Cash assistance and other public benefits are helping more New Yorkers weather an economic climate that’s still tough.
Social Services
Posted inHousing
Hudson Valley Towns Have a New York City Problem
Upstate schools are closing and volunteer fire departments are struggling with recruitment. Some locals blame a surge of city residents who bought second homes during the pandemic.
Posted inSocial Services
Young and Restless: City Drop-In Centers Told to Keep Runaway, Homeless Youth Awake at Night
The directive shocked leaders of five overnight facilities that have let youth in crisis lie down on city-sanctioned cots since 2018.
Posted inSeniors
Attendance at Senior Centers Slowly Rebounds as Older New Yorkers Seek Food and Friends
COVID shut down dozens of centers for older New Yorkers, but they are starting to reopen. Providers and patrons testified to the crucial role of these gathering places.
Posted inSocial Services
How New Yorkers Can Help Haiti Following the Earthquake That Killed 1,300
Haitian-American leaders in New York offered a loud-and-clear message Monday in the wake of the deadly 7.2 magnitude earthquake that devastated the southwestern portion of the Caribbean nation: Haiti needs help, but from the right organizations. They were trying to head off the kind of the problems that hurt relief efforts after the 2010 quake […]
Posted inLabor
Social Service and Unions Leaders Clash Over Effort to Help Workers Organize
A bill aimed at easing the unionization path for employees at social service organizations sailed through the City Council last week, but faces turbulence from nonprofit leaders who say their workplaces are already barely surviving. The legislation, known as Intro. 2252, pits the head of the city’s largest municipal union against the umbrella group representing […]
Posted inSocial Services
NYC Translation Law Often Ignored, at High Human Cost in the COVID Era
Four years after the City Council passed a law boosting the number of languages government documents must be translated to, many frequently used forms — including COVID materials — aren’t getting the required treatment, nonprofit service providers charge. The city’s language access law mandates the translation of “commonly distributed documents” into the top 10 most-spoken languages in […]
Posted inHousing
Homeless Reflect on Life in a New York City Hotel Room, One Year Later
Since last April, thousands of homeless New Yorkers in the city’s shelter system have been staying in formerly private hotels — a need brought on by the pandemic. Mayor Bill de Blasio has set July 1 as the day the city is expected to fully reopen amid rising vaccination rates and decreasing infections. That’s also […]
Posted inReligion
For Crumbling Congregations, a Bible on How to Save a House of Worship
Even before the pandemic, many of New York’s houses of worship were facing an existential crisis. For years, interest in joining churches, mosques and synagogues has been on the decline nationally, leaving the physical homes and finances of many spiritual communities deteriorated. Now, amid the upheaval of the coronavirus, survival is even more uncertain, said […]
Posted inLife
Washington Heights Armory on Defense Over Who Gets to Use Space
In an era when space equals safety, the Fort Washington Avenue Armory offers some of the most enviable elbow room in Upper Manhattan. The expansive 250,000-square-foot building plays host to a wide array of activities, most recently serving as a mass vaccination site and perhaps most famously as a facility for international track and field […]