily responsible for family income; and (2) the earnings of the women responsible for providing that income diverge from those of White men. A full 56 percent of Latina households have incomes inadequate to cover the basic costs of living, as do 44 percent of Asian households, 47 percent of Black households, and 24 percent of White households.4

– Besides the core economic tolls created by inequitable wages, the most consistent factor contributing to the high rates of poverty experienced by so many women of color and immigrant women (and their families) is lack of access to affordable child care. The across-theboard rate of income inadequacy among families in which working mothers are obliged to cover the high costs of child care is a full 59 percent.5

Poverty rates across different communities vary in nearly inverse proportion to the degree to which: (1) the women of those households are the primary wage earners; and (2) the wages of the female primary providers; diverge from those of White men. • Women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals face uniquely large threats to health and safety:

uMonthier, Asha, Chandra Childers, Jessica Milli, PhD., The Status of Black Women in the United States, Institute for Women’s Policy D Research, Washington D.C., 2017. 3 See New York City Office of the Comptroller, Power and the Gender Wage Gap: How Pay Disparities Differ by Race and Occupation in New York City, NYC, April 10, 2018 and James, Letitia, Analysis of the Gender Gap in New York City’s Workforce, Office of the Public Advocate for the City of New York, New York City, 2016. 4 Pearce, Diana M., Overlooked and Undercounted 2018; The Self-Sufficiency Standard For New York City: Key Findings and Recommendations; Women’s Center for Education and Career Advancement & United Way of New York City; NYC October 2018. 5 Ibid. 2

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

– A range of factors—unlivable wages, accelerating gentrification, real estate and lending practices that reinforce segregation—limit the areas in which most women of color, immigrant women, and trans and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) individuals can find housing. The options most available to them tend to be found in the community districts that contain the greatest environmental threats, the poorest housing stock, the poorest air quality, the highest crime rates, and the fewest basic resources. And thus, unsurprisingly, individuals in all those groups are at exceptionally high risk for poor overall health, and for certain diseases (e.g., asthma, diabetes, HIV). –A cross the board, women of color, immigrant women, Muslim women, and LGBTQI individuals are also at the highest risk for intimate partner violence, for rape, and for bias-based assault and harassment from both the general public and state-sanctioned sources (i.e., the police, ICE). And each of those assaults carries with it the threat of further destabilization. As a result of domestic violence women are at high risk for involvement in the city’s homeless system. As a result of state-sanctioned assault, women are at high risk for involvement in the criminal justice system.

Examination of the available data lead to four inevitable conclusions: • W omen of color and immigrant women comprise a significant and highly diverse segment of New York City’s overall population. • T hey furnish the bedrock on which their families, their communities, and the overall economy depend. • D espite exceptionally high rates of workforce participation, they are largely barred from enjoying economic security, safety, and health, due to: (1) exploitative wages and untenable working conditions; (2) lack of access to the basic tools of 8

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

well-being that other New Yorkers take for granted; and (3) the degree to which they are regularly exposed to violence from a range of sources. • E fforts to address all the inequities affecting the members of this group need to reflect: (1) a solid appreciation of their invaluable roles and contributions; (2) recognition of the diversity of their backgrounds and situations and—therefore—of the importance of seeking and paying attention to their diverse perspectives; and (3) acknowledgement of the systemic challenges that they face. The sections that follow offer an overview of the most pressing issues facing New York City’s women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals, as presented by those women and individuals themselves—and by the leaders of organizations working closely and directly with them. They then describe the approaches that appear to be making the greatest difference and summarize the experts’ recommendations regarding the issues in greatest need of sustained or accelerated attention.

ECONOMIC SECURITY: PURSUING EQUITY, OPPORTUNITY, AND FAIR FINANCIAL PRACTICE “ What Latina women need isn’t financial literacy— it’s fair wages for their labors and fair sources of capital and loans.” Given that so many of the core struggles of women of color and immigrant women directly relate to low wages, poor working conditions, and predatory financial practices, it is unsurprising that so many grassroots, women-centered organizations primarily focus on: (1) achieving equitable pay scales and fair and decent working conditions; (2) expanding job options; (3) increasing entrepreneurial opportunities; and (4) fighting financial exploitation.

•A chieving Equitable Pay Scales and Fair and Decent Working Conditions: For more than a decade, a group of advocacy organizations including PowHerNY and A Better Balance have been fighting the unjust practices and policies that keep so many women from achieving economic security. Thanks to their efforts, New York State has passed the nation’s most generous family leave law—and campaigns are underway to: (1) raise the minimum wage; (2) ensure gender-based pay parity; (3) make it illegal for employers to ask about salary histories; (4) improve paid sick leave policies; and (5) protect pregnant and nursing workers. Simultaneously, a range of industry-specific organizations including the Domestic Workers’ Alliance, Restaurant Opportunities United (ROC-United), and The Center for Frontline Workers have been working to change the specific practices— e.g., tipped-labor and unpredictably scheduled work shifts—that constrain the economic progress of the immigrant women and women of color who comprise the core labor force for those industries. • Access to Living Wage Jobs: A range of organizations prepare low-wage women to move into better-paid positions. Their programs typically provide much more than just job skill training. In particular, they offer participants: (1) the stipends required to keep meeting family expenses while they are in training; (2) access to the child care required to maintain regular class attendance; and (3) intensive academic as well as vocational training. A few programs—including Per Scholas, United Women Firefighters, and Nontraditional Employment for Women— equip participants to enter fields (e.g., information technology, firefighting, construction) that have historically been “reserved” for men. • Broadening Entrepreneurial Opportunities: For some women, the best path to economic security is not employment—it is entrepreneurship. And thus, a few cutting-edge grassroots efforts including Union Settlement’s “Women’s Entrepreneurship Success Training Program,” Hot Bread Kitchen’s “HBK Incubates,” the Committee for Hispanic Children and Families (CHCF)’s “Institute for Child Care and Early Education”—and one major public-private-philanthropic initiative, We-

NYC, spearheaded by Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen—have been providing successive cohorts of aspiring female entrepreneurs of color and immigrant entrepreneurs the supports (e.g., networking opportunities, access to capital, tailored training, marketing assistance) that are typically out of reach for them. In addition, a few programs—Center for Family Life (CFL) was the first and remains the most influential—have been promoting the complementary and similarly powerful approach of “collective entrepreneurship,” i.e., helping women to form worker-owned and governed cooperatives that permit them to better control their earnings and working conditions while also acquiring the decisionmaking and management skills that can support ongoing entrepreneurial advancement. •F ighting Financial Exploitation: A range of organizations—New Economy Project has been at the forefront—foster community-rooted solutions to the cycle of poverty that begins with unjust wages and all too often ends in crushing debt. They organize and equip constituents to expose the practices of exploitative lenders; expand their access to community-owned credit unions; and help them achieve legal victories against predatory lenders. In addition, a few organizations focus on the “other end” of the economic security equation–i.e., on containing or reducing the high fixed-cost expenses (housing, child care, transportation) that decimate the incomes of low-wage working women. “ Don’t tell me that low-income Latina women don’t know how to handle their finances. The problem isn’t that they don’t know how to spend wisely or to save—after all, they somehow manage to feed their children, pay the rent, and still send money ‘back home’ to Mexico or the Dominican Republic every single month … It’s that they are paid next to nothing for their work and are always just one small catastrophe away from major debt. What they need isn’t financial literacy—it’s fair wages for their labors and fair sources of capital and loans.” – Cecilia Gaston, Former Executive Director of Violence Intervention Program (VIP) Mujeres THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

SAFETY: COUNTERING VIOLENCE AND PROMOTING HEALING When the experts consulted for this report were asked to identify the most pervasive challenge for women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI—particularly trans and gender-nonconforming (TGNC)—individuals, they invariably answered: “poverty.” But when asked to name the toughest challenge, they invariably answered: “violence.” They explained that the violence that undermines the lives of so many women takes three main forms: (1) domestic violence; (2) sexual harassment and rape; and (3) bias-motivated attack—both from the general public and from statesanctioned sources (e.g., police and other criminal justice personnel). They then described some of the approaches that are making headway against each of those forms of assault. •A ddressing Domestic and Intimate Partner Violence: A range of organizations help survivors prevent, escape, or heal from intimate partner violence through a combination of: (1) legal assistance; (2) temporary shelter; (3) employment training; and (4) counseling. One group—New Destiny Housing—focuses on expanding access to permanent (rather than shelterbased) housing. A few groups—e.g., Connect NYC, A Call to Men, and Mixteca—are taking the paradigmshifting approach of helping perpetrators recognize the toxicity of the assumptions that fuel their actions and the damage that those assumptions do both to those whom they abuse and to themselves. • Addressing Sexual Harassment and Rape: In recent months, the topic of sexual harassment and rape has begun receiving a thorough and well-deserved airing, as increasing numbers of survivors have come forth to name and seek justice against their attackers. Initial attention has centered on women of high visibility and influence. A few vital new initiatives, however— the “Fund to Support the MeToo Movement” that The New York Women’s Foundation is launching in

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

collaboration with Tarana Burke is one leading effort— are beginning to focus on the situations of the lowincome women of color, immigrant women, and TGNC individuals whose chances of assault are the greatest and whose chances of obtaining notice and protection are the most circumscribed. •A ddressing Bias-Based Individual and StateSanctioned Attack. A core group of organizations are helping immigrant women, women of color, Muslim women, and LGBTQI individuals fight back against the pervasive, bias-based attacks that they face from both members of the general public and from state-sanctioned sources. These include: the Arab American Association of New York, which empowers Arab and Muslim women to address both random and state-sanctioned Islamophobe violence; Hollaback!, which empowers LGBTQI individuals to resist streetbased, online, and police harassment; and the Black Women’s Blueprint, which is galvanizing Black women across the nation to combat the widespread, unchecked sexual and physical brutality that they experience from the police and other members of the criminal justice system. “ What do we need to do to end violence against trans women of color? We need to keep empowering our members to keep speaking up, to keep saying: ‘this is not right’—to keep moving forward. We need to keep reminding [the world] that our lives matter and that what is going on is wrong.” – Vicki Cruz, Former Senior Counselor and Advocate at the New York City Anti-Violence Project

REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE: PROMOTING AUTONOMY, HOLISTIC HEALTH, AND PARENTHOOD Reproductive justice, broadly defined, has long been at the top of the agendas of the women’s and LGBTQI rights movements. Organizations working in this area typically frame their efforts within three main categories: (1) ensuring autonomy in matters of reproductive choice, sexuality, and gender expression; (2) promoting access to holistic and appropriate health and reproductive health services; and (3) supporting those who raise children once they are born. Their efforts have produced a range of victories, but progress remains uneven and backlash against each victory remains strong. •E nsuring Autonomy in Matters of Reproductive Choice, Sexuality, and Gender Expression. For several years, a broad and representative group of grassroots organizations have been collaborating with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) to create “healthy positive sexuality” initiatives designed to ensure that all New Yorkers can exercise full reproductive choice and can freely express their sexuality and gender. Their efforts have been producing initially impressive results—and the City is firmly pledged to continue fully supporting their work, despite the national Administration’s commitment to cut funding for all but “abstinence only” birth control and to repress overall freedom of gender expression and reproductive autonomy. •P romoting Holistic Health and Reproductive Health. Over the past few years, a range of grassroots organizations have also been working with DOHMH to close a few major, ongoing service gaps. In particular, they have been seeking to: (1) expand access to services extending considerably beyond birth control (e.g., services supporting TGNC needs or preventing and addressing HIV and other STDs); and (2) reduce the intolerably high rates of maternal

morbidity and mortality among women of color— particularly Black women. While the full impact of these efforts has not been measured, the direction is clearly positive and the City’s commitment to keep supporting their goals runs deep. •S upporting Parenthood. Across the board, the experts consulted for this report observed that the final, critical front of reproductive justice—i.e., supporting those who are raising children—continues to be broadly neglected by society at large. A few publiclyfunded programs (e.g., Healthy Families New York, Nurse Family Partnership, and Early Head Start)—and a few innovative initiatives by the City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS)—are successfully reinforcing the parenting efforts of a small cohort of families living with acute stressors. A few grassroots efforts (e.g., Ancient Song Doula Services and SPARKS) are helping certain groups of mothers manage certain tough post-partum challenges. But none of these programs has the reach or the capacity that is needed. What is more, alone among almost all industrialized nations, the U.S. fails to provide working mothers with guaranteed access to affordable, high-quality child care—a failure that broadly undermines the progress of the mothers, of their children, and of the economy as a whole. “ The whole reason we came to this country is to give our children a better life. But the rules of parenting are very different here than they were back home, so we need a bit of guidance and support in this new world of ours. Being a good mother is what we want more than anything else in the world, but no one here seems to care about mothers.” – Participant in Centro de Recursos Educativos para Adultos (CREA)

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

EMPOWERMENT: STRENGTHENING COLLECTIVE CLOUT, LEADERSHIP, AND ALLIANCES The experts concur: the best way to level the playing field for low-income women of color, immigrant woman, and LGBTQI individuals is to support their empowerment. In particular, to: (1) promote their ability to exercise collective clout; (2) equip them to assume leadership positions within key decisionmaking forums; and (3) expand the size and scope of their alliances.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

& Neighbors and the New Economy Project, the workplace organizing efforts of Brandworkers, and the violence prevention efforts of the New York AntiViolence Project all rely centrally on this approach. In addition, a small cohort of organizations (Vote, Run, Lead and New American Leaders are prime examples) are specifically focused on preparing women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals to assume leadership roles within the political arena—with rapidly increasing success.

• Expanding the Circle of Allies. A range of womenled efforts to influence policy and practice rely strongly on the astute cultivation of collaborators and supporters. The workplace victories of A Better •P romoting Collective Clout: One of the core strategies Balance and PowHerNY have largely been achieved employed by almost every grassroots, womenby forging broadly diverse led organization involves coalitions. Some of the key building women’s collective breakthroughs of Restaurant clout. The effectiveness of Opportunities Centers United Center for Family Life’s worker (ROC-United) have come from cooperative movement going beyond the natural derives from its ability to base of restaurant workers to replace the vulnerability of engage influential restaurant individual workers with the customers—and owners. And muscle that comes with as previously noted, some of the united action. The strength most promising new initiatives of the #MeToo movement in the area of intimate violence has grown exponentially as prevention involve developing it has created an ever larger perpetrators’ understanding and more diverse community CREA of the internally and externally of survivors, all fighting for damaging impact of their actions—and enlisting common goals. Across the board, participants in their cooperation in the overall battle against abuse. the most effective grassroots efforts—from training initiatives to violence prevention programs to “ The rules of our society have been written by those parenting projects—remark that the top benefit they who are in power and are tailored to keep them in receive from those efforts is a sense of communal power. And so, the only way to alter things is to bring cohesiveness and power. women of color into prime leadership positions.” – Andrea Flynn, Justice Doesn’t Trickle Down • Building Leadership: A second core strategy of many women-led organizations involves training constituents to take leadership roles at key negotiating or policy-making tables. The economic policy-changing efforts of NYS Tenants 12

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

FRONTIERS FOR ACCELERATED ACTION: AFFORDABLE PERMANENT HOUSING AND HIGH-QUALITY CHILD CARE

terms. And thus, they concluded, the time has come to begin forging a broadly collaborative and resolute campaign to put low-income women’s expanded access to affordable permanent housing and highquality child care at the very top of the agendas of the public and philanthropic sectors.

Regardless of the initial focus of the interview— whether economic security or violence or reproductive justice—every expert consulted for this report eventually made the point that the future progress of New York City’s low-income women hinges pivotally on significantly expanding their access to two major resources: (1) affordable, permanent housing; and (2) affordable, high-quality, well-paid child care.

As one housing advocate explained: “Enabling women to find affordable permanent housing needs to be a major goal for anyone concerned with women’s safety, health, and economic security. And meeting the specific housing needs of women—particularly low-wage female heads of household and women fleeing violence—needs to be a major focus for anyone concerned with housing and homelessness. We need, in short, to create a strongly united and explicitly women-centered housing movement. And the moment to do it is now.”

Examinations of the poverty levels experienced by so many female-headed households invariably segued into statements about the need to reduce the two most decimating fixed costs faced by Or as one participant in a job those households—i.e., child training program explained: care and housing. Discussions “I’m constantly worried about of how best to improve the my children because I can’t employment situations of lowalways arrange good care for wage working mothers elicited them while I’m in training. the comment that access to And once I’m hired, I know I’ll reliable child care is absolutely be constantly worried about critical both to their overall my job because there are work attendance and to their bound to be times when those ongoing career advancement. arrangements will fall through Analyses of domestic violence and I’ll have no choice but to led to remarks that survivors’ stay home to take care of my ability to escape their abusers kids. Women can’t be in two SPARKS ultimately depends on whether places at once and—when we they can access permanent, affordable housing. try to be—everyone loses. Why haven’t people figured Conversations about reproductive justice produced that out yet?” explanations of the unique potential of high-quality child care to reinforce mothers’ parenting strengths. The experts noted that a range of advocacy and service organizations are doing impressive work to promote quality and access in both those policy areas. Nonetheless, the experts stressed, all those diverse groups have never come together in a concerted effort to frame those goals in decisively women-centered THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS The experts’ multiple, detailed suggestions for action are laid out in subsequent sections of this report. The strongest and most consistently voiced recommendations are summarized below:

PUBLIC Sector Recommendations: • Continue passing and robustly implementing the laws and regulations (e.g., family leave, equal pay, minimum wages, prohibition of inquiries into salary histories, fair paid sick leave, fair overtime pay, protections of pregnant or breastfeeding women, abolition of tipped wages, abolition of unpredictable work shifts) that address the inequities that hamper the economic progress of so many women of color and immigrant women. • Continue funding key supports (e.g., counseling, job training, legal assistance, emergency refuge) for survivors of domestic violence; create and implement systems that better support the identification and prosecution of sexual assault and rape in the workplace; and forthrightly identify, monitor, and combat state-sanctioned harassment and violence against women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals. • Continue robustly supporting initiatives that protect autonomy in matters of reproductive choice, sexuality, and gender expression; address the full range of New Yorkers’ reproductive health needs; and specifically and holistically support Black women’s maternal health.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

• Proactively welcome and support the expanded participation and voice of women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals in all public decision-making forums. • Put in place a system of comprehensive, affordable, accessible, high-quality, well-paid child care—with particular emphasis on serving the children too young for Universal Pre-K and on providing viable coverage at the times (e.g., later afternoons, vacations) when children are not in school. • Develop a robust range of approaches (e.g., an expanded, easily accessible roster of rent subsidies; an expanded and appropriately dedicated supply of affordable and supportive housing units; better protections for the current stock of affordable permanent housing units; preservation of and significant improvements to NYCHA housing) that will put adequate permanent housing options within genuine reach of low-income women in general and survivors of violence in particular.

NONPROFIT Sector Recommendations:

PHILANTHROPIC Sector Recommendations:

• Continue advocating for policies and providing direct service programs that:

• Continue or increase the level of funding, technical assistance, convenings, and other forms of support for organizations addressing the economic security, the safety, the reproductive and general health, and the overall empowerment of women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals; and ensure that all those efforts reflect the explicit input and guidance of those constituencies.

– Increase access to living wage jobs, promote entrepreneurship, and fight financial exploitation.

– Meet DV survivors’ emergency needs; address workplace assault; and equip women and TGNC individuals to fight back against bias-based individual and statesanctioned assault.

– Offer a full range of reproductive supports, with an emphasis on meeting the needs of women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals; and of parents once children are born. – Reinforce constituents’ collective clout, leadership skills, and alliances.

• Create powerful and broadly collaborative new efforts to expand access to: (1) affordable, high-quality child care for all low-wage working mothers; and (2) viably affordable permanent housing for low-income women fleeing violence in particular.

• If supporting those efforts has not previously been a priority, consider making them so. • Create new funding streams explicitly dedicated toward promoting strong collaborative action in pursuit of the expansion of affordable high-quality child care and viably affordable permanent housing for low-income women and their families. • Create multi-funder efforts designed to promote bold and unified new infusions of resources into achieving all those goals—and into strengthening the organizations and leaders pursuing them.

