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Video: Fidler Rails Against Cuts To Homeless Services


by on Dec 3rd, 2010

by Councilman Lew Fidler

It is a statistical fact that tonight 3,800 children WITHOUT their families will be homeless on the streets of NYC tonight. Over the past 9 years that I have chaired the Council’s Youth Services Committee, I have conducted over 18 hearings on the issues relating to Runaway and Homeless Youth. We have managed to increase the numbers of shelter beds and street outreach programs to find these youth—the most vulnerable of the vulnerable—to a point where the budget for RHY has reached $12 million. Yet HUNDREDS of these children remain on the street without shelter. For example, at the Ali Forney Center, over 100 kids are on the list for shelter without a bed available. Tonight. In the cold. Worse yet, of these 3,800 kids, a statistical study/survey that was recently conducted with the assistance of Columbia University will show that 185 of them will admit to having spent the prior night involved with some sort of sex work. That does not include those who will stay alive thru survival sex. We are talking about children as young as 13 or 14.

The Bloomberg Administration has included a PEG (“Program to Eliminate the Gap”) of $2 million in their November Plan directly against this program, decimating the programs, jeopardizing their existence and virtually wiping out street outreach.

Last fall, right before the General Election, Mayor Bloomberg announced the creation of a commission on LGBTQ Runaway and Homeless Youth. (Approximately one third of all RHY identify as LGBTQ.) This past summer DYCD issued the Commission’s report, one recommendation of which was the expansion of the capacity of the RHY shelter bed system. Another was a series of boro wide community forums discussing the issues. Ironically, in the middle of these forums—the last one in Manhattan was held last night—the $2 million PEG was announced.

The following is a link to my comments at the Brooklyn forum which was recently held. At the time, I had been led to believe that the cut was only $569k, not the cut of $2 million. I urge you to watch the clip. (It starts a bit slowly, but the rest will speak for itself.)

In this holiday season, I am urging your paper to cover the issue. Remember, we are talking about children who have been denied a loving environment and the protection of a safe bed and home in the one place where every child ought to have one—in their home. They are often on the street as a result of physical, sexual or emotional abuse at home from someone who ought to have been a loved one. Go home, Hug your child….and think about this story.

I am available at any time or at any place to discuss the plight of these children. My City Hall office is 212-788-7286. My district office is 718-241-9330.

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  • Bugg

    This should be a municipal priority.

    And to that end, here’s some suggestions to save money for worthy programs and agencies:

    Cut completely CCRB, the Civil Rights Commission, all cultural programs and all 5 boro presidents. If you cannot cut the DC37 workers in these agencies move them elsewhere. Demand great manager Cathy Black immediately cut staff 10% at the Tweed Courthouse and return at least one half of teachers there assigned to classrooms. End or curtail drastically the program that digs up otherwise perfectly good streets and disrupts lresidents’ ives for weeks. Cease all funding to programs like those of Millenium, the various access-a-ride scammers and Vito Lopez.

    And put a 5-year limit on welfare as Washington DC has just done. Drug test recepients as well.

    If anyone else has any suggestions, add them here.

    We’re broke. Are Mayor Moneybags and the City Council ever going to prioritize?

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisanne001 Lisanne!

    Thank you, Councilman Fidler.

    Runaway kids are fragile even before they leave home. They are not brave, they are not often emotionally strong, they are victims of circumstances most often beyond their ability to control. Leaving is a last resort, but often a necessary one. Especially for children who have been victimized by abuse of various kinds in the home environment.

    We should do whatever we must to help these kids. They don’t need another serious blow to to their self-esteem and well-being. Lets show we care.

    Councilman, please tell us what specifics would help .

    • Lew from Brooklyn

      Thank you Lisanne. This issue has been critically important to me and I have worked for about 8 1/2 years to leave no child on the street. At this point, all I can ask is that people call and write to the Mayor. He does not need a Council vote to cut spending. He does this with the stroke of a pen.
      Before anyone jumps, I agree that we need to cut spending and not raise property taxes. It is our priorities that we are arguing about here. The Council has proposed alternatives, some efficiencies, some delays, some outright cuts, that would not affect New Yorkers or hurt our most vulnerable.
      This cut in particular is cruel. RHY kids don’t vote. They need people who care to speak out and express the outrage at putting their lives in further danger.
      BTW, everyone of these kids left out on the street is more likely to become HIV positive, more likely to develop a mental disability, more likely to become a burden to our criminal justice system. The cost of dealing with any one of these things is less than the cost of a shelter bed prograq, That is a FACT. So if you can’t get a grasp of the compassion that one should feel for a child that has been driven from his or her home, then at least understand that this cut from a fiscal point of view is graphically penny wise and pound foolish.
      Feel free to re-post this ranting video. We are desperately hoping for the kind of public outrage that will reach the ears of those in ivory towers.
      Lew

      • http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisanne001 Lisanne!

        I will repost this. And I will ask those who see it to do the same, and with it the request that they contact the mayor either by phone or mail.

        This is something we should not forget about. Especially as the weather will be continue to be severely cold for least the next 3 months. Lives hang in the balance here.

      • J.P. Zenger

        Lew, you know me. I write under the name J.P. Zenger. You know that I am a Male to Female Transy. Bryan has my phone number. Call me to let me know how I can help you. I have just responded under the the Gerritsen Beach Blog. The shame of the coverage here is that the idea of LGBT youth was skipped over. Several years ago I had Sylvia Rivera, posthumously honored when the City Council had it’s Pride Awards.

      • J.P. Zenger

        Lew, you know me. I write under the name J.P. Zenger. You know that I am a Male to Female Transy. Bryan has my phone number. Call me to let me know how I can help you. I have just responded under the the Gerritsen Beach Blog. The shame of the coverage here is that the idea of LGBT youth was skipped over. Several years ago I had Sylvia Rivera, posthumously honored when the City Council had it’s Pride Awards.

        • http://www.flickr.com/photos/lisanne001 Lisanne!

          One thing you can do is to keep this out there. Blog it elsewhere, or get others to do so. If you have Facebook, put it up. Get people to contact the mayor’s office.Mayor Michael R. BloombergCity HallNew York, NY 10007PHONE 311 (or 212-NEW-YORK outside NYC)FAX (212) 312-0700E-MAIL:http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/h… The e-mail link leads to a form applet.But time is really short right now. These kids are at great immediate risk. All the kids are. Let’s try to help all of them.

  • Guest

    Lew, Thank you for not only for this particular “rant” but for the fact that you REALLY care. We all understand the fiscal problems of the city and everywhere else at this time but there are plenty of cuts that could be made that don’t affect our most vulnerable. I agree with Buggs ideas. The mayor is such a coward, always going after the elderly, children and animals. But he always seems to come up with the money for his pet projects. Albany plays the same game. I wlll email and call the mayors office. I hope there is enough outrage that it helps.

    • Bugg

      Mr. Fidler is a gentleman, and he’s right that society is morally obliged to take care of children in such dire straights and awful circumstances. In this his heart is in the right place and I applaud him.

      The problem remains that the Mayor and City Council refuse to take a hatchet to those parts of City government, bureaucracy and grants and funding that are not related to police, fire, sanitation, education and safety. The City government does too much and does a lot of it badly, even in the critical agencies. In fact many of the wasteful and pointless programs seem to grow like crabgrass unchecked. And in this I wish Mr. Fidler were as vigiliant.It seems like no one is looking out for the taxpayers who are paying the bills.