Transcript: Office of Public Safety Holds Briefing on Public Safety in New York City

January 18, 2024

Deputy Mayor Philip Banks III, Public Safety: Good evening, everyone. My name is Philip Banks, I'm the deputy mayor for Public Safety. And for those of you who are joining for the first time, this discussion is part of your series of updates we hold about public safety in New York City to let you, the public, hear information directly from the source, and the source are the people who are working behind the scenes to help keep our city safe.

As you're watching at home, if you learn something new or hear a safety tip that you find helpful, we ask that you share the information with your family, your friends, your neighbors. Share it with two people, ask them to share with two people. That's how we can spread this information, that's how we can help each of us remain safe. Protecting public safety is a team effort and that team includes you, so we thank you for tuning in.

But before we begin, I want to just share a quick weather update. We are expecting to see some more snow tomorrow. New York City, we've been very fortunate, right? It's been a long time since we had snow, so we had it last week. And our colleagues at NYCEM — which is the New York City Emergency Management — they have issued a travel advisory alerting folks that snow may impact the Friday evening commute.

So, the accumulating snowfall is forecast to begin in the morning and expected to come to an end sometime tomorrow evening. We're looking at a total of around three inches. but it may be more or less depending on how the snow tracks.

So, for the latest updates, I encourage you to sign up to receive emergency alerts through NotifyNYC or by visiting nyc.gov/notify. If you sign up, you'll have alerts at any time that the weather can cause any type of inconvenience or drastic change, you will get an alert notifying you of what the change is and certainly some of the things that you need to do to prepare for it. You can also follow NotifyNYC or New York City Emergency Management on social media for updates and safety tips.

So, today we're going to do a dive into the work of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice, known as MOCJ. And I'm joined here today by Deanna Logan, who is the director of MOCJ, and just the director, she's the commissioner, right, so she is in charge of MOCJ and she has a couple of members from her team.

Christian Klossner, who is the executive director of the Office of Special Enforcement. And you ask, what exactly is that and what does it do? He's going to explain to you exactly what he does shortly. And we have, we're joined by Yolanda Johnson‑Peterkin, and she's the executive director of Housing Initiatives. And then, of course, we have Hassan Naveed, who is our executive director of the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes.

So, MOCJ plays a very unique and pivotal role in developing the policies that ensure equality in every step of the way in the criminal justice system. It's a very, it's an under publicized agency, but I look at them as like the glue, the oil that makes it all run.

And we could probably spend hours explaining exactly what MOCJ does, but there's just a host of things behind the scene that has to keep everything moving. And Deanna does a fantastic job in that particularly area there day as well.

So, they're not just looking at the pieces of the puzzle, they're looking at the entire puzzle and making it work. So think about their titles for a moment. We have special enforcement, we have housing initiatives and we have the prevention of hate crimes ‑‑ and each of these areas have an impact on the administration of justice in our city, and that's why they're all part of MOCJ.

So, with that, I'd like to turn it over to the commissioner of MOCJ, our director, Deanna Logan, to kick us off. Deanna, what do we got going?

Deanna Logan, Director, Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice: We got a lot going on. As you know, because we give you all of the info on what we're doing. But thank you for having us here this evening. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. online, and those here in the room.

You know, MOCJ — as we are affectionately called — is a think tank. It's a coordinating entity for the city's criminal justice system. And as Deputy Mayor Banks just described, we advise Mayor Adams and Deputy Mayor Banks on criminal justice policy.

We work with stakeholders that will include the court system, the district attorneys. defense organizations, state criminal justice agencies. Our work really spans the full landscape of public safety, which is our mandate of making sure that when we work with law enforcement, sister city agencies — say that very quickly, sister city agencies — local organizations and the public to implement data‑driven anti‑crime strategies and promote the operation of fair,  more efficient justice system.

So, the projects that we really address are ones that deal with current crime conditions, preventing offending and just building strong neighborhoods that ensure enduring safety. Our main goal is really to support the most vulnerable New Yorkers across the spectrum of criminal justice. We focus on ensuring that people moving through the criminal justice system are supported and had a comprehensive foundation to return to being successful members of society.

