Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts Older Adult Town Hall

May 7, 2025

Watch video here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEEx_CMLB8U

Mayor Eric Adams: And Rockaway, I think it's no secret that when I was a little boy I had a good friend that lived out here. You know, so listen, the team and I, we have been doing these town halls. What's the number one? Who knows the number we're up to? Twenty-three. Twenty-three older adults town halls because it was important to me to get on the ground and speak with you directly on what we're doing. 

Because if you were to pick up the papers you would feel as though this is a city in chaos, we're not doing anything. So let me just give you an analysis. January 1st, 2022, when I became the mayor of this great city, we were hemorrhaging jobs. Crime was soaring. Tourism was gone. There was something called COVID. Many people don't remember that at the time. Our children were not unable to know if they should go to school or not. We were not investing in foster care. We were not investing in NYCHA facilities. There were a host of things that were going on. And people told me, Eric, it's going to take you five years to turn the city around. Five years. 

Let me tell you what happened in two and a half years. We broke employment records. We have more jobs in our city in the city history. We decreased unemployment over the whole city. But in the black and brown community, we decreased unemployment by 20 percent. We invested in foster care children. 6 to 700 age out every year. They slip through the cracks, homelessness, mental health issues, victims of crime, participating in crime. We pay their college tuition, give them a life coach until they'rea 21, and give them a stipend as they attend school. We were finding that many of our young people that are on Rikers Island right now, they had learning disabilities. In general, but specifically dyslexia, like I am dyslexic. 

We are now doing dyslexia screening in every school to make sure that our children don't have to believe that they're dumb. They just learn differently. They don't end up in a correctional facility because of that. We are now giving free high-speed broadband to all NYCHA facilities. Because when I was borough president, we were giving out masks and PPEs to NYCHA developments and facilities. We learned that they didn't have high-speed broadband. Children were not able to do remote education. Parents were not able to do telemedicine. So now we're doing it for free, for free. 

We developed more housing in year one and year two. We're going to do it again in the third fiscal year in individual years in the history of the city. We moved more people out of shelters into permanent houses in those years in the history of the city. We had more people get subsidized housing through FHEPS vouchers in the history of the entire program. 

Decreasing crime on our subway system. You know we have 4.6 million people that use our subways every day. 4.6 million. Out of those 4.6 million, we have five felonies a day. Out of 4.6 million, police officers are working hard. Took 21,500 illegal guns off our street. The last quarter that we just experienced was the lowest number of shootings in recorded history in the city. Second lowest number of homicides. We took off 80,000 illegal vehicles off the street. You know those little mopeds that's all over the place? We took them off. Took off ghost cars off our streets. Make sure those three wheelers that were harassing you, we removed off our streets. And we did it when we had to deal with 230,000 migrants and asylum seekers. 

Everyone was stopping me on the street. Eric, what are you doing to us? No one realized that I couldn't stop buses from coming in. That was against federal law. I couldn't even allow our migrants and asylum seekers to work. That was against federal law. A group of migrants and asylum seekers came to me and said, hey, can we clean the streets, remove graffiti, and just get a stipend? Federal government said, no, you cannot even do that, Eric. 

So they told me by city law, I had to house, feed, clothe, give, educate 40,000 children incorporated into our system. It cost us $7.5 billion. And I still had to make sure I settled all of my union contracts for city employees. Make sure we had a fiscal cliff of a lot of the programs that we had in place. They were sunsetted because the COVID dollars ran out. I had to make sure we protect those programs, keep our libraries open, making sure we have Summer Youth Employment, 100,000 Summer Youth Employment. It's never done before in the history of this city. 110,000 Summer Rising. Our children are going to school all year round. 

We are leading the state in reading and math while children. We've changed the math and reading to a phonics-based reading. And we're leading the state in reading and math with our children. We are teaching our children. We're teaching them meditation, breathing exercises. We changed the food in their schools so they won't be feeding their health care crisis. We're opening up seven more new schools that's teaching our children the health industry, artificial intelligence, and all these other new job-related focus that are taking place. 

So when you do an analysis, and some of those wins are on the sheet, but when you do an analysis of the wins, you would never believe that from what you read. Never. We've turned this city around, folks. And our investment out here in Rockaway has been unprecedented. I've been out here in Rockaway more than any other man in the history of this city. Partnering with Selvena Brooks-Powers, your council person. Partnering with Donovan Richards, your borough president, and what we're doing out here. 

Fighting for you to have a trauma center because you should not have to go all the way to Jamaica Hospital or go outside the community to get the help that you need. And it's been three years and four months, folks. And in spite of when I fought for you, I had to deal with the federal government coming after me. I didn't stop. I didn't say, woe is me. I got up every day. I put my left foot on the ground, my right foot on the ground, and I stood up. And I continued to fight for the city that I wore bulletproof vests for for 22 years as a police officer. I'm you. I'm you. Don't let anybody kid you. I'm that grandson. I'm that son. I'm that uncle. I'm that cousin. I'm a blue-collar, working-class mayor. And there's never been a blue-collar, working-class, public school, dyslexic mayor in the history of this city. 