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CONCLUSION AND KEY TAKEAWAYS Women of color and immigrant women age 25-59 constitute a huge, diverse, and vitally-important segment of New York City’s total population. They furnish the bedrock of the city’s labor force; are frequently both the main or sole caregivers and the main or sole wage earners in their households; supply the bulk of the paid caregiving services on which so many other New York households depend; and are typically the first to identify emerging needs within their communities—and the first to take on the leadership of projects to address those needs. The progress of women of color and immigrant women and LGBTQI individuals has not historically been a top priority for society in general—or even for most philanthropic and nonprofit organizations. Rather, society has tended to exploit their work ethic and their economic vulnerability, to ignore their needs, and to permit—or even sanction—the use of violence against them. The solutions to the challenges faced by this pivotal group of New Yorkers are within our grasp. For the past few decades, a group of determined grassroots organizations have been forging strong approaches to expanding their economic security; protecting their safety; supporting their reproductive and general health; honing their leadership; and increasing their representation. They have solid ideas for expanding the impact of those efforts and for better addressing the two areas—affordable child care and affordable permanent housing—that are most crucial for their future progress.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

Following those organizations’ lead—and supporting their initiatives—is not a matter of charity. It is a matter of fundamental justice. It is also wise—the future of our city literally depends on their success.

II. I NTRODUCTION “There is so little in our society for the women of color who are the heart of family and community. We’re the providers, the nurses, the stepping stones, the kick-butts. We hold it together for everyone else. But who’s there for us? Hmmn? It’s why we need to join up—sister-to-sister. To speak up and stick up for one another. To move forward together.” – Participant in She’s So Vocal Community Organizing Group

And it is time. Women of color and immigrant women age 25-59 comprise 26% of all New York City’s residents and more than two-thirds of the women in that overall age cohort. They furnish the bedrock labor that fuels the city’s vitally important manufacturing, service, and retail industries. They are overwhelmingly both the main or sole caregivers—and the main or sole wage earners—in their own households. They are almost invariably the leaders of the faithand community-based projects on which their neighborhoods rely. And they are the paid domestic workers without whom the city’s other working women couldn’t function. And yet, despite their significant presence and irreplaceable contributions, a solid majority of women in those demographic groups struggle ceaselessly to achieve even the most basic level of economic security, safety, and health—and face strictly limited chances of ever moving beyond those struggles. They all too often labor long hours under harsh conditions for less than livable wages—and with scant options to move into better jobs. They all too regularly face violence and harassment within their own homes, while at work, and on the streets. They have no choice but to live in environmentally hazardous neighborhoods. They lack access to the basic services and supports—affordable permanent housing, affordable child care, appropriate medical care—that enable other New York women to stay

stable, employed, and healthy. Their voices are rarely heard at the tables at which the decisions that shape their lives are made. Their opportunities, protections, freedoms, and ability to enjoy long-term security—in short— remain strongly curtailed by a society that persists in apportioning those assets on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity, birthplace, initial economic position, and sexual and gender conformity. For more than three decades, a roster of grassroots women-led organizations have been battling the inequities that thwart the progress of this vital group of New Yorkers. Their programs have been enabling women and LGBTQI individuals to advance economically, escape violence, improve health and reproductive health, and move into positions of leadership. Their collective efforts have been helping to level the playing field for all New York’s female-identified residents. In particular, those organizations have been: • Forcefully articulating their constituents’ issues. • Creating program models that concretely deal with those issues. • Helping their constituents become leaders and advocates for their own interests. • Building powerful alliances. • Changing the policies and practices that perpetuate the inequities.

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

INTRODUCTION

The report that follows is based on in-depth interviews with the directors, staff members, and constituents of those organizations; on conversations with relevant public officials, funders, and academic leaders; and on a broad review of the available literature. It summarizes those diverse experts’ views regarding the factors that have historically challenged the advancement of this population, the strategies that hold the most promise, and the areas that need strong new activism and attention.

In the two years between this report’s original conceptualization and its final production, a series of political and social events have brought the issues of women of color, immigrant women, rural women, First Nation women, and LGBTQI individuals into sharper focus. And, in the wake of that illumination, there has been an upsurge in the visibility of the grassroots organizations that support those groups—and of the allies that support those organizations.

Conducting the interviews for this report—seeing In particular, it presents: firsthand the depth of grit and SCO FIRSTSTEPSNYC enterprise of those on-the• A brief overview of the demographic composition ground stakeholders—was more than inspiring. It of the overall cohort of female-identifying New was deeply reassuring in a deeply troubling time. Yorkers, ages 25-59—with particular attention to the disparities in different groups’ access to key The need for action is clearly greater than ever. resources and protections. But the tools and roadmaps for taking that action are also finally within reach. The issues requiring • An in-depth analysis of the four main spheres forceful attention have been identified; a range of (i.e., economic security, safety, reproductive and strategies for supporting advancement on those sexual health and justice, and fair representation) fronts have been tested and found effective; and a that have traditionally been the central focus of solid vanguard of leaders is in place, prepared to activist attention—along with examples of proven stay the course. All that is needed is the collective strategies for achieving progress within those sp will—and the radical generosity—to carry it all heres. through. • The experts’ recommendations for ongoing and new public, philanthropic, and nonprofit investment—including their across-the-board assertion that the areas in most critical need of greater strategic attention are: (1) affordable permanent housing; and (2) high-quality affordable child care.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

The report that follows offers a blueprint for moving forward.

III. O VERVIEW OF DEMOGRAPHICS “ What’s special about Black and brown women age 25-59? Why, we’re the group that never gets a break from the expectation that we should ‘do it all’ for everyone else—while somehow our own dreams are waylaid. We function in support of others—but no one thinks that helping us is a worthy cause. And when programs that might possibly benefit us are created, the critics are immediately out there making sure we don’t ‘get away with anything’. All we ask for are the basic supports that are taken for granted by everyone else. But heaven forbid that we should have the means to enjoy a solid start.” – Reverend Vivian Nixon, Executive Director, College and Community Fellowship The main available sources of demographic data are not well geared to producing a full, granular and upto-date understanding of the specific situations of New York City’s women. Some of those sources do not organize their core information by gender or by race and ethnic background. Others have a national or statewide rather than a citywide focus. Nonetheless, cautious compilation and combination of those various sources yields a reasonably nuanced picture of the nature and circumstances of the various groups within the overall female-identified population—and suggests a few compelling conclusions: • As documented by the latest surveys by the City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) and Planning Department—carried out, respectively, in 2016 and in 2013—the approximately 2,250,000-strong cohort of New York women, age 25 to 59, is extraordinarily diverse in terms of race, ethnic background, country of origin, immigration status, and sexual orientation and gender expression. Any analysis of the population as a whole, therefore, needs to pay informed attention to that multi-layered diversity. • While women collectively comprise roughly half the city’s workforce, the rates of their workforce participation vary considerably, depending on their race, ethnicity, and birthplace. In particular, women of color and immigrant women tend to work outside

their homes more frequently and more consistently than do their White, U.S.-born counterparts. Similarly—while women across all demographic groups tend to play critical wage-earning and caregiving roles in their households—it is women of color and immigrant women who are most often both their households’ main or sole wage earners and the main or sole caregivers. And, finally—while women across the board earn consistently less than White men—women of color face the greatest wage disparities and are the most likely to live in poverty as the result of those disparities. Being a woman of color or immigrant woman in this city, in short, typically means working exceptionally hard— with no guarantee that all that hard labor will produce an income adequate to meeting basic household expenses. • Women of color and immigrant women are typically relegated to filling jobs in the service, retail, and manufacturing industries—which pay some of the lowest wages in the economy and offer some of the harshest working conditions. They are typically restricted to living in neighborhoods that contain multiple health hazards and lack basic services and supports. Along with LGBTQI (particularly trans and gender-non-conforming (TGNC)) individuals, they are at exceptionally high risk for intimate partner, sexual, and bias-based violence—and typically have few or no places to turn when assaulted. Any attempt THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

O VERVIEW OF DEMOGRAPHICS

to support individual members of those demographic groups, therefore, needs to be grounded in a clear awareness of the multiple, systemic challenges that face the group as a whole.

OVERALL SIZE, SCOPE, AND DIVERSITY The three latest and most complete public sources of data on New York’s overall demographics are: The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH)’s 2015 Summary of Vital Statistics; DOHMH’s 2016 EpiQuery data charts; and the New York Planning Department’s 2013 The Newest New Yorkers: Characteristics of the Foreign-Born Population survey of new immigrants.

• Each of those broad racial and ethnic groups is, in itself, highly diverse—comprising individuals with roots in many different countries and with widely differing histories of arrival in this city.7 In particular:

• The cohort of Asian women, age 25-59 includes both individuals whose families have been here for many decades and individuals who are part of the more than 860,000 newer immigrants and refugees who have been arriving from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines since the early 1990s.

• The cohort of Black women includes those whose ancestors were enslaved during the U.S.’s first centuries of development; those who are part of the substantial group of immigrants who came here from the Caribbean in the 1960s; and those who are part of the group of more than 750,000 African and Caribbean immigrants and refugees who began arriving in the 1990s.

Examining and combining the information presented in those sources reveals that: • The cohort as a whole is highly diverse in terms of race and ethnicity.6 It includes approximately:

23% BLACK

28%

16%

LATINA

ASIAN

MIXED RACE

31% WHITE

• 368,000 WOMEN WHO IDENTIFY AS “ASIAN” (16%) • 516,000 WOMEN WHO IDENTIFY AS “BLACK” (23%) • 624,000 WHO IDENTIFY AS “LATINA” (28%) • 703,000 WHO IDENTIFY AS “WHITE” (31%) • 39,600 WHO IDENTIFY AS “MIXED RACE” (2%)

6 7

Ultimately—despite the many shortcomings of the available data on race, ethnicity, country of origin, immigration status, and gender identity and sexual orientation—it is possible to reach three strong conclusions:

• The cohort of Latina women includes the several hundred thousand Puerto Rican women whose families have been here for close to a century as well as some significant proportion of the group of more than one million immigrants and refugees who have arrived from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and countries across Central and South America over the past four decades.

• The population as a whole is highly diverse, on many levels. • There is considerable additional diversity within each of the groups comprising the whole. • That multi-level diversity makes it necessary to seek direct and meaningful participation from the members of the various groups when considering the needs of—or creating policies and programs of relevance to—those groups.

• The cohort of White women comprises both those whose families have been here for a century or more and those who are part of the group of approximately 500,000 newer immigrants and refugees who have been arriving here from Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, and other European and MidEastern countries since the mid-1970s.

• The overall female population is also highly diverse in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity—and

NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH)’s Summary of Vital Statistics for 2015. New York City Planning Department, The Newest New Yorkers: Characteristics of the Foreign-Born Population, NYC, 2013.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

in terms of the degree to which LGBTQI individuals feel free to express those orientations and identities. The DOHMH 2016 EpiQuery survey reveals that, on average, some 4.3 percent of all New York City women selfidentify as “lesbian,” “bisexual,” or “something else” (sic.) but that the rates of self-identification tend to vary widely, group by group. More than 10 percent of White women age 25-44, for example, self-identify in one of those ways; but for Asian women age 45-64, the rate of that self-identification is barely 1.5 percent. Black and Latina women in the different age groups self-identify at rates falling somewhere in between those two extremes. Experts in the field of LGBTQI issues note that the sharply contrasting rates of self-identification may be due more to disparities in the degree to which different groups feel safe to self-identify than to the reality of the situation. They therefore caution that anyone seeking to support or address the issues of LGBTQI individuals needs to proceed with that awareness and with appropriately informed sensitivity to those differences.8

OVERVIEW OF DEMOGRAPHICS

WORKFORCE PARTICIPATION RATES, WAGE LEVELS, AND RATES OF INCOME ADEQUACY (POVERTY) Examination of the available sources of data on workforce participation rates, earnings, and rates of income adequacy illuminates the vital role that women—across the board—play in both the overall economy and in the economic survival of their families. It also underscores a few key differences among the various segments of the city’s femaleidentified population.

WORKFORCE PARTICIPATION RATES •O n the most general level, a clear majority of New York’s adult women are active members of the city’s workforce, across all ethnic and racial groups. They comprise just over half of the city’s adult (25-59-yearold) population and furnish essentially half (49.5 percent) of the overall city workforce.9 •O n a more granular level, rates of female workforce participation vary considerably, depending on race, ethnicity, family composition, immigration status, and gender identity:

• Across New York State (and—it may not be unreasonable to extrapolate—within New York City) Black and Latina women hold paid jobs at consistently higher rates than do White women, and the rates of that participation diverge even more pronouncedly when there are young children in the household. In 2017, the workforce participation rate for New York State women with children under the age of six was 81 percent for Black women, 64 percent for Latina women, and 50 percent for White women.10

razer, Somjen and Erin Howe, Transgender Health and Economic Insecurity: A Report from the 2015 LGBT Health and Human Services Needs F Assessment Survey, NYS LGBT Network and Strength in Numbers Consulting Group, New York City, 2015. 9 See New York City Office of the Comptroller, Power and the Gender Wage Gap: How Pay Disparities Differ by Race and Occupation in New York City, NYC, April 10, 2018 and James, Letitia, Analysis of the Gender Gap in New York City’s Workforce, Office of the Public Advocate for the City of New York, New York City, 2016. 10 DuMonthier, Asha, Chandra Childers, Jessica Milli, Ph.D., The Status of Black Women in the United States, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Washington DC, 2017. 8

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

O VERVIEW OF DEMOGRAPHICS

• The average workforce participation rate for the various groups of immigrant women in this city is generally on a par with (or higher than) the 58 percent average participation rate of U.S.-born women. Some 59 percent of all Dominican-born women work full-time, as do well more than half of all Salvadoran-, Colombian-, Ecuadorian-, and Chinese-born women. The workforce participation rates for Caribbean and Filipina women—respectively 63 percent and 71 percent–are among the highest of any population group.11

It should be noted that there is one important group— i.e., transgender and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) individuals—for whom these workforce trends do not hold. Experts in the TGNC field explain that a combination of broad-based employer bias and difficulties in obtaining documents that accurately reflect gender identity contribute to unemployment rates in the TGNC population that are fully twice those of non-trans individuals—and to poverty rates that are fully 140 percent higher than those of nontrans individuals.12

WAGE LEVELS •G ender, race and ethnicity, and birthplace all have decisive bearings on the wages paid to different groups of New Yorkers.

•G ender matters: New York City’s women earn consistently less than their male counterparts, regardless of level of education, professional credentials, or job title. In 2016— despite essentially equal rates of workforce participation rates—female workers took home only 40 percent of total citywide earnings.13

•R ace and ethnicity matter: White men earn more than women earn across every demographic group, but the differential in earnings varies considerably and consistently by race and ethnicity. White women earn 84 cents for every dollar that White men earn, Asian women earn 63 cents, Black women earn 55 cents, and Latina women earn 46 cents.14

In 2014 and again in 2018, WCECA produced reports that use that concept of income inadequacy to promote a better understanding of the scope, nature, and causes of economic insecurity experienced by different groups of New Yorkers.17 In particular—by examining income inadequacy within the context of a range of key factors—the reports offered the following illuminating findings:

• Birthplace matters: The jobs held by most immigrant women of color consistently pay the lowest wages in the entire city economy.15 A full 75 percent of Dominican and Mexican immigrant working women, nearly three quarters of Haitian women, and fully twothirds of Chinese immigrant working women hold service, factory, or retail jobs that pay $10,000 to $30,000 a year—wages on which no household in this city can possibly survive.16

•T he rates of income inadequacy faced by households in different demographic groups vary in almost direct proportion to the degree to which the female wage earners in those households are likely to be inequitably paid. As of 2018, a full 56 percent of Latina households experienced income inadequacy, as did 44 percent of Asian households, 47 percent of Black households and 24 percent of White households.

INCOME ADEQUACY (POVERTY LEVELS) The federal poverty line (FPL)—i.e., the income level that the federal government deems low enough to put a household into poverty—is of little relevance when measuring poverty levels in New York City. It is not absolute income levels that matter, it is the relationship of income to fixed household expenses. And in New York City, those expenses are likely to be higher than in most other parts of the country. A few years ago, the Women’s Center for Education and Career Advancement (WCECA) created a measurement tool—income inadequacy—that does what the FPL fails to do. Simply put, income inadequacy occurs when a household’s income (whatever it happens to be) is not adequate to cover that household’s basic fixed living expenses (housing, child care, medical care, food) on a regular basis.

New York City Planning Department, op. cit. Frazer, Somjen and Erin Howe, Transgender Health and Economic Insecurity: A Report from the 2015 LGBT Health and Human Services Needs Assessment Survey, NYS LGBT Network and Strength in Numbers Consulting Group, New York City, 2015. 13 New York City Comptroller’s Office and James, Letitia, op. cit. 14 James, Ibid. 15 The only groups who are an exception to this rule are women from Jamaica and from the Philippines, who generally enter the city with both English language fluency and college educations and therefore are often immediately hired into higher-paying jobs (e.g., nursing). It must be stressed, however, that even within those higher-paying jobs, they are often paid considerably less than men in those same positions. 16 New York City Planning Department, op. cit. 11

•T he rates of income inadequacy become even more pronounced when households depend entirely on the income of those female wage earners and—once again—the degree of that income inadequacy varies in direct proportion to the degree to which those female wage earners are likely to be underpaid. As of 2018, fully 83 percent of the households supported solely by a Latina woman working full-time faced income inadequacy—as did 64 percent of households solely supported by an Asian woman; and 74 percent of those solely supported by a Black woman. • Rates of income inadequacy also go up dramatically in the presence of certain fixed costs. In 2014, fully 65 percent of all New York City households in which there were children under the age of six experienced income inadequacy—a fact that WCECA directly attributed to the unmanageable child care costs incurred when the mothers of those young children

OVERVIEW OF DEMOGRAPHICS

were working outside their homes. A range of studies also emphasize the role that ongoing, precipitously rising rental costs plays in terms of decimating the budgets of low-wage working families.18 The main conclusion to be drawn from all the available economic data is clear. The financial hardships experienced by so many women of color and immigrant women have little to do with the degree to which they hold jobs. Most work long hours outside their homes. Rather, the hardships are the result of: • The unjust level of the wages that they are paid—in particular, the degree to which their wages are kept lower than those of White men. • The degree to which they are the main or sole wage earners for their families. • The degree to which household incomes are decimated by the costs of child care and housing.

THREATS TO SAFETY, HEALTH, AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH Besides the factors directly undermining economic security, women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals frequently contend with a range of additionally exacerbating challenges to safety, health, and reproductive health. Later chapters will delve in greater depth into the extent and nature of the threat in each of those areas. A few initial statistics provide a basic overview.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

earce, Diana M., Overlooked and Undercounted 2018; The Self-Sufficiency Standard For New York City: Key Findings and Recommendations; P Women’s Center for Education and Career Advancement & United Way of New York City; NYC October 2018; and Pearce, Diana M., Lisa Manzer and Karen Segar, Overlooked and Undercounted: The Struggle to Make Ends Meet in New York City, The Women’s Center for Education and Career Advancement, NYC, 2014. 18 The rate of income inadequacy for households supported by a single White woman was not included in the 2018 WCECA report, but in 2014, when WCECA produced the earlier version of the report, that rate was 63 percent.

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

O VERVIEW OF DEMOGRAPHICS

THREATS TO SAFETY The data reveal that three main types of violence consistently and dramatically undermine the safety of women of color, immigrant women, and TGNC individuals: (1) domestic violence; (2) sexual harassment and rape; and (3) bias-based attacks committed by both individual members of the general public and by state-sanctioned sources (i.e., the police and other members of the criminal justice system; ICE). • Domestic violence (DV). DV is the only major crime in the city whose incidence has held steady or increased over the past few years. The Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence annually receives upwards of more than 270,000 complaints.19 The highest rates of reported abuse (as many as 68 per 1,000 households) occur in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and in the South Bronx—neighborhoods that are predominantly home to very low-income Black and Latina women.20 Leaders of a range of organizations serving immigrant populations assert that DV is one of the harshest challenges facing their female constituents. • Sexual harassment and rape. There has been a recent significant increase in public awareness of the depth and pervasiveness of sexual harassment, assault, and rape against women of all backgrounds and income levels in a range of settings from their workplaces to their homes. But—as in the case of DV—the groups that tend to be at highest risk for those attacks tend to be the women of color, immigrant women, and TGNC individuals whose overall lack of material means, job options, and relative power against the perpetrators contribute to both the frequency and the inescapability of those threats.