Our work is rooted in data, and sometimes that makes us the geeks of your team, we know, but you know, our research innovation and policy team teams identify concerns through the data that may be barriers to public safety. And as we've discussed in previous briefings, Deputy Mayor Banks, we look at that data to identify people who are more likely to be re‑arrested and who are more likely to miss court and potentially what they all have in common. Right?

And so last year we talked a lot about those people who came back for recurring criminal charges, the things that they had in common, being re‑arrest for a felony, when involved with already the court system and old solved crimes, multiple warrants, several open cases.

And we talked about the fact that they tend to have higher needs and face significant challenges, and that it was a small population. Right? And so we identified the challenge. And then you and Mayor Adams told us to do what? Solve it, right? Like, that's what you say. Okay, great. You told us what the problem is with the challenges, so now what do we do to help modify the behavior of these individuals charged with multiple crimes?

And so as part of Mayor Adams' and your commitment to solving the challenges, then with our city partners, our policy and research team work with strategic intervention team to develop really innovative solutions to a multifaceted problem.

Our interventions team in collaboration with our stakeholder partners designed a new protocol to maximize the effectiveness of the touchpoints that we already have in the criminal justice system. Because it's not like we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, we just have to make sure that where there are gaps, we are filling them and all of the places that we touch, we can continue to maximize that.

So, specifically looking at our supervised release program and other court and non court‑related programming, we started to employ a more targeted form of support and supervision to people who need to have more intensive services, accountability and coping skills that are going to help them overcome their behavior.

We know that good government demands that we work with our partners to design and implement best practices for high needs individuals. It also requires us to support neighborhoods by ensuring that residents with criminal justice involvement can reintegrate safely and return to being successful members of our communities.

We look at the challenges that threaten public safety; and to that, you and Mayor Adams told us to look at what was going on with fentanyl. And to that end, we started to make sure that that wasn't something that was going to come in to undermine the health of our communities.

We convened thought leaders across the country to develop best practices, and development of best practices is an integral part of our work here at MOCJ. It includes our ability to sustain fundamental building blocks of safety.

And today we want to talk to you about housing, because housing and access to affordable housing is one of our key goals as a city, but it is also one of the fundamental building blocks of safety. And so to that end, the members of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice here with me today are going to talk about their work that supports healthy neighborhoods and promotes public safety.

Deputy Mayor Banks: And I just, you know, I just wanted to say like what MOCJ does, I mean, there's really not enough time in this forum to really go into detail of what they do, but you just put it like this. There's someone who's being released from jail, and if they don't have housing, if they don't have access to a job or any type of skills to get them back on track, the chance of them repeating, the probability goes up.

So, we need housing. We need to make sure that if they don't have a place to go that there's a place for them to be able to go and start. Deanna and her team, they look at that, they make sure that the services that the city contracts with people to do that are doing their job adequately.

They make sure that we have enough housing for those individuals and that the people that we're contracting with to get them job training. So, I mean, they actually are in every facet that takes place in the criminal justice system.

As of today, she coordinates a monthly call with the district attorney's office. And we fight a lot on the calls, but it's all one common goal. So, you have all of the five district attorneys with the special narcotic prosecutors as well and their staff, and we go over some of the issues as they're backlogging cases of people not getting their cases heard.

What are some of the obstacles? What are some of the connections between the police department and law enforcement they need? And so much of this, all of this actually comes under MOCJ and Deanna's shop, and that's just one of the areas that they're focusing on. And we could speak a lot about that.

You will be hearing from her and her team again and some time during our particular briefings, but they just play a critical role. So, thank you, I appreciate it very much.

Next up we have Christian Klossner, he works for directly for Deanna Logan and MOCJ. His title is the executive director of the Office of Special Enforcement, we call it OSE. They serve a few different functions, but one of the main priorities, and I think it's the priority we're going to discuss today, is ensuring New Yorkers have access to housing through enforcement of the city's rules and regulations around short‑term rentals, right?

