Mayor Eric Adams: Really, really great being up here and seeing you all, and joined by our amazing, amazing borough president. I want to turn it over to the BP to greet you here in the Bronx.
Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson: Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Buenas tardes a todos. Bienvenidos. Welcome, everyone. It's so good to see you. Monroe Older Adult Center. All right. Okay, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, this is the Bronx, so if it's okay, indulge me for a second. WEPA.
I love it. I love it. So much love here. Let me thank Acacia and our program director, and really all the elected officials. We're now joined by our New York City Council Majority Leader Amanda Farías, is here with us. We want to thank our mayor, Eric Adams, and our DFTA commissioner, Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, who does amazing work on behalf of our older adults across the City of New York. Working together with all of our commissioners and city agencies, we've made a tremendous amount of progress when it comes to serving our older adult community.
I don't often use the word senior, but instead I say "seenager" because you can be whatever age that you want to be. Most importantly, it's about making sure that all of you have the resources and programs that all of you need. Older adult centers are the beacon of our community. They provide stability. They provide a place of comfort, of welcoming, good food, great music, great programs, arts and crafts. We always want to make sure that we are fighting to get all of you even more programs and more resources.
I'm so thankful that we have elected officials like our majority leader, like Senator Nathalia Fernandez, and so many others that are making sure that Monroe, older adults, and also throughout the entire Soundview community always feel loved and appreciated, and that you're in dignified spaces that recognize all the work that you have done to make a difference in our community. We stand on your shoulders for all the work that you have done here in Soundview and throughout the borough.
I'm excited to be here. I know you all have many questions. Most importantly, this is not the last time we will be here. We serve all of you. We appreciate the work that you do, and we value these partnerships. Family days, back-to-school events, all of the different events that we have here in our community is for you, your children, your families, and your loved ones. I want to say thank you for being here, an official welcome. We look forward to today's Older Adults Town Hall. Thank you to all the members of the administration for being here today. Gracias a todos. Thank you, mayor.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. We're going to turn it over to our majority leader, Councilwoman Farías.
City Councilmember Amanda Farías: Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor, our commissioner, the borough president, and everyone from the team out here to come and join us here at Monroe. For those that are not familiar, I'm your local councilmember, Amanda Farías. I'll be short because I want us to get to it. Everything the BP said is right. These centers are the places where not only are all of you folks able to participate in a variety of programs and resources, gain benefit, create community, but also your space that is supposed to be your safe haven where we're making direct investments to ensure that you get to age in place, see your grandkids, be with your kids and family, all in the community that you help invest in.
With that, I'm looking forward to the dialogue today, looking forward to continuing the investments and the future that we have planned for this center, and working with the administration to get that done. Thank you so much. I'll kick it back over to the mayor.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Good seeing all of you, and it's great being up here in the Bronx, being joined with our elected officials, just really to engage in the conversation with you and hear your questions. We have held a number of-- Number what, commissioner?
Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, Department for the Aging: 28.
Mayor Adams: This is our 28th older adult town hall and about 41 town halls in the community. It's so important to be on the ground. I'm sure in the many years of mayors in this city, I don't think there's been a mayor that's been on the ground as much as I have, and I reflect on my days of being a police officer. If you're not on the beat, talking one-on-one with people, you cannot identify the problems that they're having. If we were to go back to January 1st, 2022, our city was dealing with COVID. Many centers like this one here was closed down.
We were dealing with crime and over proliferation of guns on our streets in the city. We were dealing with the lack of housing. We were dealing with issues around how we were going to put money back in the pockets of New Yorkers. I like to say, as the borough president always teased me when I say it, we cannot lower the price of bread, but we wanted to put bread back into your pockets. We wanted to focus on NYCHA and making sure NYCHA was finally respected the way they deserve to have been treated.
Senator, how are you? Three and a half years later, what have we done? We have put $30 billion back into the pockets of working-class people. We're paying off medical debt for any low-income New Yorker, and billions of dollars. We already paid off $80 million. We've made sure that if you are a low-income New Yorker, you are not paying any income tax at all, no income tax. If you have children, we are having universal after-school programs. We have increased the number of pre-K and 3K seats to more seats than the history of this city.
We have also ensured that we have reduced fare, MetroCard, which I'm sure many of you benefit from. We have put in place the right things for our young children who are in foster care. We are paying their college tuition. We're giving them life coaches until they're 21 years old, and we're giving them a stipend. For your grandchildren and children that are young people, we've created over 100,000 summer youth jobs. We ensured year-round education with 110,000 what we call summer rising programs.
Our children were open to being in schools consistently, and the support they needed. We dropped unemployment in the city-wide, but particularly in the Black and brown community, we dropped unemployment by over 20 percent. We looked at the housing problem. In year one, year two, and year three, we built more housing in the history of the city in individual years, moved more people out of homelessness into permanent housing. More people are using the FHEPS voucher program in the history of the program.
