Espaillat, Warren Demand Swift Senate Motion on Housing Help Invoice
Yesterday, U.S. Reps. Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan, Bronx) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) urged the Senate to shortly go the Housing Survivors of Main Disasters Act.
The invoice clarifies which households are eligible for housing help after pure disasters, together with Hurricane Maria. To be eligible, an individual or household have to be at present inhabiting a property in an space the place a significant catastrophe occurred; nonetheless, they can’t be the house owners or renters of the property. The invoice handed the Home on Nov. 17 and is awaiting a vote within the Senate.
“The federal authorities’s failed response to Hurricanes Maria and Irma’s devastating affect on the folks—and island—of Puerto Rico has confirmed to be a illustration of the hurt that outdated aid applications and congressional gridlock can have on a neighborhood,” mentioned Espaillat. “And the continued affected by these storms, significantly in Puerto Rico, compel the Congress to handle the obstacles and pitfalls of federal catastrophe help applications, which have typically failed to fulfill their acknowledged goal: to assist pure catastrophe survivors rebuild their lives and houses.”
James Cautions New Yorkers Towards Rise of Revenge Porn in COVID-19 Period
New York Lawyer Basic Letitia James (D) issued an alert yesterday to assist New Yorkers defend their privateness when engaged in intimate on-line conversations.
As we enter the second wave of the pandemic, an elevated variety of New Yorkers are relationship nearly and sharing intimate conversations with their companions through video chat. Sadly, this development has coincided with an increase in what’s generally often known as “revenge porn”; some customers have taken screenshots of their conversations and used them as blackmail towards their companions.
As such, James recommends that New Yorkers take the next actions to guard themselves:
- Obscure your face and some other distinguishing options in intimate pictures;
- Exclude figuring out info out of your on-line profiles;
- Use relationship apps with security options, comparable to the power to delete pictures from a recipient’s inbox.
“Revenge porn is a vicious type of humiliation and management that disproportionately impacts girls, and we’ll proceed to struggle this merciless type of degradation in New York state,” mentioned James. “As New Yorkers proceed to social distance in the course of the coronavirus pandemic, we urge all who’re sharing intimate and personal photos to comply with these tricks to defend themselves. We additionally warn anybody considering of sharing revenge porn and exploiting their companions to assume twice, as we’ll work with native legislation enforcement to prosecute all people partaking within the unlawful act to the fullest extent of the legislation.”
Stringer Takes Motion to Drive Metropolis to Adjust to COVID-19 Preparedness Investigation
Metropolis Comptroller Scott Stringer (D) took court docket motion yesterday to pressure the Metropolis to adjust to a subpoena issued in accordance together with his investigation into New York’s COVID-19 preparedness and response.
After months of stalling from the Metropolis, Stringer petitioned the New York County Supreme Court docket to concern a court docket order forcing the Metropolis to adjust to the subpoena. The petition particulars how Metropolis officers refused to cooperate together with his investigation and stymied the discharge of pertinent paperwork.
“New York Metropolis was the epicenter of the pandemic, and hundreds of our family members misplaced their lives to this horrible virus,” mentioned Stringer. “My workplace launched an investigation into the Metropolis’s preparedness for and response to COVID-19 in order that we are able to study from our previous experiences and enhance on them as we proceed to battle this pandemic. New Yorkers deserve solutions about what our Metropolis knew in regards to the virus, once we knew it, and what we did about it. However as an alternative of well timed offering paperwork and being absolutely clear, Metropolis Corridor has frequently delayed disclosures and thwarted the reality. Six months after our investigation started, the Administration hasn’t produced a single doc from Metropolis Corridor and has repeatedly impeded our efforts and failed to offer the paperwork essential to execute our investigation.
“As we stare down a possible second wave, the investigation has solely turn into extra very important. With each delay, each obstruction, and each try to escape oversight, the Metropolis is denying New Yorkers the open and trustworthy authorities they deserve. My workplace received’t stand for it.”
Levine Requires Public Banking in NYC
Councilmember Mark Levine (D-Manhattan Valley, Manhattanville) not too long ago co-wrote an op-ed with New York Working Households Get together Co-Chair Bob Grasp, arguing for a shift from a non-public banking system to a public one.
The COVID-19 disaster has exacerbated present wealth inequality; over 1,000,000 New Yorkers have misplaced their jobs, whereas the richest 1 p.c have solely gotten wealthier because the pandemic started. Levine and Grasp argued that at the very least a few of the blame lies on the toes of personal banks. For example, when the Paycheck Safety Program (PPP) began, massive banks prioritized their set up prospects for PPP loans, whereas neglecting small companies in communities of shade.
“Public banking affords a greater manner,” they wrote. “A financial institution created and managed by our metropolis authorities could be pushed not by revenue motive however by the general public curiosity. It will present an alternate depository choice for a few of the Metropolis’s personal money holdings—funds that may very well be used to assist the sorts of public curiosity tasks which are too typically shut out of loans by mainstream banks. A public lender may assist inexpensive housing builders, MWBEs, employee cooperatives, renewable vitality tasks, neighborhood land trusts, and different equitable financial improvement initiatives.”
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