Short‑term rentals have to be regulated, and when it's done, abiding by the law, it works out for everyone. When there are violations of that, it has an impact down the line. So, just think about it, if there's a kink here, it manifests over here. And Christian and his team is ensuring that the kinks get out and we can actually, it's not having an unnecessary impact.

Unfortunately, over the past decade, we've seen a number of unscrupulous property owners and managers turn buildings into what are essentially illegal hotels, right? So, you have the property owners, they want to make money, so they are skirting the laws, they are frequently disregarding what the rules are at the end of the line to make money.

They're not bringing anything to the community, they're actually taking away from the community. And we need some oversight there. That is not to say that the property owners who are following the rules and abiding by the rules and they're contributing to the fabric of the neighborhood then they should look at us as a support, but if you do break the rules and you're committing harm.

So, public safety manifests in a lot of different ways. It's not just the person on the corner who's going to snatch your bag or steal your car, it actually manifests in a lot of ways. And sometimes we don't bring enough attention to these other areas that have such a big, big impact in those particular areas there.

So, we're going to hear about these short‑term rentals and what your team has been doing. So, let's give the public a little insight. Who is Christian Klossner, and what exactly does the Office of Special Enforcement do in this area, Christian?

Christian Klossner, Executive Director, Office of Special Enforcement: Thank you, sir, and thank you also… So thank you, Deputy Mayor Banks, thank you also to Mayor Adams, Director Logan and all those attending today's briefing.

As was said, my name is Christian Klossner. I'm the executive director of the Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement, or, OSE. Our mandate is to coordinate efforts across city agencies to problem solve around emerging issues adversely affecting neighborhood cohesion, mobility and safety.

The vast majority of OSE's work since 2015 pertains to addressing the illegal short‑term rentals that the deputy mayor just mentioned. These are occurring in the city's permanent residential housing stock and taking units of housing away from New Yorkers and creating safety hazards for both guests, residents and neighbors alike.

By working to stop the proliferation of these illegal short‑term rentals, OSE works to help preserve permanent housing stock city‑wide, to prevent harassment and displacement of permanent residents, and to promote safety and quality of life throughout our communities.

Our enforcement efforts protect the city's residents and visitors from dangerous violations of the building and fire safety standards while striving to minimize disruptive activity in New York's residential neighborhoods and buildings.

On March 6, 2023, OSE opened the short‑term rental registration portal, allowing New Yorkers to apply to be registered to host short‑term rentals; and as the deputy mayor mentioned, to help those folks who are doing it legally really understand what the laws are, come into compliance and have smooth sailing moving forward.

At the start of this week, OSE had received 5,549 applications. While the volume of applications was intense in August and early September of 2023, and admittedly, OSE's review lagged for many applicants, I am pleased to now report that OSE has provided a determination in 5,062 of these applications — or 91 percent — with nearly all the rest under active review.

With direction from Mayor Adams to find ways to reduce review time and significant support from Deputy Mayor Banks, OSE was able to move diligently through the applications and go from a wait time of three months to begin the review to a wait time of three days to begin the review; in fact, just last week, an application was reviewed and finalized on the same day that it was received by our office.

This was accomplished by a process of filling all reviewer positions, training and detailing other OSE and MOCJ staff to the project and building in efficiencies in the review process. This clearing of nearly all the backlog was also made possible by Deputy Mayor Banks' team securing the assignment of 10 cadets from the NYPD cadet program to a two‑month detail assisting OSE with the processing of applications.

OSE would like to take this opportunity to thank the cadets, a diligent and dedicated group of young people who do real credit to the city when they join the ranks of the NYPD, as well as thanks to their supervisor, [Sergeant Kevin Su, Police Cadet Corps' Operation Coordinator Lieutenant Ruvanov] and commanding officer, Inspector Kilfeather and commanding officer of NYPD's Training Bureau, Chief Obe.

I mentioned we have finalized review of 5,062 applications; of those, OSE has granted 1,211 registrations. 897 applications were denied all for reasons required by the registration law, such as the unit being rent regulated or on a list of prohibited buildings where the owner has notified the city that short‑term rentals are prohibited or where the applicant has submitted multiple applications.