To keep you safe, we removed over 23,000 illegal guns off our streets. Those scooters that I hear about all the time, we removed over 110,000 illegal scooters, dirt bikes, and ghost cars. We have a few of our wins on the table. When you look at the numbers and where we were and where we are now, you're seeing that the city has moved in the right direction, even with COVID, even with 230,000 migrants and asylum seekers.
90 percent of them have taken the next step on their journey, no longer in our care, even with bringing down crime in our subway system. Our subway system is now the safest than what it has been in the entire recorded history when you take the two years of COVID when no one was on. We have a lot more to do, but trust me when I tell you, we've done a lot. We're proud of what we have done with our partners in Albany and our partners here in the city to make sure that this city is the best place to raise children and families.
By holding our town halls like this, our older adults, we get an opportunity to hear from you on what you would like us to do and continue to do as the mayor of the City of New York. I'm proud to be the mayor of this city. I was proud to serve you as a police officer, a sergeant, a lieutenant, a captain, as a state senator, as a borough president, and now I'm the mayor. This is what we want to do. I want to end with this last handout that we gave you. It is in case of emergency. What I found was that when someone has to respond to your house or your home during an emergency, basic information can save a life.
If you want to, fill it out as your name, your emergency contact number and name, your primary care doctor, the number of any chronic condition, any allergy, any medication that you're on, and it's a magnetic bag. You can put it right on your fridge or anywhere else so if an emergency first responder come to your home, he could immediately see this information, and it's helpful for us.
I think we have it in Spanish also, don't we? If someone wants one in Spanish, we have it also in Spanish. I saw the senator came in. I want to give the senator an opportunity to say hello to everyone who's here. I'll turn it over to you.
State Senator Nathalia Fernandez: Thank you so much. Good afternoon, everyone. Senator Nathalia Fernandez, excuse my tardiness. I got caught in the rain. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for being here today, for updating us on what the city is doing. I know as government officials, a lot of the time we get asked, what are we doing to help improve our city, our neighborhoods? To have a conversation at two o'clock in the afternoon is nice. Thank you so much for bringing us here.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Great to have you. We're going to turn it over to the tables. How are you?
Question: I'm fine.
Mayor Adams: Good.
Question: It's an honor to have you here.
Mayor Adams: Thank you.
Question: My name is Elizabeth Bello, and I'm the president of the advisory board. These are our concerns. Although you did address some of the things that we mentioned here, this is how they feel in the community. They feel unsafe. The seniors are being scammed, the gun violence in this area, the theft and the robberies. The scooters, using scooters, and even using the kids on these scooters when there just should be one person. That's very dangerous, besides them using them to rob us. They're afraid, seniors are afraid to go to the bank, because as you know, they're waiting for us to take our money out. They could steal it from us. Basically, that was the main thing on this table, but there's a lot of issues. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you so much. I want to turn it over to the inspector, and then, Commissioner, can you talk about the whole scam?
Deputy Inspector Tawee Theanthong, Commanding Officer, 43 Precinct: Good afternoon, everybody. Just let me introduce myself real quick. I'm Deputy Inspector Theanthong, and I've been the commanding officer for the 43 for my fourth day now.
Thank you. Just to address some of the things that you said, I want to talk about my background a little bit. I have 22 years on the job. I started off in housing. I was a PSA 7 cop, and then I became a sergeant in 4-2. Shortly after that, I went up to the squad. I worked in the 4-9 squad, 4-7 squad, Financial Crimes Task Force, the Robbery Task Force, and then the NYPD-ATF Joint Robbery Task Force. I bring that up because I want to highlight my experience, because a lot of things that you mentioned are some things that I really take into account, and I really want my team to focus on. Everything that you said, from the robberies to the scams to the elderly scams.
I speak very closely with the commanding officers for the Central Robbery, Grand Larceny, and the Financial Crimes Task Force. We're well aware of all the scams that are prevalent in the 4-3, including the gypsy scams, where they come and they take off jewelry. The banks, where they wait for your bank cards, and they try to take them from you, and they shoulder serve for your PIN numbers. Also, the robberies, the grand larcenies, the snatches, we're very well involved in that.
Even yesterday, I was out in the field with my PST team, and we picked up a live arrest right here at 304 Castle Hill. Minutes after she committed a robbery, we grabbed her live for a phone snatch. We're very committed to these issues that you're bringing up. As we roll out, especially with the Q-Teams, that's going to help us a lot with the quality of life issues as well. I'm giving you a little bit of a lot here, but I just wanted you guys to know a little bit of my background. These are the things that we know and that we can talk about, and that we have the resources that we're going to get out to you.
Now, the second part of that is to have the cooperation with the Crime Prevention and Community Affairs guys to get that outreach going so we can educate people on how they commit these scams. Little things, like when people buy things on Facebook Marketplace. Why do we go to some place at nine o'clock at night in the bowels of the Bronx, when you can just come to a precinct, and we have the cyber exchange programs? Come to the precinct, it's well-lit.