•B ias-driven assault.

individual

and

state-sanctioned

•A ssault by individual members of the general public. Leaders of organizations working with immigrant women, Muslim women, and TGNC individuals note that verbal insults and physical assaults by other New Yorkers are regular occurrences for many of their constituents— on the streets, at work, and in other public settings. •S tate-sanctioned assault. Black New York women are as much a target for police harassment, brutality, and homicide as their male counterparts.21 More than one in five TGNC New Yorkers reports being unfairly arrested, harassed, or physically harmed by the police.22 The threat and the reality of deportation is a constant—and increasing—source of stress in the lives of many immigrant women.

Unsurprisingly—given the well-protected nature of the attackers and the overall lack of access to the resources required for self-defense—low-income women of color and immigrant women all too often have no choice but to seek refuge in the City’s domestic violence or general homeless shelter systems. They also all too regularly find themselves forced into the criminal justice system. And once they enter those systems, they and those who depend upon them are exceptionally likely to experience further serious trauma and deprivation—and longterm destabilization.

THREATS TO HEALTH AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

A range of factors—from unlivable wages to gentrification to real estate and lending practices that reinforce

segregation and discrimination—continue to restrict housing options for women of color, immigrant women, and trans and gender-nonconforming (TGNC) individuals. As a result, they are often forced to contend with: • Unhealthy environments: The main neighborhoods in which most of New York’s women of color and immigrant women are obliged to live are consistently flagged for their high rates of dilapidated or overcrowded housing, their lack of usable open spaces and recreational facilities, their polluted air, their high crime rates, and their lack of access to fresh and affordable food.23

OVERVIEW OF DEMOGRAPHICS

One final overarching conclusion can be drawn from all the available data: An interrelated constellation of factors—beginning with unfair pay scales but extending to pervasive exposure to violence and environmental hazards and a consistent lack of appropriate support—deeply compromises the well-being and progress of a sizable segment of New York’s women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals. Any attempt to support individual members of those demographic groups must therefore include an awareness of the systemic challenges facing those groups as a whole.

•L imited access to appropriate health care and reproductive health care services. TGNC individuals report that their ability to stay healthy is often limited to a far greater degree than do White women.27 TGNC by lack of provider attention to their issues and individuals are nearly 50 percent more likely to report concerns—and that the bias that they are in poor health than against them is only likely to their non-trans counterparts.28 increase under the current Between 2006 and 2010, Black national Administration.24 New Yorkers were twelve times While women of color are more likely than White New less likely than White women Yorkers to die from pregnancyto report that they are unable related causes.29 to access medical care for reasons of cost25, they also The chapters that follow describe report that the care providers the initiatives that a range of who serve them are often grassroots organizations and ignorant of, indifferent to—or their allies have been mounting even disrespectful about—the to change the inequitable multiple health threats that terms under which so many challenge their lives.26 VOCES LATINAS New York women and TGNC Unsurprisingly—given both the unhealthy conditions that surround them and the inappropriate care that they are likely to receive—Latina and Black women report that their mental and physical health is “poor”

individuals live—and provide recommendations for how the public and philanthropic sectors can parlay those organizations’ efforts towards achieving greater equity and justice for all.

Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York, Keeping Track of New York City’s Children, 2016, NYC, November 2017, op cit. Frazer and Howe, op. cit. 25 In the 2016 EpiQuery survey of community health, 12 percent of White females reported that they “did not get health care due to medical costs.” For women of color, the reported rate for cost-related barriers to care is slightly less than 10 percent. See: https://a816-healthpsi. nyc.gov/epiquery 26 “The Hidden Toll: Why are Black Mothers and Babies in the United States Dying at More than Double the Rate of White Mothers and Babies? The Answer has everything to do with the Lived Experience of Being a Black Woman in America,” New York Times Magazine, April 15, 2018. 27 Epiquery, op. cit. 28 Frazer and Howe, op. cit. 29 NYC DOHMH, Pregnancy-Associated Mortality, New York City, 2006-2010, NYC, 2012. 23 24

21 22

Pearce, Diana M., Lisa Manzer and Karen Segar, Overlooked and Undercounted: The Struggle to Make Ends Meet in New York City, The Women’s Center for Education and Career Advancement, NYC, 2014. See, particularly, Bach, Victor and Tom Waters, Making the Rent: Tenant Conditions in NYC’s Changing Neighborhoods, CSS, May 2016; and Pearce, 2018, op. cit. Ritchie, Andrea J., Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color, Beacon Press, Boston, 2017. Frazer and Howe, Ibid.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

IV. E CONOMIC SECURITY: Pursuing Equity, Opportinity, and Fair Financial Practice

• Ensuring equality of pay to men and women working in the same (or equivalent) jobs.

“ I work in a sweat shop. I see that surprises you. You didn’t know that there are still sweat shops in New York? Well, there are. They are all over the place in El Barrio. You can’t see them, of course. They don’t have windows that you can look into. We labor ten hours a day doing piece work for the garment industry. We make far less than minimum wage. We can’t take time off when we are sick and we are forced to work at break-neck speed on machinery that is rarely inspected for safety. So, there’s plenty of illness and plenty of injuries—and we just have to deal with it. Why do we do it? We do it for our children. And we do it because … what other choice do we have?”

• Requiring employers to adopt sick leave policies that will make it easier for the (largely female) workers who have primary caregiving responsibilities at home to take time off when someone in their family is sick.

– Participant in Centro de Recursos Educativos para Adultos (CREA) educational program Given that the core struggles of New York’s women of color and immigrant women so often relate to unlivable wages and unjust terms of employment, it is no surprise that so many grassroots, women-centered organizations concentrate on: (1) achieving equitable pay scales and fair and decent working conditions; (2) expanding job options; and (3) broadening opportunities for individual and collective entrepreneurship. In addition, a core group of organizations promote strategies that fight financial exploitation. And, finally, a few groups address the expense (as well as the income) side of the economic security equation—i.e., they seek to reduce the unmanageably high costs of certain basic necessities (e.g., housing, child care, transportation). Descriptions and examples of some of the most promising strategies—and recommendations regarding where new or expanded investment is most needed—follow below.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

JUSTLY VALUING “WOMEN’S WORK”: EQUITABLE PAY SCALES AND FAIR AND DECENT WORKING CONDITIONS For the past few decades, a number of organizations including PowHerNY and A Better Balance have been pursuing policy-based solutions to the gender-biased practices that constrain the pay and progress of women across all demographic groups. And, in recent years, their efforts have begun to pay off. New York State has finally passed the nation’s strongest family leave law. There has also been significant progress toward reaching the following critical goals: • Boosting the minimum wage paid to all New York City workers employed in large businesses (i.e., businesses with 11 or more employees) to $15 an hour by the end of 2018; and guaranteeing the same income boost for workers in small businesses (i.e., businesses with 10 or fewer employees) by the end of 2019.

• Making it illegal for employers to ask job candidates about salary histories—a practice that has historically put all women at a disadvantage.

• Requiring employers to change practices that discriminate against pregnant women and women who need to pump breast milk while at work. At the same time, a host of industry-specific organizing groups (the Domestic Workers’ Alliance in the area of domestic service, Restaurant Opportunities United [ROC-United] in the area of restaurant work, and The Center for Frontline Workers and the Retail Action Project in the area of retail work)—have been working to change the unfair practices (e.g., wage theft, tipped labor, unpredictably scheduled work shifts) that constrain the incomes and reduce the well-being of the immigrant women and women of color who supply the predominant labor force for those industries. They have won (or are moving closer to winning) victories including:

ECONOMIC SECURITY

• Abolishing the unpredictably scheduled work shifts that make it impossible for so many retail workers to plan their lives or arrange stable child care.30 Progress on these and other related fronts is, of course, still far from fully realized. The practices that subvert women’s advancement—and particularly the advancement of women of color and immigrant women—have been in place for decades, if not centuries, and remain deeply entrenched. But the activists’ determination to keep combatting those practices is rock-solid, as is their determination to keep exposing and opposing the core systemic biases that underlie and sustain the practices—and that devalue female workers and the work that they do. “When we pay child care workers and home health aides as little as $9 an hour, what does that say about the way we view those jobs?” asks one major advocate for workers in the human service industry. “What does it say about what we typically call ‘women’s work’? Or about the way we view the women of color and immigrant women who typically carry out that work? The women who hold those jobs feel—they know—that they are contributing tremendously to the common good. That they are often literally saving lives. But our society doesn’t see it that way. So, we need to keep calling out and fiercely combatting those attitudes.” Or as Beverly Neufield, President and Founder of PowHerNY puts it: “Our job is to keep fighting for ‘equal value’ as well as for ‘equal pay.’ And we will.”

• Guaranteeing overtime pay to domestic workers. • Guaranteeing a basic minimum wage to restaurant workers instead of paying them $2.13 an hour plus tips (the One Fair Wage Campaign).

In one major study conducted of New York’s non-union retail stores researchers found that only 17 percent of all workers had a set work schedule; only 30 percent were given notice of their schedules more than a week ahead of time; and only 50 percent knew their schedule within three days’ notice. Schedules were rarely e-mailed to employees but posted in out-of-the-way locations within the store. And almost 30 percent of those working more than 40 hours a week were not paid overtime. See Stephanie Luce and Naoki Fujita, Discounted Jobs: How Retailers Sell Workers Short, The Murphy Project, CUNY, NYC, 2012. THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

E CONOMIC SECURITY

Don’t Call Me Mamita—the Battle for Gender Justice in New York’s Artisanal Food Industry

“I’D CALL IT JUSTICE”: LIVING WAGES AND EXPANDED JOB OPTIONS

“Brandworkers was launched more than ten years ago to organize the workers in New York City’s artisanal food industry,” explains Gabriel Morales, the organization’s Program Director. “To empower workers to fight injustices in an industry whose commitment to producing locally sourced, sustainable, nutritious food did not generally extend to a commitment to respect, protect, and adequately compensate its own workforce.”

Changing the systemic practices and attitudes that keep women’s wages low is, of course, critical to promoting genuine, gender-wide progress. But it is also, of necessity, a long-term, multi-step strategy. And, in the meantime, individual women need living wage jobs. A host of women-centered organizations, therefore, are pursuing the more immediate resultproducing strategy of preparing their constituents to move into higher-paid positions.

When Brandworkers was first founded, artisanal food factories had a history of seriously underpaying their workers—and an industrywide on-the-job injury rate of a full 42 percent. Brandworkers took on those issues forcefully in a few key factories and soon began making a real difference in terms of pay scales and working conditions. The organization continued to struggle to make headway in one area, however—namely in addressing the specific challenges facing the female workers who represented a growing share of the industry’s workforce. Women continued to be assigned the most dangerous tasks; to have consistently fewer opportunities for promotion than their male counterparts—regardless of how hard they worked; and to be routinely harassed by both their male co-workers and their supervisors.

Perhaps worst of all, they had little chance to be heard when they spoke up against those practices and conditions. Even within Brandworkers itself, they were often told to “sit down” or to “go home and cook for your families” by their male peers when they attempted to make a point at organizing meetings. Fortunately, those injustices were eventually brought to light and—with a grant from The New York Women’s Foundation—the organization hired a staff member to specifically lead its work empowering female members. And thanks to that grant, within a short time, women began assuming meaningful leadership positions in all labor negotiations. It is now a woman who is sitting across the table from major industry leaders and successfully fighting for fairer pay and stronger safety measures—for everyone. She is telling factory owners: “These are the hands that bake your bread. Without them, you can’t function. I deserve the right to have a say in what I am paid and how I am treated.” And she is telling male co-workers: “Don’t tell me to sit down when I’m speaking. And don’t call me ‘Mamita.’ I have a name.”

The leaders of those groups explain that— historically—most job training programs have been of limited benefit to women. That the entire field of “job training” was originally crafted to help unemployed or underemployed men—and that it has not moved significantly from that mindset. That the mandates of most workforce development programs rarely recognize women’s specific needs—and often work directly against their situations. In particular, they note, most publicly- and privatelyfunded training programs: • Require “perfect attendance” for participants —a next-to-impossible expectation for many working mothers unless child care is part of the training package. • Focus on quick placements—a goal that forces women with limited educations to accept jobs that generally pay wages little better than what they had before entering training, since the better-paid fields that are most open to women (e.g., health care administration, nursing, office work) all require at least a tenth-grade education. The Program Director of one nonprofit job training organization sums up the matter as follows: “When you deal with guys, you don’t have to worry about the

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

ECONOMIC SECURITY

child care or DV issues that can get in the way of a woman attending training classes. You don’t have to pay stipends—a guy can count on his kids’ mothers doing whatever it takes to feed those kids while he learns what he needs. You can teach a guy to drive a commercial vehicle in six weeks without worrying about whether he has tenth-grade reading skills or whether an employer will put up a fuss because he’s a woman. The guy is in, you’re done, and you get credit for the placement. So, most programs do a lot better with men.” A range of women-centered organizations have spent the past few decades addressing the barriers that typically stand in the way of women’s training success. Most provide stipends for their participants while they are enrolled in activities; some help them secure child care; some offer the intensive preliminary academic preparation that will enable them to more successfully compete for well-paid office jobs or jobs in the health care industry. Across the board, the attention given to those vital auxiliary supports has paid off handsomely. Participants overwhelmingly maintain robust attendance records despite their many competing family responsibilities. A majority stick with their programs for the many months it takes to meet the requirements of a genuinely effective training effort. And—most importantly—a solid majority move into living-wage positions. “A woman needs a few things to earn a living wage,” remarks a participant in a program that prepares survivors of domestic violence for jobs that pay enough to allow them to leave their abusers. “She needs a stable place to live—so she can concentrate on the job instead of worrying where she and her children will be sleeping the next night. She needs solid training—including help with the academic basics that she may never have had the chance to master. She needs help finding employers who will pay her decently. And, yes, she needs child care.

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

E CONOMIC SECURITY

Some people might say that it sounds like a lot to ask—stable housing, strong preparation, fair pay, and the means to care for our children while we are at work. But I wouldn’t call it ‘a lot.’ I’d call it ‘justice.’”

“Women have been told over and over again that they cannot or should not pursue a range of living wage jobs—especially trade careers,” comments Kathleen Culhane, NEW’s President. “But we are committed to changing the Some people might say that it narrative—to opening new sounds like a lot to ask—stable and rewarding opportunities housing, strong preparation, for women. Women can fair pay, and the means to care and should have access to for our children while we are at transformative careers in the work. But I wouldn’t call it “a trades, for themselves and lot.” I’d call it “justice.” for their families. They handle those jobs well. Thanks in large In addition to helping women part to our efforts, New York secure better job options City’s building apprenticeship within the fields in which programs are now 11 percent women typically work, a female—a national first. The handful of training programs more women who secure PER SCOLAS focus on equipping women to apprenticeships, the more we enter the generally significantly better-paid fields change our city’s and our country’s narrative—and that have traditionally been “reserved” for men. the easier we make it for other young women to realize their dreams.” The programs include: The more women who secure apprenticeships, • Per Scholas, which provides low-income women the more we change our city’s and our country’s with the training and wraparound supports narrative—and the easier we make it for other young required to successfully enter the information women to realize their dreams. technology industry. • United Women Firefighters, which trains women for jobs in the Fire Department of New York City •N ontraditional (NEW), which trains women for jobs in the construction industry, public utilities, building operations, and transportation.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

ECONOMIC SECURITY

On the Way to Really Changing Things: Bringing Women of Color into the Sheet Metal Industry In 2011, Local 28-ATC, hired Leah Rambo—a veteran sheet metal worker—to lead a recruitment and training effort that could attract and prepare a measurably higher number of workers of color for careers in this important field. Then, in 2015, Local 28’s President and Business manager, Kevin Connors, decided to take the goal of diversity one major step further—i.e., to also work toward increasing gender diversity. And Rambo—who had spent many years being a “minority of one” within the industry—gladly embraced this expanded mission. “Sheet metal work is a fabulous career,” Rambo explains. “But it is also very tough. Success requires strong skills, hard work, and a huge amount of mental and physical stamina. But it also offers incomparable satisfactions: wonderful comradery, economic stability, and solid paths to advancement. Naturally, I was thrilled to have the chance to give other women the chance to enjoy all that.” Prospective sheet metal workers go through a rigorous application procedure and—once accepted—take part in a six-month preapprenticeship program followed by five years of apprenticeship. And they make a commitment to participate in four weeks of classroom instruction every year once their apprenticeship is over. Rambo oversees that entire process for all apprentices across the Greater New York area. She recruits, manages the application component, conducts the training, finds placements for and supervises

apprentices while they are on the job, and continually markets the program to new audiences. And, in her own words, most importantly, she “changes perceptions.” “I make sure to bring a group of female apprentices to all my recruitment efforts and to place them front and center in all marketing pictures,” she recounts. “And I advocate fiercely for them both before and after they are hired.” Rambo acknowledges that employers are typically skeptical at first, but that their skepticism tends to fade fast. “It doesn’t take long for the women to become recognized for their skills and endurance, leadership and team spirit,” she asserts. “So, things inevitably work out.” Rambo has already achieved a 13 percent rate of female participation and is confident that she will soon reach and surpass her initial official goal of creating a workforce that is fully 20 percent female by the target date of 2020. “Men on the job and at recruitment fairs are beginning to ask me: ‘Hey, do you think I should encourage my sister to get into this field? Do you think I should talk to my daughter about it?’” she observes. “When the ‘guys on the street’ begin asking questions like that, you know you’re finally on the way to really changing things.”

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

E CONOMIC SECURITY

“HAVE YOU PRESSED MY SHIRT YET?”: BROADENING ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITIES For some women, the most appropriate path to economic security is not employment—it is entrepreneurship.They have the ideas, the drive, the passion, and the ability to create their own innovative and successful businesses. But the odds have historically been against them.

of color and immigrant women to enjoy equitable entrepreneurial success. As of the end of 2015, there were an estimated 359,000 female entrepreneurs in New York City. Their businesses employed some 190,000 people and generated about $50 billion in sales. In that same year, men owned one and a half times more firms, employed three and a half times more people, and made four and a half times more revenue. And—among those women entrepreneurs—52 percent were White and those White women-owned firms generated 75 percent of the total revenue.31

Fortunately, however, a small “Female entrepreneurs group of forward-looking typically have far less access programs are determined to to capital and training and provide the resources that information than their male female entrepreneurs of counterparts,” explains color need to succeed—and Sandra Morales-De Leon, are achieving impressively the Deputy Director of solid results. Besides Union Settlement House’s Union Settlement’s Women’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship Program Success Training Program. cited above, those programs HOT BREAD KITCHEN “And women of color and include: immigrant women tend to have even less access to those resources than their White female • Hot Bread Kitchen’s HBK Incubates, which provides counterparts. And women of all backgrounds rarely shared commercial kitchen space and business receive as much support for their entrepreneurial training and support for entrepreneurs in the food ambitions as they deserve on the home front. industry. To date, nearly 200 business owners have When a man decides to launch a firm, he can received support—of whom 80 percent have been generally count on his wife or partner applauding women and almost all have been people of color his ideas, encouraging his efforts, and—most or immigrants. importantly—taking care of everything else so he can concentrate on succeeding. When a woman— • Committee for Hispanic Children and Families particularly a woman of color—tells her partner (CHCF)’s Institute for Child Care and Early about a potential business opportunity, what she’s Education, which offers a bi-lingual training and likely to hear is: ‘Yes, that’s very nice—so when is support program that has been enabling hundreds supper and have you pressed my shirt yet?’” of women a year to launch or expand successful family child care businesses (i.e., home-based The statistics support Morales-De Leon’s child care services serving groups of six to 12 observations regarding how hard it is for women children). 31

All the above is based on WENYC: Unlocking the Power of Women Entrepreneurs in New York City, We-NYC, NYC, 2015.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

In addition, the forceful efforts of Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen have led to the creation of WE-NYC, a major collaborative initiative that is bringing together the City’s Small Business Administration and a host of diverse additional private, philanthropic, public, and nonprofit partners to provide thousands of female entrepreneurs—particularly women of color and immigrant women—with access to start-up funds, mentoring and networking opportunities, and tailored workshops on topics including funding, credit, marketing and pitching, and leadership.32

ECONOMIC SECURITY

WORKERS’ COOPERATIVES In addition to supporting individual entrepreneurial efforts, a few women-led organizations—Center for Family Life (CFL) was the first and remains the most forceful leader and promoter—have been helping groups of immigrant women and women of color to form worker-owned cooperatives in a range of fields (housekeeping, home care, child care) that have historically paid some of the lowest wages in the city.