An additional 2,577 applications have been returned to the applicant to provide an opportunity to correct deficiencies that would have otherwise required denial; and, another 377 similarly deficient applications where the applicants have returned the application that we see having made some corrections and are now under our review.

OSE has worked hard to help applicants obtain registrations. As we mentioned, we want to support those folks who are acting legally and help them earn the money that they're entitled to make.

Although the registration law did not require us to do so, OSE made regulations that guarantee applicants the chance to correct deficiencies with the goal being to help everyone host legally and in compliance with the many rules and laws governing short term rentals before they get to the point where they're receiving a violation.

Of the 1,208 applications where a registration has been granted, 858 — or, 71 percent — were granted after OSE identified deficiencies and corrections for hosts who then came into compliance with the law.

As a result of all this work, OSE is producing a safer city for residents and visitors alike. Through the registration process, applicants are incentivized to correct violations and move their listings out of illegal basements and cellars. For example, 70 of the registrations were granted only after the applicant moved their guest accommodation out of an illegally converted basement or cellar, and another 400 applicants have had their applications returned with direction that they need to do the same.

Approximately 430 applicants were returned to applicants to correct the dangerous conditions that led to violations issued by the Department of Buildings, the Fire Department and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

As OSE finalizes review of the last several hundred applications under its review, we will turn our focus to working with those individuals who may need assistance correcting their applications.

For additional information on the rules and law, as well as to apply for either registration or to place a building you own on the prohibited building list, please visit OSE's website, which is nyc.gov/ose. Thank you, deputy mayor.

Deputy Mayor Banks: Christian, thank you. And let's just sum this up. I just want to, you know, crystallize this message here. If you own a multi‑family building and you do not want any of your tenants being able to utilize the short‑term rental,  if you sign up for this particular code, you become in this list then we won't allow it.

But if you have an apartment and you're using it unlawfully or illegally to rent out, that's an apartment that's off the market for someone, a New Yorker, that needs an apartment. And we've always struggled initially with having affordable and enough housing, so this is very important in what you're doing, right?

But we also want to comply with the law. If you have an apartment and you live there and you want to utilize the services of your apartment, Airbnb, we certainly want to encourage it. We are trying to get as much information out to the people who are filling out their applications of what they need to do prior to it.

Of course, we want an application that comes in, it fits the law, it complies, and we are pledging and we're doing a great job and a lot of… In making sure that it gets approved so that you can now utilize your apartment for that.

But if it's against the rules, you have an impact. You have an impact on the housing stock that we can utilize for other people that have housing. Now we spoke about people coming out of incarceration under the second chance that need housing, there are struggling with families that need housing. And we want to make sure that not an inordinate amount of housing rental gets off of the rental market.

In addition, if you're living next door to the illegal apartment and you have transit people coming back and forth, that presents another type of a perception of that the neighborhood is unsafe. So, we're trying to attack safety from various different areas; once again, it's not just your pickpocket, you're being pickpocketed, very important. It's not just your car being stolen, very important.

There's many other facets involved that goes behind these closed doors, and we're trying to just present a clearer picture of what we're doing there. So, that was a great presentation, Christian, and I appreciate it.

And certainly to the public, any questions that you have, make sure you contact us. We try to get as many ways as possible that you can contact us with your ideas or your questions or your suggestions and we will ensure that you get a timely response or to your concerns.

So, in addition to preserving our housing opportunities for New Yorkers through the Office of Special Enforcement, MOCJ also helps coordinate housing access for individuals involved in the criminal justice system. It is critically important for a person's safety, well‑being and stability for them to have housing as they transition out of jail or prison and back into the community.

And I just want to be clear about this before I introduce our next speaker. If the Department of Corrections, and I'm not talking about just in New York City, but across, it's supposed to correct. If you take someone and you put them in jail and they have to pay their debt to society. And they're not learned...they're not being learned a new skill, they're not being educated.