If they don't want to come, your spidey sense should be tingling. Maybe this is not a good place to do an exchange. These little things, we're going to have our Community Affairs officers and Crime Prevention officers reach out to you, and we'll get that done.
Mayor Adams: With crime in the precinct, how are we doing around gun violence and the major crime?
Deputy Inspector Theanthong: Overall, mayor, we're actually down across the board in our seven major crimes, and that's true for the week to date, 28th day, and year to date. I don't have the exact number.
[Crosstalk.]
Mayor Adams: No problem. 24 days in, so that's okay.
Deputy Inspector Theanthong: Thank you, sir.
Mayor Adams: What I was asking the inspector, how are we doing overall in crime. The way we judge crime in the city is that we look at what's called the seven major crime categories: robbery, assault, burglary, grand larceny, kidnapping, homicides, manslaughters. That's what the inspectors and the commanding officers, they look at that to determine how well they're doing. They look at one year over the next year, and that's what I was asking: how are we doing? As the inspector just stated, that we're down in those categories.
Now, we want no crime at all, but we like to see how we're trending, and it's about what those seven major crimes are. Showing a reduction in them is showing that the inspector is deploying his manpower correctly. What we are having a problem with in the Bronx, we're having a problem with youth gangs. That's the problem that we're facing of too many of our young people have guns. We have partnered with the district attorney, District Attorney Darcel Clark, and we have taken down several very dangerous gangs.
We've also been proactive with the DYCD, that's our youth agency, where we're getting our young people into Summer Youth employment, after-school programs, mentorship programs. We're doing all of the things to give our young people an alternative, because when you look at who's driving the crime, it is many of our young people who are not having alternatives. Instead of hanging out with gangs, doing things that are wrong. We're zero focused on that.
I'm with you with the scooters. Those darn scooters drive me crazy. Many of them have been used in criminal behavior. I don't know if we have any patterns up here, but they've been used in criminal behavior, snatch and grab, doing robberies. We know that it's a problem. That's why we have removed 110,000 of illegal scooters, dirt bikes, cars off our streets, because we know that--
Question: School is beginning to start, and you're going to notice that you see parents or whoever riding with their kids on one scooter, and these kids don't even have a helmet. If they rent, it's just for one person. It's not for two or three people. They should be given some kind of rule where they could be given a summons or something because they need to be stopped. That's our future. Our children are our future.
Mayor Adams: Well said. We will look at that enforcement. You're 100 percent correct. Thank you. Now, you're the president of, what was it?
Question: Of the advisory board. You need help?
Mayor Adams: I need to call you Madam President.
Question: Not only that. I have [inaudible].
Mayor Adams: Yes. How are you doing?
Question: I'm going to ask it in her behalf. She was just saying that for some of the senior centers, she would like there to be more wheelchair accessibility, such as things as when there are trips with buses and things like that. How would you go about maybe buses and wheelchair accessibility coming to senior centers, where there be more access for people in wheelchairs?
Mayor Adams: Who's answering? Kim? How are you?
Assistant Commissioner Kim Wiley-Schwartz, Education and Outreach, Department of
Transportation: Hi, everybody.
Mayor Adams: Good. Good to see you.
Assistant Commissioner Wiley-Schwartz: I'm here from the Department of Transportation. Can you ask me that question? Are you asking for curb cuts?
Question: Wheelchair accessibility. Yes. She's a little shy. Just in general, there are buses that come by the senior centers, and there are buses that don't have wheelchair accessibility all the time. Just how you would go about increasing that?
Mayor Adams: I want to fully understand the question. Are we saying that to get to the center? Yes.
Question: We participate, we give money and stuff like that, but everybody gets to go on the trip. Us that are in wheelchairs and walkers, we cannot go on the trip because there's no bus for us to take us, and I don't think that's fair for a lot of us seniors in here because they try. I love the way they treat us up in here because I call it the daycare, because when we come here during the day, they take care of us, and that's why I call it the daycare. All of us that are in the wheelchair and walkers, we want to know why there's no buses for us to participate to go.
Mayor Adams: Great question. Can we talk about that, commissioner? I didn't know that. She's stating that when they go on field trips and other activities, that if you have a walker or you have a wheelchair, you're not able to go on those trips.
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: That's not always the case. We're going to do this. All right. I love you, too. Some of the vehicles that we have for group trips are accessible, and some are not. You're absolutely correct. What I'll look at is see how many of them are accessible and make sure that we have more of them. Right now, we have a combination of accessible vehicles, and some vehicles are not.
Mayor Adams: Are these the vehicles that we are hiring people to do the trip, or are they attached to the center?
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: It's a combination. There's some group transportation that we hire a vendor to do for our older adults, as well as individual trips. If you request it or even if it's for a group trip, we make every effort to make sure it's an accessible vehicle. However, there are some that are not.
Mayor Adams: Some of the transport vehicles?