With funding and other assistance from The New York Each of these programs, Women’s Foundation, CFL in short, provides women has created a strong model, entrepreneurs with the attracted considerable resources and information support from other public that any entrepreneur needs, and philanthropic sources, and—perhaps even more UNITED COMMUNITY CENTERS (UCC) and helped a number of importantly—with the kind of supportive community that women specifically need other community organizations carry out similar if they are to negotiate the specific gender- and initiatives. Its innovative strategy is now making a major difference for hundreds of female workerrace-related stresses that they are likely to face. owners every year—enabling them to command “Men have their country clubs—or their dominoes wages considerably higher than if they were groups—where they can talk to one another, share working on their own or were employed by some strategies, and pick each other’s brains about “outside” agency; allowing them to set better business decisions,” Morales-De Leon concludes. terms of employment; and helping them develop “Female entrepreneurs—particularly female the management and decision-making skills that entrepreneurs of color—are so isolated, so stressed, are critical to ongoing entrepreneurial progress. so overworked, and so confined to their homes when they’re not working that they can’t obtain the support that is, ultimately, just as important as bank loans. So that is what we offer. And it works.”

Key partners include: The Huffington Post, Citi Community Development, Deutsche Bank, Grameen America, Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses, MSNBC, NYCEDC, Barnard College, the Center for an Urban Future, The New York Women’s Foundation, the Ms. Foundation, Cosmopolitan, Acción, Etsy, the NYC Housing Authority, Hot Bread Kitchen, Dough, United Way, La Newyorkina, Babson College, Ogilvy, Sustainable South Bronx, and the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs. 32

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

E CONOMIC SECURITY

Calling Their Own Shots “Our goals go way beyond just trying to get a few more immigrant women into jobs,” explains Julia Jean-François, Co-Executive Director of the Sunset Park-based Center for Family Life (CFL). “We want nothing less than to improve their overall employment options and long-term economic security.” For the past 10 years, CFL has been mobilizing members of Sunset Park’s largely Latina immigrant community to create cooperative businesses in service fields including housekeeping, child care, dog walking, and elder care. It helps co-op members set fair rates for their services and fair limits on the services they are willing to provide; offers them training on basic business practices; arranges tailored consultations; and helps them to market their services. Thus far, those efforts have enabled some 150 neighborhood residents to launch and develop eight major cooperatives, including Si Se Puede (a housekeeping cooperative);

“ONE CATASTROPHE AWAY FROM MAJOR DEBT”: FIGHTING FINANCIAL EXPLOITATION Finally, a few organizations—the New Economy Project has been a leading force—are committed to addressing the cycle of poverty that begins when the gap between unjust wages and high fixed expenses pushes women into debt and then typically spirals out of control when the only available sources of credit and loans are predatory institutions. New Economy Project’s projects focus on organizing and equipping low-income women to fight back against specific exploitative practices and to replace outside predatory lender institutions with

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

Beyond Care (a child care cooperative); Golden Steps (an elder care cooperative); and Trusty Amigos (a dog walking cooperative). In 2014, CFL’s efforts won major recognition–and considerable funding–from the NYC City Council. Upon making that award, Council Member Helen Rosenthal observed that: “when you look at worker cooperatives you are seeing the future economy of New York City.” “We see our work not as ‘providing services’ but as supporting genuine structural change,” JeanFrançois concludes. “As helping women use their collective power to move from being at the beck and call of employers towards finally ‘calling their own shots.’ As one new co-op member recently told me: ‘By joining with my fellow women, I’m going to go from being the most exploited of workers to being a business owner with a future.’”

community-run financial institutions. Its work has attracted the support of private foundations including The New York Women’s Foundation as well as funding from the Office of Financial Empowerment of the NYC Department of Consumer Affairs, and has served as a model for a number of other efforts. Its achievements have included: • Exposure of the practices of predatory lenders operating in key low-income areas of the city. • Fortification and publicizing of the services of existing credit unions. • Creation of additional “pop-up” credit unions in accessible spots (e.g., family health clinics). • Significant legal victories against debt collection agencies that buy up individual debt, charge usurious interest rates, and then garnish the wages of those who cannot meet those rates.

“Don’t talk to me about how low-income Latina women don’t know how to manage their finances,” remarks Cecilia Gaston, Former Executive Director of Violence Intervention Program (VIP) Mujeres—an organization that focuses on Latina DV survivors. “These are women who manage to feed their children, pay the rent, and still send money ‘back home’ to Mexico or the Dominican Republic every single month. It isn’t that they don’t know how to spend wisely or how to save. It’s that they are paid next to nothing for their work and are always just one small catastrophe away from major debt. And once that happens—se acabo—it’s all over, since the predatory lenders are poised to take advantage of them. What Latina women need isn’t financial literacy or money management courses. What they need is the chance to earn fair wages for their labors and to borrow money on fair terms.” What Latina women need isn’t financial literacy or money management courses. What they need is the chance to earn fair wages for their labors and to borrow money on fair terms.

“A LOSING BATTLE”: ADDRESSING THE EXPENSE SIDE OF THE ECONOMIC SECURITY EQUATION While, as detailed above, most of the efforts of grassroots women-centered organizations have historically focused on the income side of the economic security equation, the interviews held for this report revealed a growing awareness of the need to begin paying considerably more strategic attention to the expense side—in particular, to begin more forcefully taking on the exorbitantly high fixed costs of child care and housing.

ECONOMIC SECURITY

development programs. “But it will never be enough. We also have to do something about what it costs women just to hold a job. Unsubsidized child care costs as much as $11,000 per year per child! Every extra dollar that our participants gain is almost immediately eaten up by that expense. For the working mother of young children, it’s a losing battle—no matter what she does.” Or as one housing expert put it: “Most low-wage women’s incomes will never be able to keep up with New York’s soaring rents—so the only real solution is to increase their access to subsidized and rentprotected housing. It’s not rocket science. It’s just math.” A few farsighted organizations—NYS Tenants & Neighbors is one of the major leaders—have spent the past few decades working to preserve the city’s overall limited stock of affordable permanent housing units. A few others—the Women’s Center for Educational and Career Advancement (WCECA) has been on the forefront—focus on expanding lowwage women’s awareness of and ability to access all the available income subsidies. And one determined organization, the Community Service Society, has just successfully concluded a groundbreaking collaborative initiative—the #FairFares Campaign— to reduce the untenably high fixed cost of transit for all low-income New Yorkers. But, as the job trainer quoted above notes, until our society finally and definitively commits itself to reducing the cost of the two main necessities—child care and housing—that are at the heart of the income inadequacy of so many households, women and the families that they support will inevitably continue losing the overall battle for economic security.

“Job training is, of course, a key component in the overall strategy to promote women’s economic progress,” remarked a trainer in one of the city’s leading women-centered educational and career THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

E CONOMIC SECURITY

PUBLIC Sector Recommendations: • Continue passing, implementing, and enforcing the laws and regulations (e.g., family leave, equal pay, minimum wage increases, prohibition of inquiries into salary histories, fair paid sick leave policies, fair overtime pay practices, protections of pregnant and breastfeeding women, abolition of tipped wages, abolition of unpredictable work shifts) that will help level the economic playing field for women of color and immigrant women. • Revise and improve the mandates, goals, and services provided under publicly funded job training funding packages to better reflect the situations and needs of women. • Continue and expand funding and support for programs promoting women’s entrepreneurship and women-worker-owned cooperatives. • Revise the immigration laws and practices that make it possible to exploit the immigrant labor force without which the economy could not exist.

• Continue supporting efforts to abolish exploitative lending practices and to provide better credit options in low-income neighborhoods. • Make affordable, accessible, high-quality child care available to all low-wage working mothers. • Significantly expand access to appropriate affordable and supportive housing options through a combined strategy of broadly and robustly increasing the pool of available rent subsidies; preserving the current rapidly diminishing supply of subsidized or rent-controlled or -stabilized housing; and significantly expanding the supply of units specifically designated for women emerging from certain situations (e.g., fleeing domestic violence or exiting the foster care or criminal justice systems).

ECONOMIC SECURITY

NONPROFIT Sector Recommendations:

PHILANTHROPIC Sector Recommendations:

• Continue forcefully advocating for the measures that will level the economic playing field for women of color and immigrant women, and reinforce monitoring of the ongoing implementation of the measures that exist.

• Continue and increase the level of funding, technical assistance, convenings, and other forms of backing provided to organizations addressing the economic security of women of color and immigrant women and LGBTQI individuals—and ensure that all those efforts directly reflect the input and guidance of those constituencies.

• Continue advocating for training programs that appropriately and strongly support the specific situations of women in those groups. • Continue providing and developing training efforts supporting women’s efforts to secure living-wage jobs in a full range of fields, including fields that have traditionally been closed to them. • Continue creating and sustaining communitybased organizing efforts that combat predatory lending. • Advocate forcefully and collaboratively for the expansion of affordable, accessible, highquality, well-paid, and supported child care and continue developing model programs for both center-based and family child care.

• If supporting those efforts has not previously been a priority, consider making them so. • Create new funding streams explicitly dedicated toward promoting strong collaborative action in support of expansion of affordable highquality child care and viably affordable permanent housing for low-income women and their families. • Create multi-funder efforts that will lead to bold and unified new infusions of resources into achieving those goals—and into strengthening the organizations and leaders who are pursuing them.

• Advocate forcefully and collaboratively for the expansion of affordable and supportive housing and continue developing models that are appropriate to the needs of women who are emerging from particularly undermining circumstances (e.g., women escaping domestic violence or emerging from the foster care or criminal justice systems).

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

SAFETY

V. S AFETY: Countering Violence and Promoting Healing “ What are the biggest issues confronting Mekong NYC’s constituents? The trauma of poverty and of war and of deportation are at the top of the list, of course, but so is the trauma of domestic violence. And the trauma of war and of the school-to-prison pipeline and of the prison-to-deportation pipeline and of domestic violence are all actually linked. Addressing the trauma of violence at home is part of the larger fight to address the trauma of war and incarceration and deportation.” – Chhaya Chhoum, Executive Director of Mekong NYC When the experts consulted for this report were asked to identify the most common threat to the well-being of women of color, immigrant women, and TGNC individuals, they almost always answered: “poverty.” But when they were asked to name the toughest threat, they invariably answered: “violence.” The experts explained that the violence experienced by the individuals in those groups takes three main forms: (1) domestic or intimate partner violence; (2) sexual harassment or rape; and (3) bias-driven individual or state-sanctioned assault. They then generally went on to remark that the main reason all those forms of violence are so tough to address is because they are rooted in such widely-held societal assumptions. That domestic violence and sexual assault resist intervention because they reflect the core beliefs of so many communities regarding the appropriate role of women and the inalienable rights of men. And that bias-based attacks on women of color, immigrant women, Muslim women, and LGBTQI individuals are dauntingly hard to address because the racist, nativist, misogynistic, and homophobic biases that they reflect are tacitly or overtly shared by so many in society at large. 38

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

The experts then typically concluded that since the 2016 election, there has been a welcome increase in public awareness about the overall subject of violence against women. And that—in the face of the inevitable backlash—it is our job to keep building on that awareness and to fiercely promote the more promising strategies for addressing all those deeprooted forms of assault. The best thinking of those leaders about the scope and nature of this complicated issue—and about the intervention strategies that most need concerted support—is presented in the sections that follow. Domestic violence and sexual assault resist intervention because they reflect the core beliefs of so many communities regarding the appropriate role of women and the inalienable rights of men. And bias-based attacks on women of color, immigrant women, Muslim women, and LGBTQI individuals are dauntingly hard to address because the racist, nativist, misogynistic, and homophobic biases that they reflect are tacitly or overtly shared by so many in society at large.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: ADDRESSING DOMESTIC AND INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE 33

Over the past few decades, the subject of intimate partner and domestic violence (DV)—long considered a private matter and thus beyond the purview of government action—has come to be regarded as a matter of strong relevance to public health and safety. Dozens of violence prevention programs now parlay funding from the federal Department of Justice, from the City, and from a roster of committed foundations toward providing survivors with a range of supports— primarily: (1) legal assistance; (2) emergency and transitional shelter; (3) employment training; and (4) counseling and other tools of healing. While acknowledging the critical need for—and the potential benefits of—all those services, the experts interviewed on this subject also typically observed that, in general, they represent only partial or temporary lifelines. That they rarely offer survivors the means to truly and permanently escape their abusers. And that they don’t really get to the heart of the issue—e.g., the behavior of the abusers and the cultural assumptions that enable that behavior.

And thus, the experts assert, it is time to begin approaching this entire subject from a different angle. In particular, to: (1) replace the traditional strategy of focusing on emergency needs with one that emphasizes permanent safety and progress; and (2) replace the long-held paradigm of trying to influence survivors’ behaviors with a paradigm that seeks to influence the cultural norms that fuel the behaviors of the perpetrators. The experts cite a few forward-thinking organizations that have been employing these approaches to excellent advantage: • New Destiny Housing—the only organization in the city that is solely dedicated to expanding the permanent, affordable housing options available to DV survivors. Through advocacy, referral services, and the direct development of permanent housing units specifically designated for—and geared to the needs of—survivors, it is forging a powerful blueprint for genuine, long-term safety and recovery. •A few organizations that are taking a communitysensitive approach toward changing the core beliefs, behaviors, and institutions that justify and perpetuate the violence:

• Connect No One Even Considers the Other Possibilities

The experts stressed that—despite all the investments and efforts to date—DV is the only crime that continues to grow in this city: it currently accounts for fully 12 percent of all violent crimes and a significant segment of all homicides. That the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence continues to receive upwards of 270,000 calls for help a year. And that—in the absence of viable permanent housing options—most survivors have no choice but to return to their abusers or to move into the City’s general homeless shelter system once their allotted time in the emergency shelters runs out. 33

NYC—which partners with key stakeholders (religious leaders, community activists, educators) across a range of ethnic, racial, and religious communities to create training programs that address and counter the core beliefs that sustain the violence.

•A Call to Men—which helps men and boys understand the pitfalls of the “man box” in which they are trapped, and challenges them to change the aggressive, sexist, and ultimately self-destructive behaviors that are mandated by that box.

Most of the data in this section comes from the Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence, from the NYC Domestic Violence Task Force’s 2017 Goals and Recommendations, and from Andrea Flynn’s Justice Doesn’t Trickle Down: How Racialized and Gendered Rules Are Holding Women Back, Ms. Foundation and Roosevelt Institute, NYC, 2017. THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

S AFETY

SAFETY

• Mixteca—a multi-service organization that both offers direct DV prevention services to women in Brooklyn’s Mexican immigrant community and encourages ongoing examination of the nature and destructive impact of the cultural norms that sustain gender violence within that community. “Why is the question always: ‘Why doesn’t she leave him?’” asks Quentin Walcott, the Co-Executive Director of Connect NYC. “If you just think about it for a moment, there are many complex reasons why she can’t: economic survival, family pressures, fear of reprisals. So why don’t we, instead, ask the person doing the

harm: ‘Why do you do it?’ What we do at Connect NYC is to help those who cause the abuse to ask themselves that tough question. We work with leaders in communities across the city to get the discussion going on that more powerful and useful basis. The resistance to our efforts is often huge, as you can imagine. But we know that we will never get anywhere until we’re finally willing to hold those conversations. After all, how many more shelters can we build? Building shelters is a response to violence; it doesn’t prevent violence.” Why is the question always: “Why doesn’t she leave him?”… Why don’t we, instead, ask the person doing the harm: “Why do you do it?”

“That Man Doesn’t Frighten Me Anymore”: The Incomparable Power of a New Home “It took a while for it to sink in that my partner would never change—that I would have to leave him,” explains Ms. L. “And then it took a while for me to actually leave him for good. It’s not so easy to leave some men. They really know how to twist things around.” Ms. L. lived for six years with a batterer who berated, stole from, beat, and burned her–and then denied that he had done any of that. She made several abortive attempts to escape. But she always seemed to go back—persuaded by the finely-tuned manipulations that batterers employ with such success. “Here’s what they do,” Ms. L. explains. “They promise. They beg. You feel sorry. You think maybe you weren’t remembering correctly. Until one day you realize that you just don’t feel safe. When I finally realized that, I called the Victims’ Hotline, took my grandkids (who live with me) and fled to a shelter. That man left 45 messages on my phone, asking me to come home–telling me he was dying. But this time there was finally no turning back.” 40

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

Going to the DV shelter took a tremendous act of courage, and it was only the very first step in what is typically a long journey with no guaranteed payoff. As Ms. L. began to approach the end of her allotted time in the shelter, the potential options for long-term safety once again narrowed for her and her grandchildren, given the city’s overheated housing market and the limitations of her income. Fortunately, however, the social worker in the shelter told her about Anderson House—one of the affordable permanent housing projects built or managed (or both) by the New Destiny Housing— the sole, women-centered organization fully dedicated to providing permanent housing for DV survivors. “I applied to Anderson House and New Destiny called me just days before I had to leave the shelter and said that I had been approved,” Ms. L. recounts. “I moved in on my birthday. What a birthday present that was! My grandkids and I finally have a home in which we can be safe. And that man doesn’t frighten me, anymore. I’m a new me. New Destiny gave me that.”

“HE ANSWERED THE DOOR NAKED”: ADDRESSING SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND RAPE In recent months, the topic of sexual assault in and out of the workplace has finally begun to receive a thorough and well-deserved airing. Since the 2016 election, more than 200 powerful men—celebrities, politicians, CEOs, and others—have been identified as predators and have begun paying steep professional and social prices for their patterns of sexual harassment and rape. More survivors are coming forward nearly every day—inspired and emboldened by those who have gone before. Nonetheless, the experts in the field remind us that the benefits of this movement have yet to truly reach the low-income women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals whose chances of being assaulted are the greatest and whose chances of being heard—and of obtaining justice—are the most circumscribed. A recent article in the Huffington Post documents the fact that a sizable majority of the almost-exclusively immigrant women who comprise the workforce of the hospitality industry regularly experience harassment, threats and assault from customers— and that a majority of those who are assaulted are afraid that they will lose their jobs if they complain. In the words of one of the hotel cleaning women interviewed: “He [the guest in the room that I was about to clean] answered the door naked [and there was nothing I could do about it].”34 And, in a similar fashion, advocates for LGBTQI (and particularly TGNC) individuals stress that their constituents not only face exceptionally high risks of sexual assault, they also face the high risk of encountering indifference, disbelief—or even further

abuse—from those to whom they turn for help.35 In short, while the celebrity women who have shared their stories have demonstrated enormous courage and produced powerful initial results, we also need to craft approaches to protect the individuals who have less access to public attention and empathy—and less ability to seek and receive justice. A few efforts are leading the way: • The New York City Council is considering legislation to require all businesses employing more than 15 people to conduct trainings on sexual harassment for the entire City labor force.36 • In May 2018, The New York Women’s Foundation launched a major new “Fund to Support the MeToo Movement” in collaboration with Tarana Burke, founder and leader of the #MeToo Movement to End Sexual Violence. The Fund will have a particular focus on: (1) supporting cis and trans women of color within the city’s most underinvested communities; (2) building the leadership of those who can best expose, articulate, and lead the fight against sexual violence; and (3) promoting approaches that can help heal those who have experienced violence.

