Cora Cofield has spent most days over the last few months cleaning comfort stations in parks around Manhattan, or sometimes manning the 16-ton packer that compresses all of the trash she and her co-workers pick up. 

“It’s really boss being on a packer,” she said this Sunday, speaking to THE CITY during her lunch break.

Fifteen years ago, Cofield was a single mom living in a homeless shelter after she fled her abusive husband. An immigrant from Panama, she became eligible for benefits after receiving her green card through the Violence Against Women Act, which offers U.S. permanent resident status to women who flee abusive spouses or partners. 

To receive those city benefits, she was enrolled in a job training program called Parks Opportunity Program that placed her within the city’s parks system. It turned her life around, she said. 

“POP is about redemption,” Cofield said, while also noting how important these workers are to maintaining clean and vibrant parks. 

“A POP worker is a necessary workforce.” 

But last week, the POP program – and another smaller job-placement program through the Department of Sanitation – was eliminated under the latest round of budget reductions from Mayor Eric Adams.

The cuts will save the city more than $88 million through fiscal year 2027, according to the Office of Management and Budget. 

​​POP first launched in 1994 under a different name, and is a partnership between the Department of Parks and Recreation and the city’s Human Resources Administration. People are referred to the six-month program and meet with a career coach, receive job training, and have access to continuing education courses like security training, drivers’ education, horticulture maintenance and preparation to pass the GED, officials said.  

“We are very proud of the legacy of the POP program, which has been instrumental in placing thousands of New Yorkers into full-time employment,” Meghan Lalor, a spokesperson for the Parks Department said in a statement. “Parks will retain all existing program staff through their 6-month terms, and full-time staff will be transitioned to new roles.” 

Each year, thousands of people participate in the work program; the daily employee headcount ranges between 1,300 and 2,000 people, depending on the time of year, officials said.

The Parks Department will continue to pay the full-time administrative staff in the program and have other budget allotments to pay for maintenance and operations — and to also hire seasonal staff for parks.

“We remain committed to ensuring that our Parks staff at all levels have access to the resources they need to succeed in the agency and beyond,” Lalor added.

An official with HRA said people will still be connected to other workforce programs, and last fiscal year helped 9,210 clients get jobs through other agency employment support programs. But they cited low enrollment in the Sanitation job training program as one reason for the cut. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Sanitation did not respond to requests for comment. 

‘Bleak Vision’

For Cofield, the Parks Department program connected her not just to a paycheck but to people and training classes that helped advance her career. A few months into her enrollment in POP she took an apprenticeship called SPARX to learn the basics of becoming an electrician, which became the first step toward her eventual acceptance into Local 3, one of the top unions in the city.

That program has been delayed a year as part of the recent budget cuts. 

Cofield recently came back to Parks through the POP program after being furloughed on electrical jobs during COVID and working on her own sobriety. She’s been sober now for two years, she said, and glad to be working consistently. 

 “Life happens,” she said, noting that she enjoys spending time outside in city parks. “All the stuff I learned on the first go around is still in me. You can come back and serve the city.”

Mayor Adams cited rising migrant costs, the expiration of COVID-related federal aid to New York City and slowing tax revenue for a gap in the city’s budget approaching $7 billion this year. The most recent cuts are part of a package known as a “program to eliminate the gap,” or PEG, with more slated for January.

The city’s three library systems saw significant cuts, forcing the end to Sunday service at most branches. The city’s Department of Education has also delayed the expansion of 3-K and pre-K, and the police department has canceled its next five classes of new recruits. 

The sanitation department has also ended many of its cleaning programs and funding for nonprofits that run community composting.

The city’s parks department, which has been the target of advocacy pushing for it to receive at least 1% of the city’s more than $110 billion budget, had many services slashed. 

To save money, the city also delayed by a year a recently touted expansion of its Swim Safety program.  These cuts come as the city continues to struggle to hire enough lifeguards to open enough beaches and pools each summer. 

Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, a Democrat from Queens who chairs the Council’s committee on parks, blasted what he said was a “bleak vision for our great city.”

“In the face of real challenges, New Yorkers deserve real investments in our communities,” he wrote in a statement.