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Some of the transport vehicles are not, and it's one of the things that we're looking at with our vendor to say, "How do we increase this?" It is one of those situations. It's about availability. We're very conscious of that. For everyone's edification, we have three types of transportation programs. There are some transportation programs that are directly affiliated by the older adult club. They run them. Those are usually for one-on-one trips to bring you to the center or to take you to a pharmacy or a doctor.
Then we have what we have is the group trips and the citywide trips for older adults who might not be affiliated with the center. We want them to also have transportation. We have a vendor for those individuals who are not participating in centers, who want to go to a doctor, to a pharmacist, and things of that nature. Those are the modes of transportation that we contract for.
Mayor Adams: We have to fix that problem. No one should be stymied based on their mobility. We're going to dig into it. You should be able to go to whatever activity that is taking place. That's the whole point of being part of an older adult center: that you're going to be able to participate. Let us look into that, and let's come up with a response. We have to figure out a way that no matter what your mobility is, you could enjoy whatever function the center has. I want to look into that. I want to look into that.
Let's figure this out. I want to sit down and figure this out. I didn't know that. I didn't know that, that your mobility prevents you from participating in activities. That can't happen. We have to allocate…
Question: [Inaudible] Holiday Hills yesterday, and we could not go. It bothers us that they had a wonderful time, but we're here, and we didn't get to participate.
Mayor Adams: Oh, that's no good. All right. Commissioner, we have to sit down.
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Got it.
Mayor Adams: Even if it means allocating some resources to do it, because you should be able to participate in everything that the center is doing. Mobility cannot be a way to prevent you from enjoying the center. I'm glad you raised that question. We're going to solve that. How are you, ma'am?
Question: Hello. Mi pregunta es como nosotros podemos cambiar… cuando tenemos una situacion como [inaudible] siempre hay entra salida las personas usan narcoticos [inaudible]?
Translation: My question is how can we change… when we have a situation like [inaudible] there is always an exit, people use narcotics [inaudible]?
Mayor Adams: Ask her, is it the store? Does she believe something illegal is happening in the store?
Question: This is what they wrote.
Mayor Adams: Okay, so it's a 24-hour store, hanging out, drinking. Captain, do we have– We're going to have commissioner– Captain, can we have someone speak with her privately after and find out the location? Okay?
Question: She’s basically was stating that the 24-hour store at Rosedale and Renson, there's a lot of hanging out going on there by the youth, and they're using drugs, they're drinking. On occasion, they try to get into the complex on a regular basis. She's in fear for herself and the residents because this goes on all the time at night, and she was looking for some kind of assistance.
Mayor Adams: Got it. Okay. Let her know we're going to have the community affairs officer and the inspector look at that location. Okay? All right. We don't want you to live in fear in your community. How are you?
Question: Good afternoon. I'm good. How are you, Mr. Mayor?
Mayor Adams: Good.
Question: Our table came up with the following question. Can our center be awarded with more funding in order for us to receive more quality programming, like educational programs, recreational, like arts and crafts, for example, and possibly an addition of a workout room?
Mayor Adams: A workout room. I love that.
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: We are always looking at that. What I want to say is that when we were making some very tough, tough budget decisions, this administration made sure that we did not close older adult centers. We had a budget cliff, and had that budget cliff not been addressed, thank you, City Council, thank you, Mayor, we would have had, I think it was 21 to 24, Ryan will keep me honest on the numbers, centers closed.
We did not close any older adult center. We have 308 before, we have 308 now. We're always looking at how do we allocate dollars across centers. Money that one center's not using, we give to another center, and we're doing that with more regularity. It's something that we look at. We always know that the needs outpace the ability to fund.
Si quieres te lo digo en español, pero yo creo que cogiste la respuesta. Sí es importante, no podemos hasta este momento, pero sí salvamos 24 centros envejecientes porque este alcalde y este concilio hizo una decisión donde no iban a cortar ningún programa para personas mayores.
Translation: If you want, I'll tell you in Spanish, but I think you got the answer. Yes, it's important. We can't do it right now, but we did save 24 senior centers because this mayor and this council made a decision not to cut any programs for seniors.
Mayor Adams: Thank you, commissioner. Where would you put the workout room? Where would you like to have it? Is there space here?
Councilmember Amanda Farías: Mr. Mayor, can I chime in for a second?
Mayor Adams: Hold on one moment. Let me come right back to you.
Question: We need some workout bands that we can stretch out.
Mayor Adams: Some bands?
Question: Yes. Weight-lift things. There's no space for it. They can have a small treadmill for us placed somewhere where we can have a little exercise, because we don't have it at our homes, and this is our second home.
Mayor Adams: Is there a space? You have a space?
Question: That needs to be transferred to the director of the program.
Mayor Adams: I'm sorry, say it again?
Question: Small treadmill.
Mayor Adams: Oh, you need a bigger place?
Audience: Yes.
