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Budget, Education & City Services
Response to Mayors Preliminary Budget
Honorable Eric Adams
Mayor
City Hall
New York, NY 10019
RE: Community Board Five Statement on the Preliminary Budget, Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25)
Dear Mayor Adams,
Manhattan Community Board Five welcomes the opportunity to respond to the $109.4 billion preliminary budget. We understand the challenges faced in allocating resources but we remain optimistic about the possibility of finding solutions to address the needs of our community.
Community Board Five sits in the heart of Manhattan and like most communities is, even now, still recovering its equilibrium following the pandemic. Tourists have reappeared and our streets are newly revitalized as we slowly see workers return to their offices. Along with this we have also seen a glut of illegal cannabis stores and we welcome the Mayor’s advocacy in Albany for legislation that would provide the authority to shutter these establishments and stop their proliferation in the District.
The past year saw an extraordinary number of migrants arrive in New York City and all were directed to the Roosevelt Hotel, the designated in-take center located within CB5. Many migrants have been temporarily placed in our local hotels and children have been enrolled in local schools exacerbating the need for services within the District. We are grateful that there has been funding specifically allocated to address migrant needs and hope that these funds will be used in a holistic and multi-faceted way encompassing legal, social, economic, and health needs so as to effectively support and integrate migrants into our community.
Various forms of micro mobility are being used on the streets and sidewalks of CB5. Along with this has come calls for enforcement of NYC rules around riding and parking so we are heartened to learn of the current proposal to establish the "New York City Department of Sustainable Delivery," that will focus on safety and consolidate responsibilities currently dispersed across various agencies. CB5 is hopeful that we will see education around micro mobility, changes in the behavior of riders, enforcement of regulations and new ideas regarding parking for scooters and electric bicycles.
As CB5 has consistently requested funding for drainage projects, we are excited to learn of the five borough bluebelt initiative that will provide a cost effective large scale drainage system to handle the rain and snow runoff that we see on streets and sidewalks.
AGENCY-SPECIFIC RESPONSES
Sanitation
CB5 has welcomed the strides that have been made in sanitation including the appointment of a rat czar to address the burgeoning rat population as well as the removal of garbage bags from the street. We are also very happy to learn that expected cuts to the Department of Sanitation are no longer required and therefore since the Department of Sanitation supports our requests for increased vending enforcement in the area of Grand Central, funding to ensure the continued operation and success of the precision cleaning initiative and the increased frequency of trash collection in and around Grand Central we expect that the funding uncertainty due to fiscal constraints has been resolved and we can look for support in these areas. (Tracking nos. 305202515E, 3052025E 16E, 305202517E, 305202518E)
DYCD
Similar to the funding restoration for DSNY, CB5 is delighted that funding for the SYEP will be maintained along with other Youth and community development programs and our expectation is that this programming will now be supported (tracking nos. 305202521E and 305202522E).
HPD
CB5 was heartened to learn that a record number of people have been connected with housing last year and that more than 27,000 homes have been financed over the last year. Preservation of existing affordable housing, as well as construction of new, deeply affordable housing, including opportunities for affordable homeownership, are incredibly important to ensure that current residents are able to continue to live in Community Board Five even as new residents move into the district. Given the dire need for housing both within CB5 and citywide, we are very dismayed that our requests made to HPD for the expansion of community land trust initiative to create community based CLTS to preserve permanently affordable housing and our request to fund a working group to provide baseline funding for the landlord ambassador program and partners in preservation will not be funded with additional resources (tracking no.305202502E and tracking no. 305202504E). Even more distressing is the response to our requests for an expansion and enhancement of anti-eviction legal services. These services are critical to ensure tenants have adequate legal representation when facing eviction or other tenant issues and these services help to prevent the homelessness that is so prevalent within our District (tracking no. 305202505E). CB are pleased that the City FEPS System will be maintained in the current budget and that work on a viable NYC alternative for 421-a with New York State counterparts as necessary is either completed or will be finished in FY24 (tracking no.
DHS
Given the need for housing and the number of unhoused individuals within the District, CB5 requested funding to support semi-private shelter accommodation emergency sites for our homeless populations and for the funding for a 6.5% COLA for those working in community outreach to ensure staffing levels (tracking no. 305202510E and 305202511E). In both instances, we have been advised to contact DHS directly which we will do in the hopes that both requests can be accommodated.
DOHMH
Community Board Five has long flagged the need for mental health services and we are very disappointed that our requests made to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene have not been funded. A significant portion of the street homeless population remains untreated for mental illness, primarily due to a combination of reluctance to seek care and limited accessibility to available services.
Specifically, we have asked for an expansion of Intensive Mobile Treatment teams, funding for more full time school nurses to support mental health needs in our schools along with increased funding for suicide prevention, mental health and substance abuse. (Tracking no. 305202509E 305202513E, 305202512E)
The vast majority of CB5’s budget requests were met with a directive to contact the specific Agency either to obtain further information regarding our request or to provide information about our request. We trust that diligent follow up will lead to some fruitful outcomes and consideration of CB5’s needs in the budgetary process.