“NO PLACE TO FEEL SAFE”: ADDRESSING BIAS-DRIVEN INDIVIDUAL AND STATESANCTIONED ASSAULT Across the board—regardless of the starting point of the conversation—the leaders of organizations that work with women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals eventually brought up the subject of bias-driven violence. They mentioned the pervasive insults, threats, and physical attacks that

Jamieson, Dave, “‘He Was Masturbating…I Felt Like Crying’: What Housekeepers Endure to Clean Hotel Rooms,” Huffington Post Business, November 20, 2017. 35 Frazer, Somjen and Erin Howe, op. cit. 36 See J. David Goodman, “New York City May Require Businesses to Conduct Sexual Harassment Training,” New York Times, February 23, 2018. 34

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

S AFETY

SAFETY

their constituents experience both from individual members of the public and from state-sanctioned institutional sources. They described the humiliating acts—name-calling, pushing and shoving, snatching at hijabs—that Muslim and Arab women so often confront within a range of public venues. The veiled and direct threats of deportation that immigrants of all backgrounds increasingly face from their employers. The unrestrained brutality that so many women of color encounter from police officers and other members of the criminal justice system.

even if she herself has all the right documentation, it is likely that someone in her family does not. Or that the woman working in the spot right next to her does not. The threat of deportation—the reality of deportation—creates incredible and constant stress. And employers’ willingness to use that weapon is a clear form of psychological abuse.”

Some of the leading efforts include:

“Black women have been largely unseen in the national conversation about racial profiling and lethal force,” concludes Andrea J. Ritchie, coauthor—along with Kimberlé Crenshaw—of a watershed 2015 report on police attacks on Black women, Say Her Name. “But the truth of the matter is that they experience rates of assault [from the criminal justice system] that are as high as those of the boys and men who have received all the attention.”37

•H ollaback!, which is creating a “community of resistance” of young LGBTQI individuals to fight back against street-based, online, and police harassment.

“Our clients face attack on all fronts—for their gender, for their race, for their faith, and for their immigration status,” remarks Robina Niaz, the Executive Director of Turning Point for Women and Families— the only organization in the city that directly and specifically addresses violence against Muslim women and girls. Black women have been “There is no place for them largely unseen in the national TURNING POINT to go to feel entirely safe. conversation about racial At home, they face the threat of intimate partner profiling and lethal force, but the truth of the violence. And when they step outside, they face the matter is that they experience rates of assault that threat of violence from people in the street. Can you are as high as those of the boys and men who have imagine what all that does to their peace of mind?” received all the attention. “Life has always been difficult for certain groups of immigrant women,” adds Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, an attorney for Latino Justice/PRLDEF—an organization that provides legal services for that population. “They have always been at the highest risk for exploitation because of their powerful work ethic and their acute economic need. But since the fall of 2016, things have become markedly worse. If a woman complains about underpay, overwork or dangerous conditions, all her employer has to say is: ‘I’ll call the ICE,’ and that woman will retreat. For 37

A growing number of organizations are beginning to shine a strong spotlight on the scope and tolls of the pervasive bias-driven attacks received by Black women, immigrant women, Muslim women, and LGBTQI individuals. They are coaching and encouraging their constituents to lift up the voices; providing services to address the impact of past violence; and nurturing the activism of those who are at the greatest risk.

• The Arab American Association of New York, which is empowering young Arab and Muslim women to combat anti-Arab and Islamophobe attacks and harassment by the public and the police.

• The Justice Committee, whose “Mothers and Families Leadership Development and Organizing Program” gives mothers a safe space for organizing, advocacy, and healing from the aftermath of police violence on themselves and their kin. • The Black Women’s Blueprint, an organization that is galvanizing Black women across the nation to expose, speak up against, and fight sexual and physical brutality and assaults by police and criminal justice personnel. “What do we need to do to end violence against trans women of color?” asks Vicki Cruz, a Senior Counselor and Advocate at the New York City AntiViolence Project—an organization that supports the members of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and HIV-affected communities. “We need to keep empowering our members to keep speaking up, to keep saying: ‘this is not right’—to keep moving forward. We need to keep reminding [the world] that our lives matter and that what is going on is wrong.”

PUBLIC Sector Recommendations: • Continue providing funding to communitybased efforts that provide legal assistance, counseling and other supports to DV survivors. • Develop approaches and funding streams (e.g., a long-term, adequate dedicated supply of rent supplements; an expanded, dedicated supply of affordable units) that would make permanent housing solutions more available to DV survivors. • Continue and increase efforts to train employers across the full range of sectors to recognize, prevent, and take strong action against sexual assault and harassment in the workplace— especially in industries and workplaces in which large numbers of immigrant women and women of color are employed. • Pass measures that eliminated the ability of ICE to deport immigrants who have no criminal records, who commit petty-level non-violent crimes (e.g., jumping a turnstile), or who have already served time for past offenses. • Put in place programs that forthrightly identify, track, monitor, and take measures to stop violence against and racial profiling of women of color by officers of the law.

frican American Policy Forum, Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women, Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy A Studies, Columbia University, NYC: 2015.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

SAFETY

NONPROFIT Sector Recommendations:

PHILANTHROPIC Sector Recommendations:

• Continue offering innovative on-the-ground legal and counseling supports to DV survivors.

• Continue and increase the level of funding, technical assistance, convenings, and other forms of backing provided to organizations addressing the comprehensive safety issues and broad-based trauma endured by women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals—and ensure that all those efforts directly reflect the input and guidance of those constituencies.

• Advocate strongly for permanent housing solutions to the issues of DV survivors—and help design and implement them, as possible. • Continue forging approaches to create sensitive, culturally appropriate changes in attitudes regarding domestic violence—particularly among men and within the ethnic and religious communities in which the attitudes of male dominance run deep. • Help employers create programs protecting their employees from sexual assault and harassment and ensuring that survivors of assault have access to appropriate legal recourse and other services. • Support the legal and counseling needs of women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals who are at risk of or have experienced hate crimes or sexual assault and equip constituents to take leadership positions from which they can speak up on their own behalf.

• If supporting those efforts has not previously been a priority, consider making them so. • Create new funding streams explicitly dedicated toward promoting strong collaborative action in support of expansion of affordable permanent housing for women fleeing violence. • Create multi-funder efforts that will lead to bold and unified new infusions of resources into achieving all those goals—and into strengthening the organizations and leaders who are pursuing them.

“ What does it mean that Black women can obtain birth control more easily than primary care? Contraception is a complicated subject.” – Susan Reverby, Health Care Historian and Professor, Wellesley College “ You can’t expect women to give children everything they need, 24 hours a day every day while living under the toxic conditions of economic inequity, racism, xenophobia, patriarchy ,and misogyny. Women reach a breaking point.” – Vivian Nixon, Executive Director, College and Community Fellowship The issue of reproductive justice is generally defined as encompassing three major areas: (1) ensuring autonomy over reproductive choice, sexuality, and gender expression; (2) providing access to holistic and appropriate services promoting reproductive and overall health; and (3) supporting those who raise children.

Nonetheless, progress remains far from equitable and is nowhere near complete. And the backlash against every victory remains ever more relentless.

SANCTUARY FOR FAMILIES

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

“ No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” – Margaret Sanger founder of Planned Parenthood

It is an issue that has been at the heart of the women’s and LGBTQI movements practically since their inception, and—thanks to the unflagging efforts of a range of leaders in those movements—a number of major victories have been won for certain groups on certain of those fronts.

• Continue providing direct services to and advocating for measures that will call out and reduce the incidence of violence against, sexual assault o,n and racial profiling of women of color and immigrant women by officers of the law.

VI. R EPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE: Supporting Autonomy, Holistic Health, and Parenthood

The sections below present the views of the leaders in the field on what has been achieved, what needs to be expanded, and what remains to be done.

ENSURING AUTONOMY IN MATTERS OF REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE, SEXUALITY, AND GENDER EXPRESSION Over the past few years, the determined work of a range of community-based organizations—working in close partnership with the City government—has made a concrete and measurable difference in the ability of many New Yorkers to enjoy autonomy in matters of reproductive choice, sexuality, and gender expression: • After years of effort by a range of activist organizations in collaboration with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), New York women enjoy greater access to appropriate reproductive information and services than at any time in the recent past. Rates of both unplanned pregnancies and abortion continue to decrease for women of all ages, races, and backgrounds—while birth rates among all women ages 30 and above are on a steady rise. And most experts ascribe those clearly promising THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

R EPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE

outcomes to the ongoing expansion of services supporting women’s ability to make well-informed choices about whether and when to conceive.38 • Since June of 2015, the City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) has been regularly convening a diverse group of nearly 90 activists, community leaders, and government agencies—the Sexual and Reproductive Justice Community Engagement Group (CEG) 39 — to plan and implement constituent-informed and -directed initiatives in support of “healthy positive sexuality” across all the city’s communities. The goals of this initiative go far beyond access to contraception to include overall reproductive health and the right of all New Yorkers to express their sexuality and gender in whatever ways are best for them. • The City has pledged to continue providing solid funding for all these efforts regardless of the loss of federal funds that has come with the current national government’s determination to promote an “abstinence only” approach to birth control and to undermine the overall reproductive rights and options of women and LGBTQI individuals.

ENSURING ACCESS TO HOLISTIC, APPROPRIATE HEALTH AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH SERVICES At the same time, it is clear that—despite all that progress—certain significant gaps remain: •A range of New Yorkers still lack access to appropriate and full health and reproductive health services. The statistics show that rates of STD and HIV infection continue to rise across certain populations.40 TGNC individuals still often face considerable resistance when seeking the supports that they require to maintain their gender expression and health.41 Culturally and linguistically sensitive service delivery is still largely out of reach for certain demographic communities.42 While the work of the Sexual and Reproductive Justice Community Engagement Group (CEG), cited above, is specifically geared toward filling many of those gaps, it is clear that it will take considerable ongoing effort before everything that is needed is put into place.

ee: DOHMH, 2015 Summary of Vital Statistics S Participating groups include: African Life Center, African Services Committee, AIDS Center of Queens County, Ali Forney Center, Ancient Song Doula Services, Artvista, Black Nurses Rock, Brilliant Bodies, Bronx Parents Autism Support Circle, Brooklyn Perinatal Network, Brooklyn Young Mothers Collective, Brotherhood Sister Sol, Caribbean Women’s Health Association, Center for Reproductive Rights, Choices in Childbirth, Child Center of New York, Community Health Care Network, Community Health Center of Richmond, CONNECT NYC, CUNY Dreamers, CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy, Diaspora Community Services, Dominican Women’s Development Center, Federation of County Networks, Forestdale, GEMS (Girls Educational Mentoring Services), GLSEN, GMHC, Grand Street Settlement, Harlem Children’s Zone, Harriet’s Apothecary, Hetrick-Martin Institute, Housing Works, Institute for Family Health, Khet Hemet Birthing Center, Korean Community Services, LAISP Love Alive International Sanctuary of Praise, Worship Center of New York City, Latino Commission on AIDS, Lehman College, Love Heals, Montefiore Family Medicine/CUNY SPH, Morris Heights Health Center, Mount Sinai, National Advocates for Pregnant Women, National Institute for Reproductive Health, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York Civil Liberties Union, New York Coalition for Reproductive Justice, New York Presbyterian Hospital School Based Health Center Program, NYU Langone Med Center, Project Safe, New York Women’s Foundation, Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership, PHANYC (Public Health Association of New York City), Phoenix Queens of The Nation, Planned Parenthood of New York City, Project Safe, Project Reach Youth, Project Safe Lutheran Family Health Centers, Sunset Park Health Center, Project Street Beat, Planned Parenthood of New York City, Public Health Solutions, Queens Comprehensive Perinatal Council, Queen’s Library, Reproaction, RHAP, Sarah Lawrence College, Self-Induced Abortion Team, Silvia Rivera Law Project, Spirit of a Woman Leadership, Standing in our power /Spirit in Action, St. Barnabas Hospital, Staten Island LGBT Community Center, Teen MOM NYC, The Baby Resource Center, The Bronx Health Link, Inc., The Committee for Hispanic Children and Families, The Door–A Center of Alternatives, The Womanhood Project, TRIBE, Uptown Village, Urban Health Plan, Violence Intervention Program, Voces Latinas, Washington Heights CORNER Project, Women’s Prison Association, Young Father’s Program, Young Women of Color HIV/AIDS Coalition, and the YWCA of Brooklyn. 40 See: Wilson, Simone, “STDs Are Surging in NYC This Year”, Patch NYC, September 20, 2017. 41 See: Frazer, Somjen and Erin Howe, Transgender Health and Economic Insecurity: A Report from the 2015 LGBT Health and Human Services Needs Assessment Survey, NYS LGBT Network and Strength in Numbers Consulting Group, New York City, 2015. 42 See: Adiseshan, Tara, Olivia Ahn, Angelique Beluso, Elise Bokyung Kim, Jasmine Ko. Michelle Chen, Vineeta Kapah, Anna Krist, Bex Kwan, Chi Nguyen, Anique Singer, Angel Sutjipto, Yumnah Syed, Devanshi Tripathi, Adrienne Zhou, Stephanie Zhou, NYC Asian American Organizing Blueprint for Reproductive Justice, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, NYC, 2016.

• Many women of color—particularly Black women—struggle to maintain health and reproductive health in the face of a range of acute, pervasive, lifelong deprivations and stressors. In 2012, DOHMH released a report— Pregnancy-Associated Mortality—that documented that between 2006 and 2010, the rates of maternal morbidity and mortality for women of color were dramatically higher than they were for White women. In particular, that Black women were fully 12 times more likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth than White women; Asian mothers were four times as likely; and Latina mothers were three times as likely.43 The release of that report had a major and immediate impact—leading to concerted action by a spectrum of grassroots organizations and DOHMH to better track, investigate, and address the environmental and attitudinal factors contributing to this intolerable situation. It is too early to evaluate the impact of that commitment, but a range of promising, community-rooted efforts have been launched. They include:

• The formation of a Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee within DOHMH that is closely monitoring maternal outcomes and trends across the city’s main ethnic and racial groups.

• The creation of a city-wide Maternal Hospital Quality Improvement Network that will seek to develop hospital-specific recommendations to reduce the number of life-threatening complications during and after childbirth— with an emphasis on the neighborhoods in which there are the highest rates of pregnancyrelated complications.

38 39

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

• Enhancing comprehensive maternity care at NYC Health & Hospitals Corporation to: (1) embed

43 44

REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE

training around the two top causes of pregnancyrelated death for women of color; (2) hire maternal care coordinators to engage and support an estimated 2,000 high-risk women throughout their pre-natal and post-partum periods; and (3) establish primary care interventions to identify and support women who are planning to give birth in the following year. “We must collectively strive to shift the narrative of birthing in New York City to one that addresses implicit bias and racism within maternal health,” asserts Chanel L. Porchia-Albert, the founder and Executive Director of Ancient Song Doula Services. “It is only through collective community in addressing patient education, seeing communities as stakeholders, researching intersections of care, and measuring accountability that we can truly … begin the collective reconciliation of the trauma that Black women face while birthing.”44

SUPPORTING PARENTHOOD A small but vocal cohort of the experts consulted for this report noted that while the goals of promoting reproductive choice; freedom of sexuality and gender expression; appropriate, comprehensive health and reproductive health services—and safe pregnancies and deliveries—are all clearly vital components of the overall reproductive justice agenda, they do not represent the full story. Reproductive justice also means providing adequate supports to those who care for children across all the long and challenging child-rearing years that follow pregnancy and birth. And yet, those experts stressed, that entire crucial segment of the reproductive cycle has remained persistently, perplexingly, and detrimentally downplayed by—or even completely off the radar screens of—all but a very few advocates in this field.

NYC DOHMH, Pregnancy-Associated Mortality, New York City, 2006-2010, NYC, 2012 “De Blasio Administration launches Comprehensive Plan to Reduce Maternal Deaths and Life-Threatening Complications from Childbirth Among Women of Color,” July 20, 2018, www1.nuc-gov/office of the mayor/news THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

R EPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE

The mothers consulted for this report invariably asserted that caring for their children is one of the most central and cherished aspects of their lives. They all had stories to tell: Some talked about moving thousands of miles away from everything they had ever known just to give their children a “better chance” in the U.S. Others described working 10-hour days in a sweatshop to put food on their children’s plates—and then attending night classes to learn enough English to help their children with their homework. Some explained that they had tolerated years of domestic abuse just to keep a roof over their children’s heads— while others recounted that they had lost everything they possessed to flee a partner who posed a threat to the safety of their children. And then they almost all added that they had been obliged to do all that—and more—with little or no help from any source. That they were trapped in a relentless struggle to arrange and cover the costs of their children’s care while they were at work. That they had nowhere to turn for advice on how best to meet their children’s emotional needs, or deal with their emotional crises—or prepare them for success in school. That—in fact—they often felt unwelcome in their children’s schools. That their neighborhoods lacked playgrounds in which their children could safely run around—or well-supervised recreational programs in which they could take part in sports or the arts.

worked,” remarked another. “With neighbors. With my old aunt—who wasn’t so well herself. With my older daughter—who was barely into her teens. I know it wasn’t always ideal. I know I wasn’t giving her everything she needed. But what else could I do? What else could I afford? Where else could I turn?” The supports that those mothers crave are not unreasonable. “It takes a village to raise a child” is more than just a phrase—every mother needs ongoing support, encouragement, and assistance if she is going to be the parent that she wants to be. But—while most women of means can access and pay for parenting classes and therapeutic counseling and support groups and early education programs and summer camp and sports and arts programs— low-income immigrant women and women of color are largely left without any of those essential forms of assistance. And—what is more—they are all too often forced to manage all the tough tasks of parenting under circumstances of acute deprivation and stress. In recent years, the public sector has been investing a limited amount of money into providing a few vital supports to various “high-risk” groups of lowincome mothers—chiefly teen mothers, mothers living in homeless shelters, and mothers involved with the child welfare system. Some of the best ones include:

“I wish I’d known more about how to help my child understand this new world that we are in,” commented one Latin American mother in a Bronx educational program. “It is so different from what I knew back home. It’s not just the language—there are so many new rules, new expectations. Mothers talk to their children differently here. They play with them differently. I had no one to guide me and I’m sure I made so many mistakes.” “Over the years, I was forced to leave my youngest daughter in all sorts of care situations while I 48

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

• Healthy Families New York—a New York Statebased program in which trained community residents provide home visiting services starting during pregnancy and extending till the child reaches Head Start or school. • Nurse Family Partnership—a national home visiting program in which nurses visit and coach first-time low-income mothers and their families from pregnancy until their child’s second birthday.

REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE

• Early Head Start—a federal program that uses both center-based and home-based service delivery models to encourage healthy parent-child relationships and prepare their children for school.

address their own educational and career goals. They have, in short, proven themselves to be effective, appreciated, and critically important long-term reproductive supports.

• A range of evidence-based pilot programs by the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), in which specially-trained staff work with at-risk mothers of young children to prevent them from losing their children; or help parents who have lost their children to successfully re-unite with those children; or prepare foster parents to support the sometimes seriously-traumatized young children in their care.

And yet, they remain completely out of reach for most of the women who need them most—not to mention all the women who could simply benefit from a bit of well-informed encouragement and guidance from time to time.45

And—in a similar fashion—a small number of mainly philanthropically-supported grassroots efforts have been providing tailored, culturally-sensitive supports to certain groups of mothers struggling with certain specific issues. They include: • SPARKS—a pioneering program that helps Orthodox Jewish mothers understand and address post-partum depression within a culture that tends to disbelieve or dismiss—or blame the mother for—that deeply-undermining condition. • Ancient Song Doula Services—a grass-roots program in the city providing very-low-income Black mothers with comprehensive, intensive personal support from the last months of their pregnancies through their deliveries through the first six months following their children’s births. Over the years, all these publicly- and privatelyfunded programs have enabled thousands of mothers to negotiate some of the toughest challenges of parenting. They have reduced rates of neglect and abuse, made a measurable difference in children’s later school success, improved the health of both the mothers and the children, and helped mothers

Supporting parenthood, in short, has remained an absolutely key—but almost totally unaddressed— part of the overall reproductive justice agenda. The advocates have devoted themselves—with impressive success—to illuminating and promoting the issues of reproductive choice, gender identity and expression, holistic reproductive services, and healthy pregnancies and deliveries. But they have never gotten as far as pushing for universal child care. Clearly, it’s time to do better on this last major reproductive frontier. The reproductive justice advocates have devoted themselves—with impressive success— to illuminating and promoting the issues of reproductive choice, gender identity and expression, holistic reproductive services, and healthy pregnancies and deliveries. But they have never gotten as far as pushing for universal child care.