Mayor Adams: Okay. Let's do this. First, I wanted to… councilwoman. She wanted to ask something. Go ahead, councilwoman.
Councilmember Amanda Farías: I really wanted to chime in. I think what folks are bringing up is that there has been a capital plan in looking to expand this space. With some of the funding that was cut previously, we had to stop some of the work here, and that included an updated, renovated kitchen, some of the programmatic rooms, looking out back here, as people were saying, we can probably get some mats outside if we could expand backwards. I think, obviously, we can continue the conversations on the funding front, and I'm sure other folks that will chime in, but there are goals on expanding this space, both for the senior side but also for the youth side, and renovating that playground in the back.
Mayor Adams: Got it. We need long-term and short-term. Long-term and short-term. The long-term is what the councilwoman was just stating about expansion, finding the capital dollars. One of the problems we're having in the city is that NYCHA has an $88 billion capital problem. That's a lot of money. We were the first administration that included NYCHA in our housing plan. NYCHA has always been ignored in the housing plan. We said, "No, we are going to include NYCHA in it."
Let's deal with some short-term things, because you mentioned that you wanted to get exercise equipment, bands, and other older adult-friendly lightweights. What I'm going to do, I'm going to find a sponsor that is going to give you some equipment that you can do, because to exercise, you can move these tables to the side and do your own exercise classes.
We're going to find you a sponsor that will give you bands, that will give you lightweights, some of the things that can help you movement and moving so that you can continue to enjoy a quality way of life. We're going to connect with you, and I'm going to put someone in contact with you that is going to assist in buying some of those basic equipment that you want to do. You can start exercising now.
Question: Thank you, mayor. Speaking about NYCHA, so my team here and many older adults want to age in place, but do need assistance with NYCHA repairs. What is the city expanding to help seniors live independently?
Mayor Adams: Get more for me, tell me more.
Question: Their NYCHA repairs are being delayed, and they would like to–
Mayor Adams: Do I have anyone here from NYCHA? Come up front for a moment. Hold on, folks. We do a lot of NYCHA events, and oftentimes, the NYCHA employees who are on the ground doing the work, they get a lot of blame. I have never met a more dedicated body of people who want you to have the quality of life that you deserve, but the federal government has abandoned NYCHA. The state has not put in their funding. We are putting in our funding. When you look at the repairs you're talking about, the total of the repairs is over $80 billion.
When you get a NYCHA staffer who's coming out and want those repairs, we want to repair the roofs, we want to repair the elevator, we want to repair the doors, we want to repair the grounds and the facilities, but when you look at what they're working with, they don't have the money to do it. Our entire budget in the city is only $115 billion. NYCHA repairs are $80 billion. We really need the federal government and our state government to help what we have been doing on the city level to make sure that we get money into NYCHA.
When you look at a NYCHA staffer, oftentimes, they look like you. They're from the same communities. They don't like holding up repairs, just as you don't want them held up. If there are emergency repairs, they want to respond to them right away, they want to get them done, but we have a capital problem. The money should be coming not only from the city, the federal government needs to reinvest back into public housing, and they have not, and that is causing a lot of the problems. If there's some emergency repairs, can you just go over-- First of all, thank you for the work that you do. You know that? Can you just go over just the whole system of repairs that we're doing?
Jasmine Williams, Neighborhood Administrator, New York City Housing Authority: Hi. How are you doing? My name is Jasmine Williams. I'm a neighborhood administrator for Bronx 2. How we handle repairs is when you call in the repairs to the work, you put in a work ticket, and every neighborhood has a borough planner. Then you will call into the borough planner to schedule out those repairs, all of the repairs in that location stream. If you have plastering, plumbing, painting, all of those things, that will be scheduled out in order so that you have a date for every repair that's in the location stream.
I also tell sometimes that it's two people manning a phone. I know my particular neighborhood, which covers Throggs Neck, Soundview, Castle Hill, they get over 100 calls a day. They are working to call you guys back and schedule out your repairs, but if you can't get through, just like I said, I check the queue, neighborhood administrators, we do check the queue in reference to the answering and response time, and that you're getting services.
Once that's done, if you need to reschedule or anything of that nature, you will call back. If something comes up, we understand that, but there's an escalation. You can always, the management office is open and able to assist you from the hours of 8:30 and 4:30.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. What we want to do is modernize the process of putting in those tickets. We think there's a better way to do it. We want to continue to use technology to make that response and that communication easier and friendlier so that you can get a faster turnaround to get those repairs done. Everything from leaks to heating issues, we've heard them all. The goal is to get you the response that's needed, and that's what we want to do. We hear you, and we know that repairs is an issue in NYCHA. Our focus is on making sure they're done.
Now, NYCHA has a special monitor. We believe that it should be placed under the control of the mayor's office so that we can hire and fire, and we can actually make sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing. If they're not, like we had the case down in REES Housing when there was a force alarm on the water. I couldn't take any actions because I'm not in control of NYCHA. You think I am, but I'm not.