There's nothing, or we actually send out a far more dangerous criminal. You took them out of the element for one, two, three, four, five years, you didn't educate them. You didn't teach them a different skill, and now we put them back into the community.

And those are some of the things that we have to, so if we're going to have a correction, we need to correct the situation, and part of that is that when they come out, that if they don't have a place to stay, if they don't have a place, a mom, a dad, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a brother, a sister, husband, a wife, to come back and help them transition in, that's part of our responsibility as a city to ensure that we're giving them enough of a support for them to turn their life around.

And that's some of the things that go on doesn't go unnoticed. So, now we're about to hear from our Executive Director for Housing Initiatives Yolanda Johnson‑Peterkin. So, Yolanda, let's tell the public exactly what's going on as far as our efforts in this area.

Yolanda Johnson‑Peterkin, Executive Director, Housing Initiatives, Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice: Thank you so much for this opportunity. This is amazing opportunity, Deputy Mayor Banks. And thank you to Mayor Adams and to my Director, Director Logan and my peers on this panel and those behind the scene who makes this happen,  I'm very happy to be here.

Leading the efforts to allow people with justice history to land safely in our community after they have been released from jail and/or prison is an essential step in keeping our community safe. In response to Covid‑19 pandemic in April 2020, the city established an emergency reentry hotel to provide housing for people being released from jail and/or prison without a place to live at that time, at their time of release.

MOCJ partnered with Exodus Transitional Housing and Housing Works to provide holistic social services and medical care for people living in reentry hotels. This program has given people returning from incarceration a much needed sense of stability and has allowed hundreds of hotel residents to engage in vocational, educational, mental and physical health services throughout the process to obtain permanent housing.

In response to its measurable success, in November, 2021, the city increased funding for transitional housing for justice‑involved individuals. Fiscal year 2023, the city invested $57 million per year to provide approximately one thousand units of transitional housing administered by our partner networks of nonprofit organizations, a fraction of what it takes to keep someone in Rikers Island for a year.

MOCJ simultaneously worked with our justice partners to permanently house participants who were afforded the opportunity to get and maintain a housing subsidy, helping them through the federal government funding to pay a portion of their rent.

But as we know, sometimes it's always not good news. MOCJ found that citizens in our community sometimes, Deputy Mayor Banks, were hesitant to rent to individuals who had committed an offense in their past. But MOCJ took the helm and our justice partners helped create spaces so that we could inform, develop, train and use an opportunity called Open Minds Open Doors to inform our communities.

In a forum that was a series of networks opportunities to learn with landlords, with brokers, with community members, with students and with whoever else would come to the table to make sure that we're working for these marginalized populations, to give information about opportunities to renting with people with convictions or arrests in their past.

The aim was to change the hearts and minds of so many of those who are turning their lives around if we give them access to a successful foundation. We're talking about permanent housing.

Transitional housing fulfills the immediate need by giving people a safe place to live and access to other services following incarceration. This transitional housing initiatives draws on the success of other housing programs in New York City for justice‑involved populations. That justice‑involved population that demonstrate reductions in shelter use, jail use, inpatient hospitalizations and related medical costs and Medicaid costs and reduced substance abuse and/or misuse.

This effort is unprecedented and very successful with the help of our partners, the Fortune Society, Housing Works, [Cheryl], which is all the women, Samaritan Village.

In the past year alone, more than 200 formerly incarcerated people have been placed in permanent housing, and we are proud. Lastly, it is essential that we include vulnerable populations in our community. federal and state housing subsidies. Today, we are looking for ways to find permanent housing for those in our transitional units. Working with providers has been beneficial to both our city and to the participants providing stable, safe environments.

And that has taken a bite out of housing. That stability is exactly what you've asked us to do, Deputy Mayor Banks, to stabilize our community and make our public safe.

Deputy Mayor Banks: Thank you. And you know, just think about this for a second, to the public. Let's think about it for a second. The people that are coming out of jail, they're going someplace. I know it's easy to say any place but my neighborhood, but they're going someplace.

And the question is, do you want them to come someplace and give them at least a start that they now can become a contributor to society; other than that, they're just going to turn around and start doing some of the same things they did beforehand.