As noted in the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy’s 2016 report, “Maternal and Child Well-Being: Invest in Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting,” fewer than 5 percent of all the New York City families in which children are flagged as being “at risk” are actually able to access any of the main evidence-based parenting support programs. THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

R EPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE

Someone on their Side: The Powerful Potential of Doulas “A lot of the women with whom we work don’t hear: ‘How are you?’ very often in their daily lives, because we’re always expected to be strong,” remarks Berenice Kernizan, the Perinatal Coordinator for the city’s only official volunteer doula program, Ancient Song Doula Services. “And they certainly don’t hear it very often during their pregnancies, deliveries, or recoveries. They need someone who can just ask them that one small question from time to time. And to listen to what they say without judgment. And then to simply answer: ‘Yes, I understand. It’s hard. And you can talk to me about it.’” Ancient Song Doula Services provides low-income individuals with the encouragement, advocacy, and willing ear of a trained doula—or birth coach—for the full span of time from their early pregnancies through their deliveries and well into the postpartum period. The doulas receive seven weeks of intensive training on how to provide their clients with non-intrusive, comprehensive, and “culturally humble” human support, including: (1) meeting with them for a few months before the birth; (2) being with them as they labor at home prior to going to the hospital; (3) staying with them during delivery; (4) continuing to visit them for two weeks after delivery ; (5) providing comprehensive

information on resources once they return home; and (6) keeping in active touch for the six months following the birth—and on call for advice and support, ever after. The organization’s clients are drawn from across the five boroughs and Riker’s Island. Its services are available to teen mothers for free—and offered on a free to low-cost sliding scale to everyone else; no one is ever turned away due to lack of funds. The ultimate hope is to make all services completely free (for low-income folks) once the State implements its recent decision to make doula services Medicaid-eligible. “The women with whom we work are really strong,” asserts Kernizan. “So, our main job is actually just to remind them of their own power. And to let them know that they have the right to feel what they are feeling. And to ask for help if they need it. We assure them that asking for help is not a sign of weakness. That they deserve to get what they need. And in fact, they don’t actually ask for very much, most of the time. They just seem to appreciate knowing that someone is on their side. For the long haul. A lot of them have never had that.”

REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE

PUBLIC Sector Recommendations:

NONPROFIT Sector Recommendations:

• Keep robustly supporting the programs and measures that have proven impact or strong potential for supporting and improving the sexual and reproductive health and autonomy of girls, women, and LGBTQI individuals (e.g., the Sexual and Reproductive Community Engagement Project, the NYC Unity Project, the Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Review Committee, Birth Justice).

• Continue advocating for, supporting, and stretching the reach of the collaborative sexual and reproductive health efforts that are currently in place.

• Create designated income streams or expand current Medicaid coverage for culturallycompetent, community-based supporters of maternal health (e.g., doulas and midwives). • Better address the overall environmental factors (e.g., lack of access to fresh food or welcoming venues for exercise, poor-quality air, and housing) that undermine the overall and reproductive health of low-income women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals. • Invest significantly more resources into expanding access to evidence-based parenting programs including Healthy Families New York, the Nurse Family Partnership, Early Head Start, and the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS)’s innovative new prevention approaches. • Invest significantly into expanding affordable, high-quality child care.

• Continue fiercely advocating against national government efforts to suppress reproductive rights. • Forge and offer innovative new programs that provide culturally-appropriate services in support of parenting skills and confidence. • Begin to advocate strongly for the expansion of affordable, high-quality child care.

PHILANTHROPIC Sector Recommendations: • Continue and increase the level of funding, technical assistance, convenings, and other forms of backing provided to organizations providing comprehensive reproductive and general health services to women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals—and ensure that all those efforts directly reflect the input and guidance of those constituencies. • If supporting those efforts has not previously been a priority, consider making them so. • Create new funding streams dedicated to expanding access to evidence-based services in support of the early parenting strengths of lowincome women and of the ability of low-wage mothers to secure appropriate care for their children while they are at work. • Create multi-funder efforts that will lead to bold, unified new infusions of resources into achieving all those goals—and into strengthening the organizations and leaders who are pursuing them.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

EMPOWERMENT

VII. E MPOWERMENT: Strengthening Collective Clout, Leadership, and Alliances “ The rules of our society have been written by those who are in power and are tailored to keep them in power. And so, the only way to alter things is to bring women of color into prime leadership positions.” – Andrea Flynn, Justice Doesn’t Trickle Down The experts consulted for this report overwhelmingly concurred: low-income women of color, immigrant woman, and LGBTQI individuals will never enjoy full equity and justice till they are able to wield greater collective clout, assume more meaningful seats at key decision-making tables, and draw on the support of a broad range of influential allies.

in fact, all the most successful projects cited by the experts involved some version of that core strategy:

And thus, unsurprisingly—regardless of particular substantive focus—the organizations that work most closely with those constituencies all tend to engage in activities promoting those goals. In particular, they strive to:

• The strength of the #MeToo movement has grown exponentially as it has created an ever-larger and more diverse community of survivors, all fighting for common goals.

• Create communities within which their constituents can exercise collective clout. • Help constituents move into strong leadership positions. • Seek alliances and collaborations that will help strengthen their causes.

“SISTERS FROM ANOTHER MOTHER”: BUILDING COLLECTIVE CLOUT At some point in every interview, someone invariably mentioned how hard it is for a woman to overcome systemic barriers when she is operating entirely on her own. And—thus—how important it is to help women join communities in which their individual voices can be amplified, reinforced, and heard. And, 52

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

• The successes of the Center for Family Life’s worker cooperative movement have principally derived from replacing the vulnerability of individual workers with the muscle that comes with united action.

• The reason that the sheet metal union training program, previously described, aims to reach a 20 percent female participation rate is because the leader of that program calculates that it takes at least that degree of female presence to ensure that women workers will have a fair say in how things are done, the ability to fend off harassment, and an equitable chance to take on the more challenging jobs that lead to ongoing promotion. “What a woman needs more than anything else are some ‘sisters from another mother,’” asserts a member of the community advocacy group, She’s So Vocal. “A group of other women who will miss her when she isn’t there and tell her so. My sisters here are all women who have gone through what I’ve gone through. They are all [drug] users or homeless people or have spent some time in prison. We share

our experiences and coach one another on how to speak to the outside world about what we’ve been through and what we need. And then we go out and speak. And you know what? Because we are united— because we speak our piece together—that outside world has no choice but to hear us.” Because we are united—because we speak our piece together—that larger world has no choice but to hear us.

“DOES THAT COUNT?”: PROMOTING RECOGNIZED LEADERSHIP AND MEANINGFUL REPRESENTATION The experts also consistently cited the pivotal importance of helping women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals to become recognized leaders—and to gain meaningful seats at key decision-making tables.

management skills—do you have?’” recounts the Career Prep Coordinator for a Bronx-based, womancentered job training program. “Management positions generally pay well, so if I can steer a woman onto a management track, I do it. But the answer that I most frequently hear is: ‘I don’t have any leadership experience or management skills!’ So, I begin probing around and I inevitably discover that the woman whom I’m interviewing has created a tutoring program for the children in her neighborhood. Or that she has organized a food pantry. Or that she has spent the last ten years as the deacon of her church—overseeing its entire financial operations. And so, I say: ‘What do you mean you have no leadership experience or management skills? Look at everything you’ve done!’ And she inevitably responds: ‘Oh. That. Does that count?’” Fortunately, it seems that the picture is finally beginning to change. Efforts to help women take better ownership of their leadership powers are dovetailing with a nationwide awakening to the need for greater female representation—with highly promising results.

The experts are quick to stress “Tenant organizing has always that the problem is neither totally depended on the efforts lack of leadership ability nor of women,” remarks Katie lack of leadership experience. Goldstein, the former Executive That, in fact, women of color Director of NYS Tenants & and immigrant women are Neighbors—an organization natural leaders—typically whose core mission is the the first people to identify preservation and expansion of emerging issues in their the city’s stock of affordable communities and the first permanent housing. “But it is to take on responsibility for the men who get elected to be planning and carrying out the presidents of those tenant projects addressing those organizations—and who then SPARKS issues. Rather, they explain, parlay those presidencies into the problem is that women in general—and women positions of further political power. We’ve spent a lot of of color and immigrant women in particular—are so time over the years trying to persuade women to seek rigorously programmed to dismiss or downplay their the power that should go along with all their legwork, own capacities and roles. without much success. But things seem to have finally “When I conduct an intake interview, the first question I always ask is: ‘What leadership experience—what

turned a corner. I don’t know whether it is the effect of all our efforts or the fallout from the 2016 elections, but— THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

E MPOWERMENT

whatever it is—the women are suddenly raring to go. Campaigning for votes. Thinking what their next steps should be. We’re going to see some major changes in the power structure over the next few years—I’m absolutely convinced.” Women are suddenly raring to go. Campaigning for votes. Thinking what the next steps should be. We’re going to see some major changes in the power structure over the next few years—I’m absolutely convinced.

EMPOWERMENT

“We are well on the way to finally replacing the stereotype of ‘immigrant women as a source of cheap labor for the economy’ with the reality that ‘immigrant women are the shapers of the economy.’ That we are not just passive participants in—but rather active makers of—a robust democracy.”

BUILDING ALLIANCES A small number of experts made one final point: They noted that the time has come for women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals to begin strategically and proactively broadening their base of support. That—while retaining primacy in matters of expertise and leadership—the members of those groups need to begin building the collaborations that will take their work to the next critical stage of development.

Erin Vilardi, the Founder and CEO of Vote, Run, Lead (VRL)—the largest and most diverse women’s political training program in the country—confirms the power of those trends on a national scale. She explains that the number of women requesting training from her And, in fact, all the most organization has increased successful efforts cited in this more than tenfold since the report appear to have truly 2017 inauguration—reaching taken off at the point that their more than 12,000 women in leaders were able to engage just the past year. That the broader circles of supporters women she’s speaking with VOCAL NY and partners: have gone from saying: “I don’t know if I can do that,” to saying: “There’s no way that • The workplace equity victories achieved in recent I won’t.” And that the long-term impact of that shift years have all been driven by coalitions that will be enormous. “It’s always been easy for the men included a diverse range of both small grassroots in power to disregard that lone woman representative and major, long-established advocacy groups. pushing for equal pay or better access to birth control or subsidized child care,” Vilardi remarks. “Well, • Some of the most important breakthroughs of they’re going to have a lot harder time doing that ROC-United have come from reaching beyond that when they are facing a whole roomful of articulate, organization’s core base of restaurant workers to confident, well-prepared women leaders. We are at a engage restaurant customers—and restaurant watershed. Just wait and see.” owners—in the fight for better working conditions and terms of employment. Or, as Sayu Bhojwani, the founder and President of New American Leaders—an organization that • Some of the most promising new developments in specifically focuses on training immigrants to run for the domestic violence prevention movement have office—puts it: involved DV prevention groups reaching out to—and 54

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

partnering with—some of the people who have historically been responsible for the abuse. It can, of course, be a risky business to go beyond an organization’s natural base of support. It is an approach that needs to be done strategically, carefully, and with an eye to ensuring that the authentic, core mission and power structure endure. Nonetheless, a growing cadre of groups have apparently been negotiating those challenges with finesse—and their successes are creating a strong case for continuing to move in that direction. “At a certain point we realized that to reform the criminal justice system we couldn’t just keep talking among ourselves—we couldn’t just keep engaging Black and Brown families from New York City,” observes Soffiyah Elijah, Executive Director of The Alliance of Families for Justice—an organization that seeks to end mass incarceration by supporting, empowering, and mobilizing families with incarcerated loved ones and people with a criminal record. “We realized that we needed to start reaching out to the White Upstate communities where husbands, brothers, sons, and mothers are also affected by these injustices. And, in fact, that approach is beginning to work. People whom we never thought would be on our side are speaking up; saying: ‘I hear you. I get what you are saying. I’ve been in that position, too. And I’m with you.’ When you finally attract that kind of support, there’s hope for real progress.”

GRACE OUTREACH

PUBLIC Sector Recommendations: • Take proactive steps to ensure that women and LGBTQI individuals are welcome, visible, fairl -represented, and robustly heard in key decisionmaking forums.

NONPROFIT Sector Recommendations: • Continue creating and sustaining programs that build community, develop leadershi,p and seek appropriate alliances for women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals across all substantive areas. • Continue and increase efforts that specifically seek to prepare women to take leadership positions in institutions across all fields (corporate, public sector, philanthropic, nonprofit, cultural, and academic).

PHILANTHROPIC Sector Recommendations: • Continue providing generous support to and convening nonprofit organizations and publicsector stakeholders that are involved in (or considering) carrying out all those initiatives and mount ongoing forums and create other communication strategies through which the issues and the initiatives can be discussed and brought to broad public attention.

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

VII. F RONTIERS FOR ACCELERATED ACTION: Affordable Permanent Housing and Affordable High-Quality Child Care “ There is no way to disentangle the issues of domestic violence, poverty, and affordable permanent housing. Domestic violence exists across all income levels, races, and ethnicities—and is a huge challenge for survivors, regardless of their background or financial means. But poverty and the lack of stable affordable permanent housing resources are the major factors that keep victims trapped in abusive relationships. In order to make real progress on the domestic violence front, we need to put affordable housing and economic empowerment at the top of our agenda.” – Cecile Noel, Commissioner, Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence Across the board—and regardless of the starting point of the interview—the experts consulted for this report eventually brought up the pivotal need to expand lowincome women’s access to two main resources: (1) affordable permanent housing and (2) affordable highquality child care. Discussions of economic security led to comments about how child care and housing are typically the two most decimating items on low-wage working women’s limited budgets. Discussions of employment challenges segued into statements about the difficulties of holding a job—or of taking advantage of training programs—in the absence of reliable child care arrangements. Discussions of how best to help women flee or heal from the impact of domestic violence led to the observation that a survivor’s only sure path to safety is the ability to move into a viable new permanent home. Discussions of how best to support mothers led to observations about the powerful potential of high-quality child care programs to provide them with guidance, support, and partnership. 46

A few key data-backed points surfaced persuasively: • There are only some 32,000 subsidized, regulated child care slots in the City’s official child care system—EarlyLearn—and the slots that are available are often inaccessible to low-wage mothers because of the highly-circumscribed locations of center-based care, because the eligibility standards are so rigid, because the application process is so daunting, and because the sliding scale fees offered are set far too high for many families to manage. As a result, several hundred thousand very lowwage New York working mothers have no choice but to either spend an untenable portion of their earnings on unsubsidized child care or to leave their children in whatever unregulated, poor quality care arrangements fit within the constraints of their budgets and the demands of their work schedules and commutes.46 • The introduction of Universal Pre-K–which provides every four-year-old child in the city with free, highquality educational services nine months a year, six

See: Villanueva, Madeleine; Unleashing the Economic Power of Family Child Care Providers; Committee for Hispanic Children and Families, Inc.; NYC: 2015; and NYC Public Advocate’s Office, Policy Report: Child Care in New York City, Part II: Investing in Child Care, NYC, 2015.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

hours a day—has singlehandedly lifted thousands of families out of income inadequacy; and the introduction of 3-K is expected to lift thousands more. This strongly suggests that offering universal, high-quality, affordable child care to all young children of working mothers—plus robust wraparound after-school and camp services to children once they enter school—could have an absolutely transformational impact on the overall poverty rates of New York’s low-wage families.47

FRONTIERS FOR ACCELERATED ACTION

permanent subsidized apartments.50 Shifting the allocation of available resources from promoting emergency shelter to promoting permanency would not only save the City potentially considerable amounts of money, it could achieve what the shelter system has consistently failed to do—i.e., make it possible for tens of thousands of New York women and their children to move from instability and trauma to economic security, safety, and health.

The experts stressed that neither the child care nor •T he current population of women—most of them the housing field lacks for supporters and advocates. accompanied by children—currently housed in In particular, they noted that: the City’s general homeless shelter system has reached an all time high of • A broad range of organizations 21,000.48 There are also some have core missions to 2,000 women—also mostly promote high-quality child accompanied by children— care and after-school housed in the Human options—including a core Resource Administration’s group (United Community domestic violence shelter Centers, BOCnet, Center for system at any given time.49 Family Life, the Committee for And there are estimated to be Hispanic Children and Families, tens of thousands of additional Cypress Hills Child Care women and children living Development Corporation, in highly precarious and SCO, and WHEDCO are among vulnerable situations— the leaders) that view this doubled up with friends or issue with a strongly womanCYPRESS HILLS relatives or under the constant centered lens. threat of abuse by intimate partners. Absent a resolute and strategic effort to expand low-income women’s • Dozens of powerful national, local, and grassroots access to viable permanent housing, there is little organizations have spent decades working on the reason to think that those grim statistics will shrink at issues of housing and homelessness in this city— any point in the near future. including a few (New Destiny Housing, New Economy Project, NYS Tenants & Neighbors, and Mothers on the • It costs $73,000 a year to maintain each femaleMove are among the leaders) that approach the field headed household living in the shelter system— from a strongly women-centered perspective. and $38,000 per year for each single woman in that system—amounts that far exceed what it would Nonetheless, the experts stress, neither affordable cost to provide all those households with viable, permanent housing nor affordable, high-quality child Final stats pending the release of the newest WCECA report. NYC Department of Homeless Services website. 49 Pearce, 2018, op. cit.. 50 See: Giselle Routhier, Fate of a Generation: How the City and State Can Tackle Homelessness by Bringing Housing Investment to Scale; Coalition for the Homeless, New York, 2018. 47 48

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

F RONTIERS FOR ACCELERATED ACTION

care has historically occupied a central place on the agendas of most women-led grassroots organizations. Nor do most of the organizations working in the overall fields of early education or housing and homelessness tend to frame those issues in terms of their specific, critical relevance to the economic security, health, and safety of the city’s lowincome women.

specific housing needs of women—particularly lowwage female heads of household and women fleeing violence—needs to be a major focus for anyone concerned with housing and homelessness. We need, in short, to create a strongly united and explicitly women-centered housing movement. And the moment to do it is now.”

Or as one participant in a job And thus, the experts advise, it training program explained: is clearly time for a sea change. “I’m constantly worried about In particular, it is time for: (1) all my children because I can’t women-centered organizations always arrange good care for to begin placing affordable child them while I’m in training. And, HOUR CHILDREN care and affordable permanent once I’m hired, I know I’ll be housing more front and center in their overall constantly worried about my job because there are agendas; (2) all general early education and housing bound to be times when those arrangements will fall and homelessness organizations to begin adopting through and I’ll have no choice but to stay home to take a more specifically women-centered focus for their care of my kids. Women can’t be in two places at once efforts; and (3) all those diverse stakeholders to begin and—when we try to be—everyone loses. Why haven’t joining forces to move the public and philanthropic people figured that out yet?” sectors toward placing permanent affordable housing and affordable, high-quality child care for low-income women at the top of their own list of priorities. As one housing advocate explained: “Enabling women to find affordable permanent housing needs to be a major goal for anyone concerned with women’s safety, health, and economic security. And meeting the

FRONTIERS FOR ACCELERATED ACTION

PUBLIC Sector Recommendations: • Radically shift the overall approach to homelessness from supporting the creation and maintenance of homeless shelters into approaches that:

– Preserve, protect, and improve current affordable permanent housing options (including NYCHA housing, Mitchell-Lama housing, and rent-controlled and rentstabilized units).

there is sufficient accessible, high-quality coverage for all 0-3 year-old children in lowincome families—broadly defined.

– Instituting a comprehensive, easy-to-utilize, city-wide marketing and enrollment process for the families of those 0-3 year-olds similar to what is in place for UPK.

