Patricia Robinson: Tri-state, I have the 110th mayor of New York City in the house, Mr. Eric Adams. Welcome to the show.
Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. It's great, as I pulled up thinking about, you know, the years of growing up here in South Jamaica, Queens, Parsons Boulevard, going to the Y in the gym, shopping on Jamaica Avenue. I rode the last J train before they took down the L. I was on that train. They pulled into the station and they stated that this is the last train. I was coming from Brooklyn late at night. So there's a lot of memories.
Robinson: Yeah, that's wonderful. So before we dive into any topics, how are you doing?
Mayor Adams: Oh good, good. Resolved.
Robinson: Okay.
Mayor Adams: Resolved. And I just really feel good about the moment. I came into office with a real mission. I watched how [a] government betrayed people and I was really focused on ending that betrayal and I had a clear plan. When you go back and look at what I ran on and say, okay, let's do a comparison to see [if] he delivered on what he ran on, it is very impressive. And, you know, as we talk and go through the conversation, you know, I want to talk about those important things, but I feel good physically, mentally, just really, you know, at peace right now. You know, God has been good to me.
Robinson: That's good to hear. And so let's move into– let's talk [about] some of the education initiatives. We know that kids are going back into school and there's this statewide ban on cell phones. How has the administration helped the Department of Education and parents overall just kind of get ready for that? Because there's a ban happening, there's the implementation of that happening in the schools. And then I also think there's like a psychological thing that needs to be supported for parents and families.
Mayor Adams: Well said. First, let's start with the most important thing. Cell phones have disrupted the education. They've fed into violence, bullying, inappropriate pictures, the access to [], that our children are having access to at just such a young age. I'm talking, you know, second graders, third graders, because there's no real filter on it. And it has really distracted children.
And we know that it has done a great deal of harm and we had to do something about it. We have talked about it for a while because we got to get it right. Others have tried and then they had to retract. And we said no, we want to get it right. And when you look at the role of these devices, we stated it cannot be in our classrooms.
And so we have implemented a plan and each school community would determine how they're going to carry out the function. Because each school community, they are aware of, you know, exactly how to implement these plans. Now, we have schools already that have [the] no cell phone policy already in place.
So we're gonna look at best practices and we're going to, you know, put funding in place because this is a state law. We're going to make sure that we're already doing dry runs. [I’m going to] get a presentation from the school chancellor on exactly how we're implementing these policies and how we're going to safeguard these phones. Because we're talking about some expensive devices.
Robinson: Absolutely.
Mayor Adams: You know, there's a lot that's going with it. And then discipline, you know, because you're gonna have bay bay kids that are saying, “I'm not giving up my phone.” But you said something that's important and I hope people don't lose it. There's an emotional attachment to these devices.
Robinson: That’s exactly right.
Mayor Adams: You know, and you can't just go in and say, okay, we've hooked you on this and now we're just going to snatch it away. So there's going to be a natural evolution [on] how you detach yourself from your devices. I'm attached to my phone. You know, so I know a young person is attached. We need to be fair and honest about that.
Robinson: Yeah. And do you think that the parents are ready to have conversations about, you know, trusting this process around public safety? Because things happen all over. So do you think that the parents are ready? [Are] there conversations or [are] there opportunities to support conversations for parents who may be concerned about, “Hey, if something is happening at school, how do I get [in] contact?”
Mayor Adams: Love that question, because a lot of the pushback is also coming from parents. And what we must do is educate our parents on how this device is impeding the development of their child. And so I got it. You know, I want to be able to reach my baby. If all of a sudden we have a mass shooting, like what's playing out right now, you know, where these young babies have been shot in another state while they were in, you know, basically nursery school.
And so that concern is there. And we must ensure that we have a full process of notifying parents during emergencies, communicating with the parents, knowing how to do our lockdowns in the school area. So we have to do all of that and give parents that security. But there should be real communication. Each school community should do via the PTA or via open school night [to] share what we're doing. Here's our methods for reaching you during an emergency.