NYCHA is controlled by a receiver and a special monitor. The mayor is not in direct control. I think the mayor should be in direct control so when I come up to one of your housing and you have a problem, you can say, "Mayor, what are you doing about it?" Because I'm responsible for the hiring and firing, like my other agencies. Thank you for your question.
Mayor Adams: How are you, sir?
Question: Good day, Mayor Adams. I'm asking this question for my friend, Cathy.
Mayor Adams: Okay.
Question: First of all, I want to welcome you to our senior center.
Mayor Adams: Thank you.
Question: It is a privilege. Mayor Adams, thank you for the work that your administration has done thus far. My concern is for the elderly and the rising cost of living expenses, such as housing and food. How can you lower things?
Mayor Adams: I'll say it again. How do you say bread in Spanish?
Audience: Pan.
Mayor Adams: I can't lower the cost of the price of bread. That's outside of my control. As I said, I need, as the mayor, to put bread back in your pockets. I need to use government and figure out ways, how do I put money back in your pockets? That's what I have done from 2022. I'll put dinero back in your pockets. We put $30 billion back in your pockets. Let's think about it for a moment. NYCHA, you no longer pay high-speed broadband. We pick up that cost now. If you look at how much it costs, I don't know anyone who's not in NYCHA, what do you pay on your cable bills? How much?
Audience: $201?
Mayor Adams: $201? Huh?
Audience: $189.
Mayor Adams: $189. Think about this. You're in NYCHA. We're now picking up every month, $189 that you no longer have to spend. That's real money. If you are a low-income, we're picking up your MetroCard payments. If you're dealing with a medical crisis, we are excusing your medical debt. If you are a low-income New Yorker, you're not paying any more income taxes. When you start adding $189 a month, your MetroCard, let's say it's $40 a month, let's say your income tax, you're not paying any more. That's a couple of thousand dollars.
When you start doing the math, you understand that this mayor has found a creative way with his power to put money right back into your pocket. That's what you want from your mayor. You don't want your mayor to promise you things that they can't deliver. You want mayors to promise you things that he can't deliver. If we don't take anything else that I put back in your pocket, just a mere fact, if you're NYCHA, you're not paying $189 a month to watch me on NY1 telling my story. That's what I want you to really understand.
How do I make life affordable for you? I looked at what powers I have and say, let's start putting money back into the pockets.
If you live in NYCHA and you have children in Pre-K, 3K, we dropped the cost of childcare from $220 a month to less than $20 a month. Think about that. Start doing this math on how much I started taking away expenses off of your plate, and say government should pick up those expenses so that this city could be more affordable for you. That's what mayors should do. They should say, "How could I put money back into the pockets of New Yorkers?" This way, they could afford to live in the city. No one has done it better than this administration, and we're going to continue to do it even more as the years go on. Thank you.
Question: Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: Good. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Wait, who's translating if you're speaking?
Question: I'm speaking on behalf of Maria Cepeda. She's particularly worried about walking around in her neighborhood here in the Bronx. Shootings and crime are increasing, and she basically feels unsafe, and she needs more police presence. We understand this is a recurring question. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Public safety is everything. You're right. You can't live in fear. I don't want you living in fear. That's why I would never defund our police department. I would make sure you have police officers who are doing the job to keep you safe. What Commissioner Stewart has done has been amazing around finding ways to ensure that our older adults are safe. Commissioner, why don't you go into some of the programs that you're doing and the fraud one that you're doing?
Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, Community Affairs, Police Department: Good afternoon. The mayor and I have been doing this for 41 years. He's older than me, but we know what we're doing. Public safety. We can sit here and tell you crime is down. We can sit here and tell you numbers. We can tell you stats, but our main objective is that you feel safe. Police Commissioner Tisch put over 1500 Q-Teams out all over the city. We have mobile field forces that Commissioner Tisch put out in our neighborhoods. Sometimes you might not see cops, but they are there, and crime is down. If you don't feel safe, that means we have to do a better job. You can tell me where the problem is afterwards, and we'll make sure that we take care of it.
When I first came February 28th, '22, the mayor tasked me and Commissioner Vasquez to make sure our older adults are taken care of. I'm not too far from one of these seats, so I'll be here soon. We put a community affairs officer in every precinct for older adults. Our community affairs officer is Officer Smith-Sands. Do you know her? If you don't, you better know her after this meeting because she will be taking care of any complaints you have, any problems you might have. We also put a community affairs officer for older adults in each PSA. Whatever complaint, whatever problem you might have, some people feel intimidated going to the precinct, but community affairs officer is there to assist you.
We had a question about the scam alerts. I oversee our crime prevention. We set up a date here now, you might want to write this down, it's going to be September 12th at eleven o'clock. Our crime prevention is going to come here and tell you about all the scams that's happening in our older adults. That's our main problem. The main problem is that these bad guys prey on you. They got my mother twice. We know while they're out there doing their job, trying to get your hard-earned money, we have to make sure that you're educated on how these crimes are definitely happening.