– Ensuring that the salaries, training, and supports available to all publicly-funded child care providers working in that system are comparable to what is available to public school teachers.

–E xpand rental supplement programs.

– Expanding construction of new units of affordable and supportive housing through means other than the current system of developer incentives—with particular emphasis on increasing the supply of affordable and supportive housing specifically designed and designated for low-income women and children who are fleeing violence. • Radically improve the wraparound child care, early educational, and after-school and vacation supports available to all low-wage working mothers and the children they are raising by:

• Offering fair salaries and solid training, supervision, and support for family care providers: – Fully implementing 3-K for All—paying careful attention to the impact that it could have on EarlyLearn—i.e., without decimating the cohort of EarlyLearn teachers working with three-year-olds by ensuring parity of salary between EarlyLearn and UPK teachers.

– Investing robustly into the EarlyLearn system, including:

– Investing robustly into wrap-around afterschool programs and camp services to ensure adequate coverage for the care and educational of children once they enter school.

– Expanding accessible, center-based and (especially) family care slots to ensure that

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

F RONTIERS FOR ACCELERATED ACTION

VII. C ONCLUSION: Key Takeaways

NONPROFIT Sector Recommendations: • Continue advocating for robust and strategic expansion of affordable and supportive permanent housing options for low-income women of color, immigrant women and LGBTQI individuals. • Continue creating new and innovative housing models for low-income women of color, immigrant women, and LGBTQI individuals. • Continue advocating for measures that will support robust expansion of high quality child care for 0-4-year-olds and better wraparound care for school-age children, including:

– Strong strategic expansion of accessible, center- and family-based EarlyLearn slots to meet the needs of all low-wage families, broadly defined.

– Parity of salaries, training, and support between the center-based teachers in the EarlyLearn and teachers in the NYC school system.

– Fair salaries and solid training and support for providers of family care. – Strong strategic expansion of after-school and vacation coverage for families of children once those children are in the school system.

• Continue promoting new and innovative models of child care and after-school care—and programs supporting the efforts of the providers of that care. • Begin forging broad-based coalitions of advocates and providers committed to framing the expansion of affordable permanent housing and quality child care in ways that specifically address the needs and promote the progress of low-income women—and channeling those coalitions’ efforts towards moving the public and philanthropic sectors to make those goals priority items on their own agendas.

Women of color and immigrant women age 25-59 constitute a huge, diverse, and vitally important segment of New York City’s total population. They furnish the bedrock of the city’s labor force; are frequently both the main or sole caregivers and the main or sole wage earners in their households; supply the bulk of the paid caregiving services on which so many other New York households depend; and are typically the first to identify emerging needs within their communities—and the first to take on the leadership of projects to address those needs. The progress of women of color and immigrant women and LGBTQI individuals has not historically been a top priority for society in general—or even for most philanthropic and nonprofit organizations. Rather, society has tended to exploit their work ethic and their economic vulnerability, to ignore their needs, and to permit—or even sanction—the use of violence against them.

The solutions to the challenges faced by this pivotal group of New Yorkers are within our grasp. For the past few decades, a group of determined grassroots organizations have been forging strong approaches to expanding their economic security; protecting their safety; supporting their reproductive and general health; honing their leadership; and increasing their representation. They have solid ideas for expanding the impact of those efforts and for better addressing the two areas—affordable child care and affordable permanent housing—that are most crucial for their future progress. Following those organizations’ lead—and supporting their initiatives—is not a matter of charity. It is a matter of fundamental justice. It is also wise—the future of our city literally depends on their success. And it is time.

PHILANTHROPIC Sector Recommendations: • Continue providing generous funding, technical assistance, and other supports to nonprofit organizations and public-sector stakeholders addressing the issues of affordable, womencentered permanent housing and affordable high quality child care. • If those issues are not major focuses, consider making them so.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

• Convene and support powerful, women-centered collaborative efforts among diverse nonprofit advocacy and provider organizations working in those fields. • Create multi-funder efforts that will lead to bold, unified new infusions of resources into achieving all those goals—and into strengthening the organizations and leaders who are pursuing them.

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX A: Experts Consulted and Contributing

25. Chambers Daly, Pat Vice President, Nontraditional Employment for Women

34. Dais, Rochelle Managing Director, CORE Programs, STRIVE International

44. Gaston, Cecilia Founder and Former Executive Director, VIP Mujeres

1. Abusch, Aimee Divisional Director, Foster Boarding Homes, Edwin Gould STEPS to End Family Violence

9. Barett, Jo-Ann Director of Programs, Business Development Center, Union Settlement

26. Chhetri, Narbada Director of Organizing and Advocacy, Adhikaar

35. Del Rio, Deyanira Co-Director, New Economy Project

45. Gendel, Stephanie Director of Policy, Citizens Committee for Children of New York

2. Acevedo, Kelly Assistant Commissioner, ACS Division of Preventive Services

10. Barnett, Catherine Director, ROC/USA New York Chapter

3. Aguirre, Ana Executive Director, United Community Centers, Inc. 4. Alexander, Sasha Director of Membership, Sylvia Rivera Law Project 5. Austin, Jennifer Jones President and CEO, Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies 6. Bailey, Anais Clinical Director, Edwin Gould STEPS to End Family Violence

11. Barrios Paoli, Lilliam Senior Advisor to the President of Hunter College and former Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services 12. Barrett, Fran Interagency Coordinator for Not-for-Profit Services in New York State 13. Beaubrun, Tania Development Director, Edwin Gould STEPS to End Family Violence 14. Benjamin, Pabitra Executive Director, Adhikaar

7. Bakst, Dina Co-Executive Director, A Better Balance

15. Bhojwani, Sayu Executive Director, New American Leaders

8. Bannan, Natasha Lycia Ora Associate Counsel, Latino Justice PRLDEF

16. Biles, Kristen Former Director, Infant Toddler-Parents Program, Dominican Sisters Family Health

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

17. Birchan, Andrea Development Director, VOCAL NY 18. Bonilla, Grace Administrator, New York City Human Resources Administration 19. Breslin, Kate President and CEO, Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy 20. Bulthuis, Karen Managing Director of Program Operations, Per Scholas 21. Bunch, Ted Co-Director, A Call to Men 22. Bunche-Smith, Takiema Director, Early Education Leadership Institute, SCO FirstStepsNYC 23. Burnham, Linda Research Director, National Domestic Workers Alliance 24. Carin, Nancy Executive Director, BOCnet

27. Chhoum, Chhaya Founder and Executive Director, Mekong NY 28. Colwell, Gracie Community Member, VOCAL NY 29. Condon, Eileen Volunteer, Domestic Workers United 30. Contreras-Collyer, Maria Executive Director, Cypress Hills Child Care Development Corporation 31. Corden, Carol Executive Director, New Destiny Housing 32. Council, Sixta Community Member, VOCAL NY 33. Culhane, Katherine President, Nontraditional Employment for Women

36. Donnoly, Mary Program Director, Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison

46. Goldstein, Katie Former Executive Director, NYS Tenants & Neighbors

37. Elijah, Soffiyah Executive Director, Alliance of Families for Justice

47. Gonzales Rojas, Jessica Executive Director, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Rights

38. Ferby, Lakytha Vice President for Program, STRIVE International

48. Greenwalt, Kristy Director, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

39. Fitzgerald, Sister Theresa Executive Director, Hour Children 40. Flowers, Nathlyn Community Member, VOCAL NY 41. Ford, Karen Acting VP, Samaritan Village 42. Francois, Patricia Chair, Domestic Workers United 43. Garza, David* Executive Director of Henry Street Settlement

* Speaker at Milano School Conference on Public Housing and Family Poverty in New York and Chicago

49. Guindo, Danielle VP for Program and Policy, Committee for Hispanic Children and Families 50. Haggerty, Roseanne President, Community Solutions 51. Hamilton, Arlet Reading and Writing Coordinator, Grace Outreach 52. Hanna, Laura Co-Director, Debt Collective

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

APPENDIX A

53. Hill, Chanda Assistant Executive Director, Program Services, SCO 54. Hill, Dede Policy Director, Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy 55. Hines, Tanisha Program Associate, Come Home NYC Affordable Permanent Housing Program, Enterprise Foundation 56. Holden-Mosely, Roberta Director, Nurse-Family Partnership Program, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene 57. Hurley, Kendra Senior Editor at Applied Policy Research Institute for New York City Affairs, New School 57. Jane, Carmen Community Member, VOCAL NY 58. Jean-Francois, Julia Co-Director, Center for Family Life 59. Jones, Catie Administrative Assistant, Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

APPENDIX A

60. Kaplan, Deborah L. Assistant Commissioner, Division of Family and Child Health, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene 61. Kassa, Amaha Executive Director, African Communities Together 62. Kelly, Michael* General Manager, New York City Housing Authority

69. Ludwig, Sarah Co-Director, New Economy Project

78. Gabriel Morales Executive Director, Brandworkers

70. Madden, Sharon Interim Director, Edwin Gould STEPS to End Family Violence

79. Morales-Deleon, Sandra Deputy Director, Business Development Center, Union Settlement

71. March, Jennifer Executive Director, Citizens Committee for Children of New York 72. Martinez, Maria Guadalupe Executive Director, Centro de Recursos Educativos Para Adultos (CREA)

63. Kenigsberg, Esther President, SPARKS 64. Kerzinan, Berenice Director of Programming, Ancient Song Doula Services 65. Kim, Cathy Program Director, Come Home NYC Affordable Permanent Housing Program, Enterprise Foundation 66. Kovacks Zweiter, Chani Planning Assistant, UJA/Federation

73. Marquez, Connie Director, Strategic Partnerships, Edwin Gould STEPS to End Family Violence 74. McNichol, Sally Co-Executive Director, Connect NYC 75. Mehra, Kavita Executive Director, Sakhi for South Asian Women

67. Lee, Jessica Development Director, New American Leaders

76. Melendez, David Vice President, Development and Communication, STRIVE International

68. Lewis, Christine Secretary, Domestic Workers United

77. McLeod, Danae Executive Director, Grace Outreach

*Speaker at Milano School Conference on Public Housing and Family Poverty in New York and Chicago

88. Oluwole, Christine Former Executive Director, Center for Frontline Retail

97. Popkin, Susan J.* Senior Fellow at the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center and Director of the Program on Neighborhoods and Youth Development at the Urban Institute

80. Morgan, GG Community Member, VOCAL NY

89. Oplustil, Joanne President and CEO, CAMBA

98. Chanel L. Porchia-Albert Founder and Director, Ancient Song Doula Services

81. Morse, Kristin Executive Director, Center for New York City Affairs, New School

90. Owens, Elizabeth GROW Community Organizer, VOCAL NY

98. Quinn, Christine Executive Director, WIN-NYC

91. Park, John Co-Director, Minkwon Center for Community Action

99. Raine Community Member, VOCAL NY

82. Mostofi, Bitta Acting Commissioner, Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs 83. Neufield, Beverly President and Founder, PowHerNY 84. Niaz, Robina Founder and Executive Director, Turning Point for Women and Families 85. Nieves, Edwin Senior Director, Business Development Center, Union Settlement 86. Nixon, Vivian Executive Director, College and Community Fellowship

87. Noel, Cecile Commissioner, Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence

92. Parks, Wanda Community Member, VOCAL NY 93. Pereira, Angelica Director, Manualidades, Voces Latinas 94. Perez, Diana Executive Director, WHEDCO 95. Peterson, Gracie Community Member, VOCAL NY 96. Pica, Sean Executive Director, Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison

* Speaker at Milano School Conference on Public Housing and Family Poverty in New York and Chicago

100. Rambo, Leah Director of Training, Local 28, Sheet Metal Workers International 101. Rankin, Nancy Vice President for Policy, Research and Advocacy, Community Service Society of New York 102. Raoul, Ninaj Executive Director, Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees 103. Reagon, Merble Founder/Executive Director, Women’s Center for Education and Career Advancement

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

APPENDIX A

104. Reyez, Marilyn Community Member, VOCAL NY

114. Terhune, Nina Program Director, Center for Frontline Retail

105. Richardson, Kelly Managing Director, New York Office, Per Scholas

115. Torres, Aixa* President of the Alfred E. Smith Resident Association

106. Rivera, Angelo Director, EEP, Sanctuary for Families

116. Tshering, Yanki Executive Director, Business Center for New Americans

107. Robins, Nina Former Cashier, Stop & Shop 108. Rodriguez, Jessamyn Executive Director, Hot Bread Kitchen 109. Rosario, Denise Executive Director, Hispanic Family Services of New York 110. Rosenn, David Executive Director, Hebrew Free Loan Society 111. Rubio-Torio, Nathalie Executive Director, Voces Latinas 112. Seecharran, Annetta Executive Director, CHHAYA New York 113. Slobodin, Elise Director, Strategy and Operations of the Caring Department at UJA/Federation

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

123. Weisz, Pam Director, Institutional Relations, STRIVE International 124. Wilkey, Alison Policy Director, Prisoner Reentry Institute, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

APPENDIX B: Bibliography 1. A Better Balance: At a Glance: The Healthy Families Act, NYC: February 2015. 2. A Better Balance: At a Glance: The New York State Paid Family Leave Act; NYC: March 2015. 3. A Better Balance: Investing in Our Families: The Case for Paid Family Leave in New York and the Nation; NYC: 2015. 4. A Better Balance: Moving Families Forward: Reflections on a Decade of Change, NYC: March 2016.

117. Vilardi, Erin Founder and Executive Director, Vote, Run, Lead

5. A Better Balance: Overview of the New York City Earned Sick Time Act; NYC: February 2014.

118. Walcott, Quentin Co-Executive Director, Connect NYC

6. A Better Balance: Pointing Out: How Walmart Unlawfully Punishes Workers for Medical Absences, NYC: June, 2017.

119. Walsh, Elizabeth Career Prep Program Coordinator, Grace Outreach 120. Washington, Jacqueline Community Member, VOCAL NY 121. Webber, Cheyenna Coordinator, Cooperative Economic Alliance of New York City 122. Weinstein, Dava Board Member, Centro de Recursos Educativos Para Adultos (CREA)

*Speaker at Milano School Conference on Public Housing and Family Poverty in New York and Chicago

7. A Better Balance: Pregnant and Jobless: Thirty-Seven Years After Pregnancy Discrimination Act, Pregnant Women Still Choose Between a Paycheck and a Healthy Pregnancy, NYC: October 2015. 8. A Better Balance: The Pregnancy Penalty: How Motherhood Drives Inequality & Poverty in New York City, NYC: 2014.

11. Adiseshan, Tara, Olivia Ahn, Angelique Beluso, Elise Bokyung Kim, Jasmine Ko, Michelle Chen, Vineeta Kapah, Anna Krist, Bex Kwan, Chi Nguyen, Anique Singer, Angel Sutjipto, Yumnah Syed, Devanshi Tripathi, Adrienne Zhou, Stephanie Zhou, NYC Asian American Organizing Blueprint for Reproductive Justice, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, NYC, 2016. 12. Adler, Kayla Weber and Jen Ortiz, “The Women of Congress Share Why They Almost Didn’t Run for Office,” Marie Claire Magazine, November 2017. 13. African American Policy Forum and Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School, Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women, NYC, July 2015. 14. Afridi, Humera, “Women Are the Locus of Power: A Conversation with Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, Executive Director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health,” Activist Philanthropist, New York Women’s Foundation, Volume 2, Issue 3, New York City, December 2016.

9. A Call to Men, Extreme Challenges, Extraordinary Impact, New York City, 2017.

15. Aidala, Angela A., William McAllister, Maiko Uomogida, Virginia Shubert, Frequent Users Service Enhancement ‘FUSE’ Initiative: New York City FUSEII Evaluation Report, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, 2014.

10. Abrams, Rachel, “Trapped in Fast Food’s Slow Lane,” New York Times Business Day, September 28, 2017.

16. Amber, Jeannine, “Trumped: A Special Report on Criminal Justice Laws and What’s At Stake for Us Now,” Essence Magazine, September 2017.

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

APPENDIX B

35. CW Research Associates, LLC, Employment in the Russian-Speaking Jewish Community, UJA-Federation, July 2016.

44. Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York, Keeping Track of New York City’s Children, 2016, NYC, November 2017.

36. Cain Miller, Claire, “Pay Gap is Because of Gender, Not Jobs,” The Upshot, April 23, 2014.

45. City of Boston, An Action Plan to End Veteran and Chronic Homelessness in Boston, 20152018, Boston, 2014.

17. Anderson, Julie, M.A. and Cynthia Hess, PhD., Programs to Support Job Training Success: Innovations to Address Unmet Needs, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Washington D.C.

26. Banks, Steven, “Testimony Before the New York City Council General Welfare Committee and Finance Committee for the HRA Fiscal Year 2017 Executive Budget,” May 2016.

18. Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development, How is Affordable Permanent Housing Threatened in Your Neighborhood? NYC, 2016.

27. Bakst, Dina, Sherry Leiwant, Janet Gornick, “Promoting Work-Family Balance”, TwentyFirst Century for All, www.21cfor all.org, New York, 2013.

19. Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development, How is Economic Opportunity Threatened in Your Neighborhood? NYC, 2016.

28. Baran, Amanda and Sameera Hafiz, Trump’s First 100 Days: Immigrant Women and Families on the Frontline, We Belong Together, 2017.

38. Center for New York City Affairs, “What’s Needed for ‘3K for All’ and Child Care Centers to Work and Play Well Together,” NYC, June 2017.

20. Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development, How Well are NYC Banks Serving Our Communities? NYC, 2016.

29. Bassuk, Ellen L. and Olivet, Jeffrey, The Impact of Homelessness on Children, The Bassuk Center on Homeless and Vulnerable Children and Youth, Boston, 2016.

39. Chadha, Nadiya, Brendan Coticchia, Harpreet Gill, Renu Pkharna, Fernando Psoadas, Eva Pereira, Paula Richter, Zoe Stopak-Behr, “State of New Yorkers—A Wellbeing Index,” NYC Center for Innovation through Data Intelligence and Columbia/SIPA School of International and Public Affairs, 2015.

21. Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development, The State of Bank Reinvestment in New York City, NYC, 2016. 22. Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development, The State of Bank Reinvestment in New York City, NYC, 2016. 23. Austensen, Maxwell, Vicki Been, Luis Inaraja Vera, Gita Khun Jush, Katherine M. O’Regan, Stephanie Rosoff, Traci Sanders, Eric Stern, Michael Suher, Mark A. Willis, Jessica Yager, State of New York City’s Housing and Neighborhoods in 2016, NYU Furman Center, NYC, 2017. 24. Aviv, Rachel, “The Cost of Caring: The Lives of the Immigrant Women Who Tend to the Needs of Others,” The New Yorker, April 11, 2016. 25. Bach, Victor, Public Housing: New York’s Third City, Community Service Society, March 2017.

APPENDIX B

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

30. Blow, Charles, “Checking My Male Privilege,” The New York Times, October 29, 2017. 31. Bowman, Moira, Laura E. Durso, Sharita Gruberg, Marcella Kocolatos, Kalpana Krishmnamurthy, Jared Make, Ashe McGovern, Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Making Paid Leave Work for Every Family, Center for American Progress, Washington DC, December 2016. 32. Brandworkers and Urban Justice Center Community Development Project: Feeding New York: Challenges and Opportunities for Workers in New York City’s Food Manufacturing Industry, NYC, June 2014. 33. Bronson, Brittany, “A Woman in Wynn’s Las Vegas,” The New York Times, January 31, 2018. 34. Bronx Domestic Violence Roundtable and Bronx Legal Services, More People to Listen: Legal and Social Service Needs of Bronx Communities Affected by Intimate Partner Violence, New York City, September 2016.

37. Center for Frontline Retail website (www.frontliberetail.org).

40. Chammah, Maurice, Dana Goldstein, Eli Hager, Alysia Santo, Beth Schwarzapfel, Nick Tabor, Christie Thompson, Simone Weichselbaum, “Rikers Island, Population 9,790,” New York Magazine, June 29, 2015.