Robinson: Got it. All right. I'm going to shift. Let's move into public safety. A big bohemian to conquer and to discuss. There's so much going on with guns, violence every single day. You live it. Let's talk about where we are. There's discussions around National Guard deployment in different cities, potentially even coming to New York City. Where are we? Where are we in this current state of affairs?
Mayor Adams: First order of business. We need to understand what a city is in public safety. We're the safest big city in America. If you go online and Google crime in cities and look at the bar graphs, you're going to see this little graph of New York. We're the safest big city in America. I ran on that promise. We produced that. How did we do it?
We did it not only proactive– not only reactive, we react to criminal behavior, but we want it to be proactive. We built a holistic system of bringing down crimes that I learned from my days as a police officer. We’re [at] the lowest number of shootings and homicides in the first six months of this year and the lowest number of shootings and shooting victims in the first seven months of this year.
Our subway system is the safest it has been in the last few decades. When you take out the few years of COVID, when no one was on the system, [4.6] million people ride our subway a day, [4.6] million, [and] we have an average of five felonies a day at a [4.6] million. Those numbers are astronomical when you think about it. Homicides, grand larceny, auto theft, all of those crimes, you're seeing a decrease in our city. But we've also done something else.
We stated that we must stop the feeder of crime. Like today, I announced a program today where we're giving justice involved young people and others CDL licenses for free. We're training them. They're getting a CDL license and they are able to go right into a job. $74,000-$124,000 dollars a year jobs. No high school diploma that's needed. We're putting you through the system. We're going to have three hundred more that we're going to put in– amazing program.
I want to upscale it even more. I want to see if we can put tractor trailers right on Rikers Island. Have inmates come and learn right on Rikers Island so that we could learn better. Summer youth employment, 100,000 summer youth jobs, most in cities history. 110,000 Summer Rising. That's the all year round school program that we're doing. Universal after school program.
So we're not only going after those who are committing crimes and partnering with our DAs to take down dangerous gangs. We're also creating an environment so our young people don't believe they have to go on a pathway to crime. You know, things like even dyslexia screening.
You know, I'm dyslexic. So I know what it is to feel as though you're dumb instead of you just [learning] differently. We're now screening earlier so that our children don't end up on Rikers. You know, 30 to 40 percent of the inmates on Rikers Island and prisons throughout this country, 30, 40 percent of them have a learning disability. So the crime is that we're not diagnosing it and giving them the support they need.
Robinson: Yeah. And thank you for sharing that. And if you're just joining, you're listening to Pat Robinson, Conversations on the Block, and we are talking to Mayor Eric Adams. So as we think about– and you talked about [being] dyslexic and that you've experienced that in your early childhood. Let's talk about mental illness and what we are experiencing in the streets and how you are addressing managing the mental illness problems that are so abroad, near, wide.
Mayor Adams: It's so true. And, you know, when we talk about it and when we're candid about it, we sit around our Thanksgiving table or at Christmas time. In our community, we were always afraid to talk about mental health issues. We would ignore it. We knew that, you know, Johnny had a problem, but no one wanted to talk about it. And I still think after what my brother and I experienced as young people, we were beaten by police officers.
I still believe my brother experienced a mental health crisis that he never was diagnosed with and I don't believe he ever recovered from it. He transitioned last year, but, you know, he just went through a life of pain. And so we know that mental health illness is real. And if you're in an affluent community, you're able to get the support that you need. You're able to go to the therapist.
But number one, in communities of color, it's denied, it's ignored, [and] it's self-medicated. And for the most part, we just don't want to deal with our family members. And we said no to that. And we looked at it on several different levels. All of us are going through something. Let's be clear. All of us. You know, we all have our moments of depression or moments of just anxiety.
But there's a small portion that are not addressing the issues and they're being left alone. And we said, let's go after that small portion. They're living in our subways, they are living on our streets, living in encampments and tents along our highways. And so there were several things we wanted to do.