And I do know that it's almost natural to be hesitant about, I'm not renting to them nor do I want them in my neighborhood. But they're going somewhere. And you know what happens?  They deserve another chance. People make mistakes. And I actually think a big part of how you gauge the city is your ability to help the ones who need to help the most.

Now, are we going to have some of them that's going to repeat?  Absolutely, that's human nature. But the [fact] we increase our chances of these individuals, giving a second chance, learning, they learn, they say, hey, that's not the way I've made mistakes and I don't want to be a productive member of society.

So, unless you just think that people are born to be criminals — which I hope none of us, none of the public thinks that particular way — these are people who are down on their luck. And bad things happen to them, and bad things that happen to you and your particular family.

And we are only as good as what we do to help those who are less fortunate and get them back on the track. So, you know, y'all never get the credit you deserve because you're always behind the curtains, but I just want, you know, the public to know now and to learn more about MOCJ.

It's just that they have a direct impact, you know, on those individuals who come out and say, I have a place to live. And we can talk again about how they do job training and job development and going back to get their educations. That's all of that stuff that's done, you hear about? It's done primarily through MOCJ and the partners that they work with.

So, I like the fact that you gave those other people credit, because so many times people get up here and they'll say, well, we, we, we. But none of this happens, right, in a vacuum. None of this happens with just we, we, we. It's about what all of us are doing.

So, even though you're up here representing, there's a lot of other people, organizations, non‑for‑profits that's very much into the fabric of helping it out, and I just really want to say thank you on that.

So, last but not least, we have Hassan Naveed, who's the executive director of the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes. This has been a topic that has been at the front of a lot of people's minds recently. I would argue that it's a lot of our times, all of the time, I mean, hate crimes.

Not enough that you suffer that you're the victim of a crime, but you suffer it because of who you are, what you believe in, your religion, ethnicity and just various different reasons. I mean, I'm getting assaulted because I believe in this or I am this. And that's an extra trauma that's associated with just being the victim.

So, think about that. I was robbed and that's a traumatic experience, but I was robbed because of this. Or, somebody spit on me or punched me because of this here. And that is something that's been around for all too long. And I don't know whether or not, how to gauge making progress on it. I'm not one to ever cite statistics because once again, if you are the person that's the victim, statistics means nothing.

So, you'll never hear me, I mean, you rarely hear me cite statistics as a symbol of what we're doing well. Sometimes we have to use it as some type of a gauge to make sure we're going in the right direction. But what Hassan and his team does is that they educate.

I'm going to let him explain exactly what he does, but the question is, how do you prevent it from happening in the first place? Of course, when it happens we want the criminal justice system to arrest, we want them to go into a court, we want them to be able to pay their debt to society. But if you can just eliminate as much ignorance as you possibly can about these hate crimes, then you negate the fact that it happens again.

And before I turn it over to you, hate is taught. Nobody comes out of the womb understanding hate, like they are taught that, they are shown that and that's a symbol of society and you can gauge on how well society is doing by how much we don't teach them that particular hate that's taking place there.

So with that, I'd like to turn over to Hassan so he can tell us more about the work of his office, the Office of Prevention of Hate Crimes. And thank you for joining.

Hassan Naveed, Executive Director, Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes: Thank you so much, Deputy Mayor Banks, as well as Director Logan, my peers. And folks, thank you so much for joining this evening.

It's also the impact that relates to the community. It's that community trauma, right? That individual who's been victimized because of who and what they are and how that impacts the wider community, and that in itself doesn't necessarily need to have borders. It's not limited to New York, but it's a consciousness that's impacted.

And so, you know, before I get into my presentation, in just knowing that this topic is something that's on so many New Yorkers' minds, I really do want to reiterate again that it's important for folks that if they see, they witness, or they are a victim for what they believe is a hate crime to call 911.

If you believe that you are a victim of bias discrimination as it relates to the workplace, whatever it might be, you can call 311 and be connected to the city's Commission on Human Rights.