46. City of New York, Turning the Tide on Homelessness in New York City, NYC, 2017. 47. Coates, Ta-Nehisi, “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration” The Atlantic, Washington DC, October 2015. 48. Community Service Society, Low-Income New Yorkers Deserve a Break: #Transit4All, NYC, 2017. 49. Connect NYC, Community Empowerment Program: A Summary of the Research: Brooklyn and Bronx, NYC, May 2004. 50. Connect NYC, Community Empowerment Program: A Summary of the Research: Queens, NYC, April, 2005.

41. Chen, Michelle, “New York City Just Outlawed Running Credit Checks on Job Applicants,” The Nation, April 20, 2015.

51. Cooperative Economics Alliance of New York City, Expanding New York City’s Solidarity Economy: Another World is Possible—It’s Already Here; CEONYC, NYC, 2014.

42. Cheney, Brendan, “Annual Count Finds 40 Percent Increase in Street Homeless,” www.politico.com.

52. Council on Foundations, The State of Change: An Analysis of Women and People of Color in the Philanthropic Sector, Washington DC, 2016.

43. Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York, Community Risk Ranking: Child Well-being in New York City’s 59 Community Districts, Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York, NYC, December 2016.

53. Desmond, Matthew, EVICTED: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Broadway Books, NYC, 2016. 54. District of Columbia Interagency Council on Homelessness, Homeward DC: Strategic Plan 2015-2020, Washington DC, 2014.

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

APPENDIX B

55. DuMonthier, Asha, Chandra Childers, Jessica Milli, PhD., The Status of Black Women in the United States, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Washington DC, 2017.

64. Flynn, Andrea, Justice Doesn’t Trickle Down: How Racialized and Gendered Rules Are Holding Women Back, Ms. Foundation and Roosevelt Institute, NYC, 2017.

73. Gudrais, Elizabeth, “Disrupted Lives: Sociologist Matthew Desmond Studies Eviction and the Lives of America’s Poor,” Harvard Magazine, January-February 2014.

82. Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Getting to the Finish Line: The Availability and Impact of Supportive Services in the Workforce Development System, Washington, DC, 2015.

56. Family Homelessness Summit, Prioritizing Homeless Children and Their Families: Report and Recommendations, Citizens Committee for Children of New York, Inc., Enterprise Community Partners, New Destiny Housing, NYC, June, 2017.

65. Frazer, Somjen and Erin Howe, Transgender Health and Economic Insecurity: A Report from the 2015 LGBT Health and Human Services Needs Assessment Survey, NYS LGBT Network and Strength in Numbers Consulting Group, New York City, 2015.

74. Hartmann, Heidi, PhD., Jeffrey Hayes, PhD. And Jennifer Clark, How Equal Pay for Working Women Would Reduce Poverty and Grow the American Economy, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Washington DC, January 2014.

83. Institute for Women’s Policy Research: Pathways to Equity: Narrowing the Wage Gap by Improving Women’s Access to Good MiddleSkill Jobs, Washington, DC, 2016.

57. Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, Worker Cooperatives for New York City: A Vision for Addressing Income Inequality, FPWA, NYC, 2014. 58. Fields, Robin, “New York City Launches Committee to Review Maternal Deaths,” ProPublica, November 15, 2017. 59. Firstman, Richard, Commuting to Class—With The Kids, www/.CUNY.Edu/2012. 60. Flowers, Zoe, Tanya Lovelace, Camille Holmes, Lisalyn Jacobs, Erika Sussman, Sara Wee, Mona Muro, showing up; how we see, speak and disrupt racial inequity facing survivors of domestic and sexual violence, Center for Survivor Agency and Justice, 2018. 61. Food Chain Workers Alliance and Solidarity Research Cooperative: No Piece of the Pie: U.S. Food Workers in 2016, LA, California: 2016. 62. Food Chain Workers Alliance: The Hands That Feed Us: Challenges and Opportunities For Workers Along the Food Chain, LA California, June 2012. 63. Footsteps, The Roads Taken, NYC, 2016.

APPENDIX B

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

66. French-Marcelin, Megan, “Justice From the Inside Out,” Stand Magazine (American Civil Liberties Union), NYC, Summer 2017.

75. Hassmer, Sarah, Amy K. Matsui, “Momentum Building to Help Families With Child Care,” National Women’s Law Center, Washington, DC, September 18, 2017.

84. Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the New York Women’s Foundation: The Economic Status of Women in New York State, Washington, DC, 2015. 85.

67. Fuller, Russell, “Serena Williams: Statistics on Deaths in Pregnancy and Childbirth are ‘Heartbreaking,’” BBC Sports, March 16, 2018.

76. Hertz, Daniel Kay, “Affordability: The 30 Percent Standard’s Blinders,” www.shelterforce.org, April 2017.

68. Giannarelli, Linda, Laura Wheaton, Joyce Morton, How Much Could Policy Changes Reduce Poverty in New York City? Urban Institute, NYC, March 2015.

77. Hess, Cynthia, PhD., Emma Williams-Baron, Barbara Gault, PhD., and Anrane Hegewisch, M.Phil. Supportive Services in Workforce Development Programs: Administrator Perspectives on Availability and Unmet Needs, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Washington, DC, NO DATE.

69. Gillibrand, Kirsten, Off the Sidelines: Raise Your Voice, Change the World, Ballantyne Books, New York City, 2014. 70. Gillibrand, Kirsten, “We Want You: Why Women Should Run for Office,” Marie Claire Magazine, November 2017. 71. Goodman, J. David, “New York City May Require Businesses to Conduct Sexual Harassment Training,” The New York Times, February 23, 2018. 72. www.governor.ny.gov, “New York State Launches Phase One of Unprecedented $10.4 Billion Homelessness Action Plan,” Albany, June 2, 2016.

78. Holcomb, Betty, Too Many Children Still Waiting: Make Quality Early Learning Top Priority in 2017 Budget, Center for Children’s Initiatives, Alliance for Quality Education, Citizen Action of New York, Public Policy and Education Fund of New York, Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, New York, 2016. 79. H ome Stability Support: About the Plan, www.homestabilitysupport.com, 2017. 80. www.hourchildren.org. 81. Hurley, Kendra, New York’s Tale of Two Child Care Cities, The New School, 2017.

ames, Letitia, Analysis of the Gender Gap in J New York City’s Workforce, Office of the Public Advocate for the City of New York, New York City, 2016.

86. Jordan-Young, Rebecca, Lucy Trainor and Janet Jakobson, Reproductive Justice in Action, Volume 6 in the New Feminist Solution series, Barnard Center for Research on Women and The New York Women’s Foundation, New York. 87. Khalil, Yousef, William Guillaume Koible, Triada Stampas, Trade-Offs at the Dinner Table: The Impacts of Unwanted Compromises, Food Bank for New York City, New York, 2015, 88. Kende, Judi, Carol Corden and Jennifer March, “One Homelessness Plan for One New York,” www.observer.com, June 2017. 89. Kiel, Paul and ProPublica, “Caught in the Bankruptcy Feedback Loophole,” Atlantic Monthly, September 2017. 90. Kramer, Abigail, “ACS in Overdrive: Since the Death of a Harlem Six-Year-Old, Are there Fewer Families Getting the Help They Need?” Center for New York City Affairs at the New School, www.centernyc.org/acs-in-overdrive. THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

APPENDIX B

91. Latino Justice PRLDF website: www. Latinojusticeprldf.org. 92. Leicher, Susan, Blueprint for Investing in Girls, Age 0-8; New York Women’s Foundation, NYC, November 2016. 93. Leicher, Susan, Blueprint for Investing in Girls and Young Women; New York Women’s Foundation, NYC, September 2015. 94. Leicher, Susan, Blueprint for Investing in Women Age 60+, November 2014. 95. Leicher, Susan, The New York Women’s Foundation: 30 Years of Radical Generosity, New York Women’s Foundation, NYC, May 2017. 96. Luce, Stephanie and Naoki Fujita, Discounted Jobs: How Retailers Sell Workers Short, The Murphy Project, CUNY, NYC, 2012. 97. Martin, Nina and Renee Montagne, “Nothing Protects Black Women From Dying in Pregnancy and Childbirth: Not education. Not income. Not even being an expert on racial disparities in health care,” Pro Publica and NPR, March 2018. 98. Mason, C. Nicole, Economic Security and WellBeing Index for Women in New York City, New York Women’s Foundation, NYC, March 2013. 99. McKinley, James C. “Cuomo, in Bid to Help Poor, Proposes Ending Cash Bail for Minor Crimes,” The New York Times, January 2, 2018. 100. Mehrota, Agurva and Nancy Rankin, Getting Ahead: An Upward Mobility Agenda for New Yorkers in 2016, Community Service Society, NYC, January 2016.

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

APPENDIX B

101. Moravsicsik, Andrew, “Why I Put My Wife’s Career First,” Atlantic Monthly, October 2015. 102. Mueller, Benjamin, “Victims of Debt Collection Scheme in New York Win $59 Million in Settlement,” The New York Times, November 13, 2015. 103. National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, Lesbian, Gay, BiSexual, Transgender, Queer and HIV-affected Intimate Partner Violence in 2016, 2017 release edition. 104. National Domestic Workers Alliance website (www.domesticworkers.org). 105. National Women’s Law Center, Businesses Have a Critical Role in Supporting Public Investments in Child Care, www.NWLC.org, Washington DC, September 2017. 106. New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Epiquery 2016. 107. New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Summary of Vital Statistics, 2016. 108. New York City Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence, NYC Domestic Violence Task Force: 2017 Goals and Recommendations, NYC, 2017. 109. New York City Office of the Comptroller, Power and the Gender Wage Gap: How Pay Disparities Differ by Race and Occupation in New York City, NYC, April 10, 2018. 110. NYC Public Advocate’s Office, Policy Report: Child Care in New York City, Part II: Investing in Child Care, NYC, November, 2015.

111. New York City Small Business Services, Mayor’s Office of Contracts: Working Together: A Report on the First Year of the Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative (WCBDI), NYC, 2015.

121. Pearce, Diana M., Lisa Manzer and Karen Segar, Overlooked and Undercounted: The Struggle to Make Ends Meet in New York City, The Women’s Center for Education and Career Advancement, NYC, 2014.

112. New York City Planning Commission, “Newest New Yorkers”; NYC 2013. . 113. News12 Brooklyn: Having A Baby Can Be One of the Most Exciting Times in a Woman’s Life,” March 16, 2018.

122. Pearce, Diana M., Overlooked and Undercounted 2018; The Self-Sufficiency Standard For New York City: Key Findings and Recommendations; Women’s Center for Education and Career Advancement & United Way of New York City; NYC October 2018.

114. Office of the New York City Comptroller, Families and Flexibility: Building the 21st Century Workplace, New York City, September 2015.

123. Phillips, Christian Dyogi and Sayu Bhojwani, States of Inclusion: New American Journeys to Elected Office, New York City, New American Leaders Project, 2016.

115. Owens, Donna M., “Changing the Game,” Essence Magazine, November 2017. 116. Park, Sandra S., “Seek Protection, Risk Eviction: Domestic Violence Survivors Get Penalized—and Traumatized—for Reporting Abuse,” Stand Magazine (American Civil Liberties Union), NYC, Summer 2017. 117. Partnership for Women’s Prosperity, Learning, Leveraging and Giving for High Impact, Women’s Funding Network, SF California, 2014. 118. Partnership for Women’s Prosperity, More Than Jobs: Women’s Economic Security Wraparound Strategies, October 2017. 119. Partnership for Women’s Prosperity, Using a Systems Change Framework for BIGGER Results, Women’s Funding Network, SF California, April 2016. 120. Pavlovskaya, Dr. Marianna, Dr. Maliha Safri, and Laura Hudson, NYC Worker Cooperatives Survey: Round 1: Detailed Public Report; Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, New York City, 2016.

124. Pinto, Dr. Sanjay, Raising Our Nation: Forging a More Robust and Equitable Child Care System in America, Ms. Foundation for Women, NYC, 2016. 125. Planned Parenthood, “New CDC Report on U.S. Teens’ Sexual Behavior Illustrates Adolescents’ Continued Need for Sex Education and Effective Birth Control,” NYC, June 22, 2017, www. plannedparenthood.org. 126. POWHERNY website (www.powherny.org). 127. Quinney, Sam, Kristy Greenwalt, Danilo Pelletiere, Dana Hassan, Noah Abraham, Ryan T. Moore, Sarah Evans, The Lab @ DC PreAnalysis Plan: Flexible Rent Subsidy Pilot, Pt. 1: Outreach, DC Department of Human Services and Department of Housing and Community Development, Washington DC, 2018. 128. Rankin, Nancy and Agurva Mehrota, Stuck: Low-Income New Yorkers Don’t See Themselves Moving Up and Support Policies to Drive Economic Mobility, Community Service Society, NYC, June 2015.

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

APPENDIX B

129. Rankin, Nancy and Irene Lew, Policies Matter: Hardships Decline for Low-Income New Yorkers in 2016, Community Service Society, NYC, January 2017.

138. Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, “Maternal and Child Well-Being: Invest in Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting,” February 2016.

130. POWHERNY website www.powerherny.org

139. Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, “Overview of Select Evidence-Based and Evidence-Informed Home Visiting Programs, www.scaany.org.

131. Restaurant Opportunities Centers United and National Women’s Law Center, Nightcare: The Growing Challenge for Parents on the Late Shift, September 26, 2016. 132. Restaurant Workers United: Our Tips Belong to Us: Overcoming the National Restaurant Association’s Attempt to Steal Workers’ Tips, Perpetuate Sexual Harassment, and Maintain Racist Exploitation, New York, October 2017. 133. Restaurant Workers United: Tipped Over: Employer Liability in a Two-Tiered Wage State, New York, June 2016. 134. Restore Opportunity Now, Undervalued & Underpaid: How New York State Shortchanges Nonprofit Human Service Providers and their Workers, New York, 2017. 135. Ritchie, Andrea J, Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color, Beacon Press, Boston, 2017. 136. Routhier, Giselle, Fate of a Generation: How the City and State Can Tackle Homelessness by Bringing Housing Investment to Scale, Coalition for the Homeless, New York, 2018. 137. Ruetshlin, Catherine and Dedrick AssanteMuhammad, The Retail Race Divide: How the Retail Industry is Perpetuating Racial Inequality in the 21st Century, Demos and NAACP, NYC, 2015.

APPENDIX B

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

140. Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy: Home is Where the Start Is: Expanding Home Visiting to Strengthen All of New York’s Families, Albany, Summer 2016. 141. Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, Supporting New York State’s Economic Development Efforts by Expanding Access to Quality Child Care, Child Well-Being Series, Albany, September 2017. 142. Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, “Testimony before the Joint Fiscal Committees on the SFY 2016-2017 Executive Budget Human Services Budget Hearing,” February 9, 2016.

147. St. Cyr. Maureen R., “Gender, Maternity Leave, and Home Financing: A Critical Analysis of Mortgage Lending Discrimination Against Pregnant Women,” Penn Law Legal Scholarship Repository, PA, 2011.

155. www.adhikaar.org

148. Stewart, Nikita, “De Blasio seeks to Turn Homeless ‘Cluster Sites’ Into Affordable Permanent,” The New York Times, December 12, 2017.

158. www.vocal.ny-org

149. Stolper, Harold and Nancy Rankin, The Transit Affordability Crisis: How Reduced MTA Fares Can Help Low-Income New Yorkers Move Ahead, Community Service Society, NYC, April 2016.

160. Warren, Robert and Donald Kerwin, “A Statistical and Demographic Profile of the US Temporary Status Populations from el Salvador, Honduras and Haiti,” http://cmsny.org/publications/jhmstps-elsalvador-honduras-haiti/.

150. Stolper, Harold, Unpredictable: How Unpredictable Schedules Keep Low-Income New Yorkers From Getting Ahead, Community Service Society, NYC, December 2016. 151. Testa, Jessica, “For Women Looking For Jobs After Prison, It Doesn’t Just Feel Harder. It Is Harder” Buzzfeed, December 6, 2017.

143. www.sentencingproject.org.

152. Toure, Madina, “Letitia James Calls on Albany to ‘Step Up’ and Help the City Fight Homelessness,” www.observer.com, June 2017.

144. Shaw, Elyse, M.A.; Ariane Hegewisch, M. Phil.; Emma Williams-Baron; and Barbara Gault, PhD.; Undervalued and Underpaid in America: Women in Low-Wage, Female-Dominated Jobs, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Washington, DC, 2016

153. Villanueva, Madeleine; Unleashing the Economic Power of Family Child Care Providers; Committee for Hispanic Children and Families, Inc.; NYC: 2015.

145. Small Business Majority, “Small Businesses Face Barriers to Affordable Child Care, Support Expanded Access,” www.smallbusinessmajority. org, September 25, 2017.

154. Villarosa, Linda, “Why Are Black Mothers and Babies in the United States Dying at More Than Double the Rate of White Mothers and Babies? The Answer has Everything to do with the Lived Experience of Being a Black Woman in America,” New York Times Magazine, April 15, 2017.

146. www.sourtherncoalition.org/ mass-incarceration-people/color.

156. www.brandworkers.org 157. www.rocunited.org

159. Walker, Deborah, “Transformation from the Inside Out,” www.nyack.edu.

161. Waters, Tom and Victor Bach, Making the Rent, Community Service Society, NYC 2016. 162. WE-NYC, Unlocking the Power of Women Entrepreneurs in New York City, NYC, November 2015 163. Wilkey, Alison, Women Injustice: Gender and the Pathway to Jail in New York City, The New York Women’s Foundation and John Jay College of Criminal Justice, NYC, 2016. 164. Will, George, “Hope in Sing Sing Prison: Nurturing our Capacity For Regeneration,” www. nationalreviewonline. 165. Wilson, Simone, “STDs Are Surging in NYC This Year,” Patch NYC, September 20, 2017. 166. www.cuny.edu/child care 167. www.whedco.org. 168. X., Patricia, “Safe at Home,” New York Community Trust Newsletter, New York Community Trust, NYC, 2017.

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

APPENDIX B

169. Zakaria, Rafia, “The Myth of Women’s ‘Empowerment,’” The New York Times, October 5, 2017. 170. Zimmer, Amy, “Strengthen Rent Regulation Rules Amid Homeless Crisis, Task Force Urges,” www.dnainfo.com, June 2017. 171. Zimmer, Amy, “What You Need to Know if You Can’t Pay the Rent, and How the City Can Help,” www. dnainfo.com, March 2017.

APPENDIX C: Programs Observed 1. C entro de Recursos Educativos Para Adultos (CREA) 475 East 115th Street, 1st Floor NY, NY 10029 2. C ommittee for Hispanic Children and Families Institute for Child Care and Early Education 75 Broad Street, Suite 620 NY, NY 10004 3. Cypress Hills Child Care Development Corporation 3295 Fulton Street, #A Brooklyn, New York 10455 4. Grace Outreach 378 E. 151st Street, #5 Bronx, NY 10455 5. Hot Bread Kitchen 1590 Park Avenue NY, NY 10029 6. Hour Children 36-11 12th Street LIC, NY 11106 7. I nfant and Toddler Parents’ Program Dominican Sisters Family Health 454 E. 149th Street Bronx, NY 10454 8. L ocal 28, Sheet Metal Workers International Apprentice Training Center 139-20 Jamaica Avenue Jamaica, NY 11435

10. Per Scholas 803 E. 138th Street, #2 Bronx, NY 10454 11. Sanctuary for Families P.O. Box 1406 Wall Street Station NY, NY 10268 12. SCO FirstStepsNYC 774 Saratoga Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11212 13. SPARKS 1575 E. 19th Street Brooklyn, NY 11230 14. Turning Point for Women and Families P.O. Box 670086 Flushing, NY 11367 15. United Community Centers, Inc. Morris I. Eisenstein Learning Center 613 New Lots Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11207 16. VOCAL NY 804 4th Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11217 17. Voces Latinas 37-63C 83rd Street, Suite 1-B Jackson Heights, NY 11372

9. N ew Destiny Housing 12 W. 37th Street NY, NY 10018 76

A VOICES FROM THE FIELD REPORT

THE NEW YORK WOMEN’S FOUNDATION

39 BROADWAY, 23RD FLOOR, NEW YORK, NY 10006 TEL (212) 514-NYWF (6993) â&#x20AC;¢ FAX (646) 564-5998 WWW.NYWF.ORG