Number one, we put in place teams in our subway system. They're called SCOUT and PATH. They go out with mental health professionals and police officers and they interact and build trust with people who are living in these conditions. But we also wanted involuntary removal for the small number that don't realize they need care.
And in 2022, when I first got elected, I went into the streets and spoke with people who live in encampments. I will go inside and sit down and talk with them. I found stale food, drug paraphernalia, human waste, uncleanliness, schizophrenic behavior, bipolar. And so I told the team, “Listen, we can't just keep ignoring this.”
We did a major push to get all the people living on our streets. When you look at other cities, you don't see what's there. We don't see the tents, the encampments. And so we know it's a combination. We opened clubhouses. These are places where individuals with a severe mental health illness can– after you finish seeing the doctor and you're giving medication and you should not just [be] sent home with no support.
These clubhouses are [supported] with other folks who are dealing with mental health illness. They learn to do job readiness skills. They learn how to cook and take care of themselves and not to be judged. It's an important initiative that we're doing. We're going to do what's called [the] Bridge to Home program where people who leave mental health facilities will go right into housing, a support group housing.
And so the focus is a holistic approach to mental health illness. Then we looked at our young people. We were really amazed the level of young people who are dealing with suicidal ideations, depression. We gave them something called team talk using their devices, their cell phone devices to call a counselor 24/7 and communicate with them.
We were blown away to see the numbers, how many people of color, children of color [who] are participating and how young people are participating in the process. They want to talk. They want to hear. And we know that we could approach it on all of these different levels. And finally, we were able to get involuntary removal for mental health illness.
But what we learned is that people who are dealing with mental health illness are also dealing with substance abuse. And so we are now going back to Albany and state we want involuntary removal for that small number of people who are dealing with substance abuse. We had an incident a few years back where a person stabbed three people in Manhattan by the UN. That person had mental health illness and substance abuse issues and a revolving door being inside the hospital facilities.
Robinson: Wow. And so do you think that the awareness of all of the resources, and thank you for sharing that, is spread enough to the general public? When I think about all of the things I encounter, many people who have many situations and they're always looking for resources.
Is there a universal dashboard that exists that we can tap in or can we create some kind of space where we can say, you know what? We don't have to tap into a live or Twitter or tweet. There's a universal space [where] we can look at all of these categories of resources and understand really what's going on so we can see true data.
Mayor Adams: I love that. And we have something where we do all of the benefits. It's a one stop shop of all of the benefits. We want to take that even beyond. And that's part of what we want to do in Eric Adams 2.0. We need and must use artificial intelligence. The ability is here now to not only communicate in many different languages, but you can use Cyber Twins to actually have conversations with people.
And someone– instead of trying to type in and figure out where to go, we're using a small form of that in our business using bots. But we're looking at the day where Ms. Jones, who speaks Creole, can call and speak to a Cyber Twin and say, “I need services for my children,” and they can engage in a conversation with them. The technology is unbelievable. It's impressive.
And we're going to utilize that technology to deliver services to the people of the city. But right now we have an agency that deals with all the benefits that are available. But you're writing your questions– far too many people are suffering without realizing that there are things that they have right now that could help them. You're a senior and you're worried about your rent being increased. There's something called SCRIE, that if you qualify, it will freeze your rent.
Robinson: Didn't even know that.
Mayor Adams: Right. And you're a young person who's dealing with food insecurity. We have everything from WIC to SNAP and all these other benefits. Or you're a foster care child and normally you age out at 18. We're now giving you life coaches until you're 21 and paying your college tuition and giving you a stipend. So there are so many things that your tax dollars are paying for. But we have to get that information to everyday working class people.
Robinson: And so speaking of supporting the aging population, New York's senior population is obviously growing. What can you speak to the tri-state about how we're addressing and just making sure that access to health care, food, all of the things that have plagued the aging population? What is Eric 2.0 prepared to do for that?
Mayor Adams: And we want to add on what we have done now. We made sure that none of our older adult centers are closed or lose any funding because it's a very important place for older adults. And one of the most important reasons [what] a lot of people don't understand [is] that loneliness is one of the predeterminants to health.