It's so important for folks to know what a hate crime is, and I'm just going to, before I get my presentation to also add that we've released a number of resources on what a hate crime is, what a bias incident is, in over 20 languages on our website. Please go and get that resource and share it with your partners, and that's at nyc.gov/stophate.

And so, what does the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes do? OPHC — as we are lovingly referred to in this acronym — is really part of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice and coordinates the city's response, a comprehensive response to hate crimes, bias incidents and discrimination.

For us to be able to work towards hate crime prevention, we also have to address the issues of bias, of discrimination and the other factors. And it's an intentional effort on part of bringing the city together collectively with agencies who may have not engaged with each other before on this particular topic, but to be able to come together and figure out how can we strategize best in addressing and combating these issues as a city in a collaborative, coordinated and consistent manner.

And so I'm going to talk about what that looks like shortly, and you'll kind of get an idea. of what and how these three pillars that are on your screen right now really work in tandem collectively but also really show the impact that this work is doing.

So, for us to be able to work towards addressing issues of these big ideas of hate, of bias, these things, it's really important for us to also look towards really cultivating strong community relations between communities in New York City. It's so important for us to be able to do so.

And we're fortunate to have in this administration under Mayor Adams, we're funding over 75 organizations that are doing hate crime prevention, hate crime response work throughout the city. And this is reflective of the various communities that are out there, right all the way from the Jewish communities, Muslim communities, LGBTQ communities. all the communities that are impacted at this moment.

And what does that look like, right? That looks like all the way from providing informational sessions in different languages to people on how to identify what a hate crime is, it's being out there in the streets after an incident happens and canvassing out there to be able to pass out information to ensure that we're collectively working on being able to make sure that we're keeping our community safe.

And among those, that's just one aspect of the various programming that comes out of it but it also includes Breaking Bread Building Bonds, which I'll get into shortly. And when I say comprehensive, we're including city interagency efforts, community collectively together.

We're looking outside of the regular systems that we have into place but also building out a much more stronger approach that brings collectively New York City public schools to the table, bringing the city's Commission on Human Rights to the table.

So on education, OPHC's been working on hate crime prevention workshops. At the onset of what's been going on, a lot of folks want to know the very basics of what the process looks like, what resources are available in communities, but also who can they engage within the various process in being someone who's been impacted by a hate crime as a victim or someone who's gotten trauma from as a community member itself.

There's also upstander intervention trainings that are done throughout the city as well. We want folks to know that there are ways to be able to intervene safely in being able to ensure that we are protecting and taking care of our communities and our neighbors as well.

And in the coming weeks, the Office of Prevention of Hate Crimes has been working on hate crimes lessons. And this is something that we've been working on with facing history and ourselves. It's part of the mandate of our office, but it's so important to be able to ensure that we provide information out there to all folks, whether it's in New York City public schools, it's in the public. We're going to make this public.

And knowing the basics of what a hate crime is, what a bias incident is, and also what the impact it has on communities and highlighting some important incidents that have happened here in New York City as well.

And getting into, again, I think we've heard it multiple times here ‑‑ and I think it's important to say it over and over again ‑‑ yes, there's strong collaboration, there's strong team effort. When it comes to our interagency committee, we have 22 organizations in all five DA's offices that are sitting on there, including the NYPD, right, figuring out ways on how to address various issues that are coming our way.

And we've done all the way from you've seen us at events to we've done workshops and how to be able to sign up for particular grants to get protections for your houses of worship.

And at the same time, all of our agencies worked collectively to take on a mayoral initiative, something that's so near and dear to Mayor Eric Adams, is Breaking Bread, Building Bonds. And that has been something that has, we had a goal that was set in January, 2023, and the mayor said he wanted 10,000 gatherings that brings small groups of people, different communities coming together to the table, and answering a question that really anyone can answer, something that shows that we really do have these bonds that bring us together.

And just one of the questions that really sort of ends up resonating with me is, what's one particular time that you felt uncomfortable? If you were to sit with that question and be able to engage in a facilitated way with other New Yorkers from different communities, is it just...you're seeing the pictures right now, whether it's different ages, different community groups, whether it's different, you know, different faith groups, whatever,  it might be coming together.

