[ad_1]
Nathylin Flowers Adesegun has been working for a year with Vocal-NY, a non-profit organization that helps low-income people, to encourage Mayor Bill de Blasio to designate more housing over a decade.
Mr. de Blasio's plan provides that 5% of these dwellings, or 15,000 apartments, are reserved for the homeless. Vocal-NY wants him to double that amount.
Members of the group called during the mayor's appearance on WNYC radio's "The Brian Lehrer Show", attended its public meetings and met with the commissioner of the WNYC agency. fight against homelessness.
On Friday, they did what other groups did when they wanted to draw the mayor's attention: they searched for Mr. de Blasio at Prospect Park Y.M.C.A. in Brooklyn, where he practices most mornings.
"He is famous for his breakfast at Park Slope and for going to the gym," said Adesegun, who has been living in shelters for homeless women since the loss of her apartment in the neighborhood. Flatbush in Brooklyn. "We had to catch his attention otherwise he would continue to blow on us."
The 35-second meeting was videotaped by another Vocal-NY activist and posted on YouTube. In the video, Ms. Adesegun, 72, retired office chief, heads to where Mr. de Blasio is sitting in a butterfly stretch and says hello. She shakes hands with the mayor and squats before appealing.
"On 300,000 units of your affordable housing program, only 5% will go to the homeless: can you look me in the eye and tell me why?", Asks Ms. Adesegun while Mr. de Blasio tries to get him out of bed. ;interrupt.
"I'm doing my training: sorry, I can not do it now," said de Blasio. A member of his security service intervenes and Mr. de Blasio gets up to leave. "I do not do that here," said the mayor, taking out his mobile phone in his hand. "I am doing exercise."
He then goes down a stairwell.
Ms. Adesegun said Saturday that she thought the mayor cared more about his training than listening to him. Eric Phillips, de Blasio's press secretary, defended the mayor's decision to leave.
"People working in the gym should not be afraid of being recorded in high-profile, video-taped political confrontations every morning," Phillips said. "This is not the appropriate place for these discussions and the mayor will not have them."
Homelessness has been one of the most difficult problems of Mr. de Blasio. The Homelessness Coalition, a lobby group, said New York was at the heart of the worst homelessness crisis since the Great Depression. The shelter system in the city is home to just under 61,000 people, including more than 22,000 children. In seeking to open 90 new homeless shelters, Mr. de Blasio has struggled to find locations and overcome resistance from existing residents opposed to new shelters in their neighborhoods. Mr Phillips says that 16 shelters have been opened until now. The city has recently moved to consolidate its confused system of rent subsidies.
Giselle Routhier, coalition policy director, said the group had begun asking Mr. de Blasio to increase the number of units in his housing plan about a year ago.
"The number of homeless people is almost record and the number of homeless people is not decreasing as much as it should be," Ms. Routhier said. "You can not handle a homelessness record without spending a significant portion of your housing plan on homelessness."
During his almost five years in office, Mr. de Blasio was confronted by the Y.M.C.A. by the union representing uniformed police as well as by a large group calling for traffic calming measures after the death of a 4 year old girl and a 1 year old boy who have were hit by a driver one block from the gym.
On average, the mayor meets at least once a month at the gym and, as he did with the group that calls for traffic changes, Mr. de Blasio sometimes stops to talk. Mr Phillips said the mayor was deeply concerned about homelessness and had made progress in solving a difficult problem.
Vocal-NY activists were invited to the town hall for a meeting.
"I did my deep breaths and prayers and asked the Lord to show me the way, and he did," said Ms. Adesegun. "We are getting an extraordinary result."
Source link