Some countries actually have loneliness czars because they know, as one report showed, being lonely is equivalent to smoking several packs of cigarettes a day on the impacts of your body. So we want to continue to build a more affordable senior housing so our older adults can have a place where they can see that the city is here for them also. And let them become aware of all the benefits that they have.
If you are an older adult and you're low income, you pay no income tax in the city. We removed all income tax from low income New Yorkers. If you're an older adult and you want to use our transportation facility, there are discounts that come with that. And we want them to have access to that and become aware of that.
Even moving around the city, we're doing analysis on our roadways and highways that makes it challenging for those that are physically impaired to move around our city. So there's a series of things we're doing that are older adult specific to make sure that they know this city is still here for them.
Robinson: In tandem with that is food insecurity. So most of the food pantries are overwhelmed and there are people that are going hungry. So beyond people being in a crisis, like what would you say? How are we tackling that?
Mayor Adams: Food insecurity is real. And you're right. The food pantries have been overwhelmed. We've allocated additional dollars into our food pantry, particularly a lot of our faith based institutions are focusing on the food pantries and access to food. And, you know, I always say this over and over again that I cannot drop the price of bread, but I could put bread back in your pocket.
And we've done just that of $30 billion dollars we put back in the pockets of working class people, not by broken promises, but by saying, here's what I can do as the power of the mayor and how I can put it back in your pocket. Everything– if you just look at NYCHA, if you are a mother in NYCHA with two children and we have– number one, [being] said to you, “You're no longer paying for your high-speed broadband, one hundred and fifty nine dollars a month.”
We're also saying we dropped the cost of your child care from two hundred and twenty dollars a month to less than twenty dollars a month. Another two hundred. So that's three hundred and forty, fifty dollars. We also said that if you need pre-K or pre-K, we're giving it to you for free.
That's another cost that we're saving you on reduced fare, MetroCard, no income tax. When you start adding up the monthly amount of dollars we put it back in the pockets of working class people, it is almost a thousand dollars a month. And that's what we must do as the mayor. I need to say, how do I use my powers to give you resources that you can deal with the affordability issue that's facing cities across this country?
Robinson: Right. Thank you for sharing that. And so speaking of affordability, let's talk about housing. A huge thing. The City of Yes is coming. That's a long term development. There were some pros. There were a lot of people that didn't agree with it. But in today's society, you can't even get a studio for less than twenty five hundred dollars. That's a grave concern. There are a lot of New Yorkers who are at the brink of eviction, [and] cannot afford. I hear feedback [on] the New York City Housing Lottery list, [that] are like five, six year waits. How are we addressing this housing crisis?
Mayor Adams: So important. And I'm glad you asked that question because we have to really understand the ecosystem of housing. And there are several different housing methods in the city. One is NYCHA Public Housing. That's a whole nother group, which is a long list. And many people don't realize the mayor is not in control of that anymore. It is now controlled by an overseer, basically, that will put in power, [I] wish I had the power [because] there's a whole lot of things I would like to do.
Then you have Mitchell-Lama. Mitchell-Lama for a long time, have not received the support they needed from the federal and the state. And I think we need to reconvene and look at how we help our Mitchell-Lama. Those are working class, middle class people. For many years, they [have needed] major repairs. That's one of the conversations I want to have with my federal and state partners.
We need to infuse a serious amount of money into Mitchell-Lama to stabilize them. They held on their own for almost sixty years in many of these locations. We need to give them help. The third is what you were just sharing. When you build housing in the city, its market rate. And then there are those who want to build higher than their zone for. If they do, we can come to them and say, “Well, you have to build a certain portion to be affordable.”
Some cases are 100 percent like Willets Point. Willets Point is 2,400 units of 100 percent affordable housing union built. So when we negotiate with developers and say, “If you want to build higher, you have to allocate 30 percent, 20 percent, 50 percent or whatever to affordable [housing].” We can negotiate those prices. And that is what we have done.