And so that goal was set, and we were fortunate to be able to hit that goal last year with the help of some phenomenal interagency partners. I just want to say the Community Affairs Unit under Commissioner Fred Kreizman has been vital to this. Assistant Commissioner Lamona Worrell who's been really good at really working towards engaging with communities on this.

We had Inspector Richie Taylor who's also been really important in being sure that we are engaging this at the youth level across the programs at the NYPD. And also many of the community organizations throughout the city itself that have really put their time in.

So, we hit a thousand, it's still going. It's become such a popular program because think about it for a second. This is a time for an individual to venture outside their usual social bubble and do the most basic thing, break bread, engage in a conversation, and really build that familiarity with each other that's so important for us to be able to collectively come together to combat some of those stereotypes and those biases out there.

There are folks who sat in rooms together who were asking some of the questions that some folks may not feel comfortable asking, but that space was made there to be able to get those questions answered.

And  so we look forward to continuing this program this year, Deputy Mayor Banks, and so we'll have more information as that comes. For all the stuff that we're working on You can visit our website at nyc.gov/stophate. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Banks: Listen, we have no losers. Hate has been around almost from the beginning of time. There's no losers here that we're going to solve the world's crisis, but we could actually, in New York City, do the best effort that we can do with your help to be able to combat that.

So, I appreciate you very much. I know you've been at this for a very, very long time and I know you actually believe it, and you know, you are making a difference out there. And I'd just like to say thank you.

So, with that, I guess this concludes our presentation today. If we have… 

Question: These days, you know, like the Arab community has a lot of hate crime. But you know, I think you have to depend on media like more than, you know, like website because, you know, with the one issue you have like thousands of people who can read it.

So, and you know, there is a lot of misinformation, a lot of, you know. So, just, we want to know like you know, in case of a hate crime happened, what the person should do or you know like the steps one by one, because you know, he didn't, if he had like hate crime, he didn't know what he do, 911, 311, or you know, if it I will have something after that I have a result after that, or just you know, it's a complaint and that’s it.

So, just we want to let people know if there is somebody hearing them, or somebody like, you know, asking for their demands, or what, you know, they can prevent like, you know, the hate crime.

Naveed: Absolutely, and you know, we know that those issues related to hate are something that are affecting South Asian, Arab, Muslim, Jewish communities across the country. And so we put a resource out there just in the last couple of, I guess about a month, that is in Arabic and that does provide you with the basic steps of what a hate crime is and what the process looks like and also within that who is in the process, right, when it goes over to the DA's office.

And we were fortunate to work with NYPD on this. And so that resource is available in Arabic. And we have gone to do some, we've gone out into communities to be able to pass that information out as well, and we use our community partners, the 75 organizations that include some Arab organizations, Jewish organizations, there's Muslim, all types of organizations to get this information out there. And I'm happy to share with that with you afterwards.

Question: And I think the mosques also, you know, church or mosques, also they play like, you know, a very… 

Naveed: Absolutely.

Question: ...big part in this.

Naveed: I want to say that because Pastor Gil Monrose, who's the mayor's advisor when it comes to faith, is very much plugged into the work that we do collectively. We really rely on our faith communities as well to get the information out there. And we have done it through the course of churches, mosques, synagogues, when it's been for protecting houses of worship and being able to apply for potential grants for protections, all the way to us being able to have NYPD come in and assist with any sort of security screening that may need to happen in that. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Banks: That was a good question. I appreciate it. I do concur that the media has a big responsibility here as we do as getting that information to them. But if you even suspect or feel that you were a victim of a hate crime, call 911, go into your local precinct. Just start there so that they can get the information, they can have enough to investigate it to determine exactly what happens.

And think of it this way, is that the person who committed the hate crime against you, he didn't do it just because of you, he did it because of something you represent, he or she will do it again. So, the fact that you report it, you give us an opportunity to apprehend this individual and maybe save a victim in the future as far as that's concerned. That's a very good question, and I appreciate it.

Thank you.

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