We also did approximately 1,000 scam alerts for our older adults homes. We know we might have skipped this one, but we'll be back on September 12th at eleven o'clock. We also do older adults events, bingo, Valentine's Day. We also do that. I know you guys don't like to hear jazz. The last time I heard you want to hear some R&B, hip hop, salsa. We got rid of the jazz bands. We also do our self-defense classes for our older adults. For the whole city, we did approximately 1,500 self-defense classes for our older adults.
We are aware of what the crimes are happening in our neighborhoods. We also want you to know that we're taking care of our youth. Before I came here, we had just basketball. We were doing it with our kids. We have an aviation program. We have a harbor program. We have a real estate license program for our kids. The police department oversees probably 25,000 kids that we now deal with. Our kids are doing fantastic, and that's the shoulders they're riding on that you paved the way. Any questions you might have after this, see police officer Smith-Sands, get her number, and we'll definitely help you. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. How are you, ma'am?
Question: Hello. How are you doing-
Mayor Adams: Good.
Question: What can you do about residents who own dogs that are above the size and pounds, weight that residents have and are not walked on their lease? In addition, their poop is not picked up. Most important, we need cameras in the area.
Mayor Adams: I hate stepping in someone else's crap. Talk to me, NYCHA. What do we do? How does one report it? What do we do to ensure that we're enforcing the Pooper Scooper Law?
Williams: We follow and enforce the NYCHA pet policy. Any dog, if they report it to the office, we call a resident in, we give them ample time to remove the book, we do a check, and if not, the folder's sent down–
[Crosstalk.]
Mayor Adams: You heard that. There's a process. Do they call the office?
Williams: They can come in, they can call, they can report it, and we will follow up.
Mayor Adams: They don't have to tell their name when they report it, do they?
Williams: They really do not.
Mayor Adams: You have that, ma'am? You could report it, NYCHA would do an investigation, give them ample time to remove it. You have? Let's make sure they do something. You always have to inspect what you expect. Is there a number that's called?
Williams: Sure. I can follow up.
Mayor Adams: Okay. We'll follow up and find out what's going on with that dog, okay? Yes, Madam President. How many presidents do I have here?
Question: Oh. No, no, no, no, I'm the president of James Monroe. I oversee the senior center.
Mayor Adams: Got it.
Question: Madam President.
Mayor Adams: Madam President.
Question: That's right.
Mayor Adams: Presidente.
Question: The adults here have to go next door. I know on your campaign, you said you were big on getting the kids the places, but I was told that $6.5 million was taken back, and I would like to know if that's going to be restored here. I understand that the seniors– I don't mind them being here, but our children need help over here.
They are out of control, that's number one. Number two, it's not fair that the good kids don't come outside. I have my grandchildren and great-grandbaby out here, and they need to come out. It's not about staying home and whatever. The Summer Youth was good. They both had to work, they both want to go to a trade school, but it's not fair.
Mayor Adams: Well said. Two things.
Question: I thank you for coming, and I know you're exhausted because I see it in your eyes, your bags under your eyes.
Mayor Adams: Two things. Hold on. Let me get my mic for a moment. Did your grandchildren participate in the Summer Youth Program?
Question: Yes, they did, the SYEP.
Mayor Adams: Excellent. How old are they, by the way?
Question: One is 24, and during COVID, the college online did not work. That did not work. He was being driven down there and taking the ferry, which was excellent, and then he got a shuttle bus.
Mayor Adams: I know we had to do what's called a PEGS, and they had to move around capital dollars. I'm going to speak with the person who was in charge of our budget, and the councilwoman alluded to it also, and find out exactly what was the-- You said it was $6.5 million?
Councilmember Amanda Farías: Yes. Just for context, it's $6 million that was removed, that was defunded from their capital plan, and this was in FY23, so we've attempted the last two budget cycles to try to get OMB to put it back on the capital plan for this development.
Mayor Adams: Got it. It was going to be used for what?
Question: For the renovation here.
Councilmember Amanda Farías: It was the senior side renovation, because the youth side's renovation already was completed. We were up to the point of this reno where Miriam and I were picking tile colors here, and different–
Question: And the program, and the paint.
Councilmember Amanda Farías: –types of program, and the paint, and all of that had to subside because the $6 million was taken out of the budget.
Mayor Adams: Let me look into it and find out exactly what's going on with it.
Question: Please do, because our kids deserve a lot better.
Mayor Adams: I thought you did the youth--
Question: I don't know if it was housing that took about, fingers were pointing.
Mayor Adams: I thought they did the youth side.
Question: That's here.
Mayor Adams: Oh, this is the youth side?
Question: Yes.
Mayor Adams: Where's the senior side? Is it the other side?
Question: That's there, over there.
Mayor Adams: Got it. Let me look at–
Question: Now, you understand where I'm coming from?
Mayor Adams: Yes.