Now, someone spoke to me today and said, “Listen, I've been trying to get on Housing Connect for five years. I still haven't gotten anything. The system's not working.” No, the system is working. The problem is we don't have the inventory. When you look at what we have done in this administration, we have built, preserved and zoned to build 426,000 more units of housing. That's more than twelve years of Bloomberg, eight years of de Blasio.
So what they did in twenty years, we did it in three and a half years and we broke records in housing. But here's the problem. I built a housing building in the Bronx. I have 500 units. I got 30,000 applications. We have an inventory problem. And so when you have people saying to us that, no, we don't want you building here or building there, what they [are] basically doing [is that] they were saying “Hey, housing is a right. But you don't want it built in your community. It's a right in the whole city.”
Our city is divided into community boards. We have fifty nine of them. Ten of the community boards build more housing than forty nine combined because so many people were trying to deny building in their communities instead of saying that, listen, we have to deal with this housing crisis. And that's what City of Yes is about. We have an inventory problem. We don't have enough housing stock for people who need it. Basic supply and demand. So if the supply is low, the demand is high. The prices go up. If we level out the demand, you're going to see the prices go down.
Robinson: Got it. I have a few more minutes with you. I'm going to try to get it all in, arts and culture. The Rise Up Concert series. Phenomenal. Really phenomenal. They've been moving across the boroughs. I love the culture of it. I love what it brings. It gives the community an opportunity to connect into legacy acts that we probably couldn't afford. It doesn't sometimes meet our budget needs. Talk about that and the importance of that.
Mayor Adams: And that's another part of the affordability. You know, when I give you free entertainment, you don't have to go down to, you know, MSG or Barclays. You could go in and entertain with your family in the community of thousands of people who came out. But if you notice on the screen, in between acts, we were doing, "Did you know?", [where] we were giving you information. I didn't just want to entertain you. I wanted to find ways to maintain you in the city.
We told you, told people about jobs. We told people about different benefits that they had, about child care benefits. Because the goal was, now that we have you in, we want to tell you what the city has to offer. But we've done something else. Under Laurie Cumbo, the commissioner of Cultural Affairs, we infused one of the largest allocations to our cultural institutions in the history of the city.
But [we] didn't only go to the big guys, the Metropolitan, the other museums, all of those high ends. We went to the smaller cultural institutions as well, because she started the James E. Davis Museum, also known as Mercado. And we knew that there's a lot of cultural institutions outside of Manhattan that we wanted to tap into.
Robinson: I also want to give some kudos to the Small Business Services and that initiative there. Talk about that. Shout out to Commissioner Dynishal Gross, who's doing a phenomenal job. But I know there's a lot of investment and focus on just that entire sector. So can you give some highlights on what is being done in that sector?
Mayor Adams: Crucial for us, the largest number of small businesses are operating in this administration, the history of the city. One out of five small businesses started in this administration. We've given them support and we've also [done] something else. We stopped turning city agencies on our small businesses. You should not have, you know, agita every time a city agency comes to your door.
I had dinner with a young lady that owns a restaurant. And she says, “Eric, the inspector came in, treated me so disrespectfully that I was physically sick.” That shouldn't happen. So we've changed the game. No more just popping up any time of the year, inspecting you. No, you're going to let these businesses know. Here's a block of time that we're going to be coming in to inspect your business.
Then we took fines off the book. In 2022, I had the deputy mayor go in. Let's find these fines that either should not be on the books or should be a cure period. If you don't have your liquor license in the right frame, we shouldn't be fining you. Give them a period of time to correct the problem. And we need to become more business friendly.
I want to judge my city agencies, not [by] how many fines you give out, but how many restaurants you open. How many buildings you allow to get built. That's what we have to judge our city agencies [based on] to help our businesses not hurt them. We were just endorsed by a group of small business owners who really appreciated what we did during the three and a half years that we were here.
Our business bot, you can interact with our bot, that AI, that allows business owners to get real time information. And we want to continue to improve on that because businesses must grow. They're more than this backbone of our city. They're the lifeblood. And when I came into office, the first thing I did, our nightlife industry was being decimated.