Question: I tried to explain it. I'm sorry I didn't go to the presidents or the presidents down at Gracie Mansion, but I was there before.
Mayor Adams: All right. Got it.
Question: Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Got it. Thank you. Yes. Where am I?
Question: My name is Joanne Wilcox. I'm secretary of the advisory board. My concern here is the center. We have no security. I fear one day that somebody's going to come and rob us seniors because they know we have money, we have parties, they hear the loud music. What can you tell me? What can be done? I fear if that day ever happen.
Deputy Inspector Theanthong: Just so I understand the question, you're talking about security to this facility here? I think during the summers– This is actually the commanding officer for PSA 8, so I think he's better suited to answer this.
Councilmember Amanda Farías: Captain, can you also distinguish the difference between the 43rd Precinct and the PSA?
Captain Eric Heeren, Commanding Officer, Patrol Service Area 8, Police Department: Sure. Inspector Theanthong is in charge of all of the 4-3. I'm in charge of housing developments within the confines of the 4-3, the 4-5, and the 4-7. As far as that goes, my community affairs is always around. We can send them over.
Also, starting on this Monday coming up, I'll have my Q-Teams, which will be working a majority of the day. The first crew will come in early, around 8:00 AM. The second one will come in later and work into the night. We can absolutely work that out so that we have somebody here when you guys are doing that.
Question: Thank you very much.
Mayor Adams: What you said, when she has events, when there's a party?
Captain Heeren: Right.
Mayor Adams: I like that. So you're partying. There was something you said. Oh, does everyone know what the Q-Teams are? The Q-Teams are our quality of life teams. That's what the captain was just talking about. They're going to go out and look, abandoned cars, loud music playing, littering, some of the other complaints, there's someone at the store, loitering.
They're going to go and look at those things that are making you feel unsafe. We drop down the crime numbers, but we want to match it with you feeling safe in the process, and that's what the Q teams are going to be doing. 1,500 officers spread out to different precincts, and they're going to make sure that these nagging quality of life issues are going to be addressed. That's what the captain was talking about. Okay, I got to bounce.
Wait, wait, wait, this is the president. Let me start the war. Go ahead, Madam President, too.
Question: Okay, I'm on. I don't know. We're going to battle here. Okay, the question that I want to ask was that nobody asked about this question. We need a mental health social worker on site in the center. We don't need a worker that we have to call to make an appointment because that's not going to happen, they're not going to do that. I need somebody in the center on mental health social work.
Mayor Adams: Talk to me, commissioner.
Question: It is desperately needed. Then, another question–
Mayor Adams: We should do-- like you know how we have TeenSpace for young people using social media? We should think about doing that.
Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: We have 88 mental health sites. Are you one of the mental health sites here? Okay. We have 88 mental health sites infused in our older adult centers. As I'm talking, I'll have to look at Ryan. Ryan and I will be looking at, what do we have in this community? Either it's an adjacent one, or how is it that we can place one here, right?
Mayor Adams: Okay. We'll get you. You're going to be the last one because you've been so patient. You've been so patient.
Question: Hi. Good afternoon, mayor. Sorry, everything. My name is Leonor Pacheco. I'm a senior there at James Monroe. I would like to– sorry for my English. I would like to make a question about the parking lot from the senior center. Before, people came parking there, they used a wheelchair, walking, and then they put it private, nobody came parking there because the police or not check up in the front, make a ticket or call the truck to take the car from there.
That's right for the seniors. They need that space for the people. They use the wheelchair, like her, worker came, and then nobody can park in the front of the senior center. Why? Maybe the police give you a ticket or not, you don't want to park, let him park.
Mayor Adams: So let me understand correctly, there's a ramp here? Is that what you're saying?
Question: I'm going to translate.
[Crosstalk.]
Question: She's asking previously on the front, if you see the space. People who were in wheelchairs or handicapped, they used to drive in and park there, and they're no longer able to park there.
Mayor Adams: They drive in for drop-offs or drive in to park there?
Question: Drive in to park, to be in the center.
Mayor Adams: Okay, so there's a space out front?
Question: Yes.
Mayor Adams: Okay, so let me go out. When I walk out, I want to see the space you're talking about. Okay?
Question: Currently, it's a bus lane now.
Mayor Adams: I'm sorry?
Question: Okay, before the MTA took away the bus lane, we used to have like 20 senior driving in the parking for the center.
When MTA come, they set up the front, both side, there's no more parking for the seniors. I think that's not fair.
Mayor Adams: Got it, okay. It's express bus, you can't park. Got it, got it. That's why before we put in these express buses and all of these bus lanes and stuff, we like to speak to the community and see what the impact of how the street modification, how it impacts the community. Now you have the bus lane, it's challenging to remove the bus lane and now turn it into parking. Now I understand what you're saying.
Are there spaces around the location that could be used? All right. We have to look at that. I'm not sure how we're going to be able to rectify it. Okay, that's it. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your summer.
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