And many people don't know that in the nightlife industry, you are high and working class business people. I go into these restaurants, you got cooks, dishwashers, bartenders, waiters, that is the lifeblood of our city. So people say, “Well, you're out all the time.” You're darn right. I'm a twenty four hour mayor.
This city is not a nine to five. You know, you have corporate office workers, nine to five. You have people who are working from five to midnight doing other city services. Then you have overnight people. And I wanted to be a mayor that interacted with all these different groups to keep them functioning and operating.
Robinson: Yeah. So as we think about getting people to the polls, because we need to get people to the polls. And I consider not voting is voting.
Mayor Adams: Without a doubt.
Robinson: Not voting is voting. When you look back at your first term, what's the one decision or approach you would handle differently? And what can you promise the tri-state if given the opportunity to serve in the reelection?
Mayor Adams: Being mayor of the City of New York is one of the greatest achievements that you could ever have. I cannot tell you how much I enjoy being a mayor. And it's a hard job, you know, it's a hard job because there's a lot of challenges. But when you wake up every day with the commitment and understanding that you are giving back to the people who have been betrayed.
Black and brown folks have been betrayed in this city. And when I ran for office, I came in with a vision. How do I stop that betrayal? I'm gonna be the mayor for the entire city. But I had to fix the betrayal. And I had to do it in a way that people could see how by lifting up these communities, you lift up them all. So think about it for a moment.
It's been thirty years since we had a Black mayor. Thirty years. And I had to do it right. So when you think about street homelessness, who's in street homelessness? Black and brown. I moved more people out of street homelessness into permanent houses in the history of the city.
When you think of thinking about NYCHA, who's in NYCHA? Black and brown. I have put in place [the] NYCHA land trust, which is going to allow the rebuilding of NYCHA, free high-speed broadband, [and] brought down crime in NYCHA to record levels.
When you look at who's on our subway system going back and forth, Black and brown. We made the system as safe as it has been in decades. When you look at crime, who is a victim of crime in our community? Black and brown. So when I took 23,000 illegal guns off the street, when I'm doing justice involving young people [and] training them for jobs, that's who I'm helping.
And you look at our foster care system, Black and brown. When I pay their college tuition and give them life coaches, I am helping them. So what I'm saying is, when you peel back the agenda and say, what would we want a mayor to be in general, but specifically a Black mayor to be? And you look at my initiatives and what I have done for Black and brown people in this city. I don't have to walk around with a dashiki on saying, “[inaudible], Black power.” I gave us Black power.
Not only did I do it in my policies, but look at the administration. First Black deputy mayor in the history of the city. Second Black chief of staff, Trinidadian in the history of the city. First Indian to be a deputy mayor. First Dominican to be a deputy mayor. First Filipino to be a deputy mayor. First woman of color to be a police commissioner. First Spanish speaking to be a police commissioner. And first Spanish speaking man to be correction commissioner. First Korean to be a commissioner of Small Business Services.
My administration looked like the people who sat on the benches for years and other people jumped over them. I'll never forget my sister Sandra. She transitioned this year. She would tell me, you know, Eric, I would train these young people coming from these Ivy League schools as she was a banker. And they would jump over me, you know, and year after year, never being promoted. That's our story. I took the people off the bench and I showed America that Black and brown people can run the most complex city on the globe.
No one ever again will say we can't do it. And that's why a lot of people are pissed off. But now our folks [have] to make a decision. You're going to go to the polls and you're going to say, “Am I going to listen to all the noise? Am I going to listen to all the hate that we saw dropped on this mayor?”
Or we're going to look at the results. I'm saying look at the results. And once you look at the results, you're going to make a determination on what the future is going to be. And if one of those other guys is what you believe should take you to the next level and take us backwards. There's nothing much I could do about it. God is in charge.
Robinson: And there you have it, Tri-State, the 110th mayor, Mayor Eric Adams. Thank you so much for joining the program.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Great to be here.
###