So do we get it all right? No, we don't. Do I make mistakes? Yes, I do. Did I trust people I should not have trusted? Yes, I did. You don't reach 65 years old and don't get disappointed by the people in your lives. If any of you have not been disappointed by people in your life, then please let me know, because I have. And you know what I'm forging ahead? 

This morning, I got a text from my brother to call me. He says, Eric, we lost Sandra, my oldest sister. Sandra raised us, all five of us. She lost her childhood because Mommy was doing three jobs. And she didn't have the childhood that other young girls do. She taught me how to tie a tie, how to dance, how to cook, how to sew, how to hem my pants. And in spite of that pain, you know where I am? 

I'm fulfilling my obligations. I'm here. Because I have a job to do. My personal strategies can't get in the way of delivering for this city. And I said that when I swore and took an oath. And I'm living up to that every day. And I saw what they did to David Dinkins. I saw how they didn't give him any credit for safe cities, safe streets. I saw how when he was turning the economy around, no one gave him the support. I saw how they made sure to do everything possible to appear to him. [Audio drop.]

And I have shown you that in spite of all that came at me, COVID, migrants, federal assault, out of all of that, I forged ahead. And so I know that some of you, I walk into this room, some of you, and I can look at your faces, and you say, well, you have not been perfect, Eric. You know what? I'm perfectly imperfect. But I'm dedicated. I have delivered for this city. And we'll open the floor to you right now. Any questions? And we don't filter what your thoughts are. We want to hear from you. I will answer any question that you have to the best of my ability. And if we don't have the answer, our team is here. We'll get the answers for you. So why don't we start with the first table? How are you, sir?

Question: Mayor? Let me, as a military man– 

Mayor Adams: Thank you for your service. 

Question: Okay. I, Raymond Daughtry, and I have a statement that I want to read, and I know you're going to respond to it. New York City legal department exists to protect us, the taxpaying citizens that want to go about their normal challenge of living in the Big Apple. What happened to the old baseball proverb, three strikes and you're out? It appears that in New York City, three strikes, five strikes, 10 strikes, 15 strikes, 17 strikes, and you're still not out. Locked up. 

For the most part, the Police Department, they do their job, arrest those who break New York City laws. The next step in a legal process is a problem. The accused, once detained, determined to be guilty, go before a judge for the penalty phase of the process. The judge had before him/her, the accused's penalty history that should determine if there exists a threat to New York City citizens before a verdict is rendered. In parenthesis, robbery, pushed off a subway platform, attack with a knife, traffic violations, and etc. 

If the accused's profile shows a history of being convicted 5 times, 10 times, 12 times, 15 times, a threat to New York citizens exists. The question is, as a New York citizen, where is my protection? We all know that there's no such thing as 100 percent of anything in life, but we can do better. Thank you. 

Mayor Adams: Thank you so much. I wish, Benny, Benny, first of all, we need to post that. Sir, I hope we caught all of that, because you are 100 percent right. And here's the problem. The criminal justice system has three components. Police officers that apprehend people who commit a crime. We have the judiciary that determines the sentence, the trial, and carry out the procedures. You have the prosecutors, and you have our lawmakers, something that is often ignored. And in this city, we have been fighting to bring down crime, which we have done. 

But we need to go further. And I say this over and over again when I'm talking to my lawmakers. Whose side are you on? That's my question. Because we have a revolving door judiciary system. We just took down a group of gang members who did 20 robberies. Some of them were arrested 8 and 9 times. They were back out on the street doing robberies again. A police officer was shot two weeks ago off-duty. The individuals, two of them who shot him, they were arrested 10 times. 

The grandmother who was shot in Harlem, when she was in the beauty salon and she stepped out to check on her grandchild, she was shot in the head. The person who shot her, last year he stabbed two people in a robbery. So you hear all of these electeds advocating for people who commit a crime. My question to them, who's advocating for the people who are the victims of crimes? What are we doing for the victims? Our Victim Compensation Board, I believe we should pass a law in Albany that if you're a victim, the primary breadwinner in the household, if that person is lost, we need to compensate them. Because the whole house has lost their foundation. I don't know what I would have done if my mother would have been a victim of a crime. We would have lost her. Who's going to pay the mortgage? 

We throw people in perpetual poverty when someone is a victim of a crime. We need to be more protective of a victim of criminal behavior. One, I agree with you. Albany must look at the reforms that they did that is making it easier for people to come out of jail. And here's what we're about to do, folks. Here's what we're about to do. We are about to close Rikers, right? Build four more jails. The jails, when they first made this decision in 2021, the jails were going to cost us $8 billion. 

Now it's going to cost us $16 billion. But in addition to that, we have a population of 73, 7,400 people on Rikers Island. The four more jails that they're building are only going to house around 4,600 people. So this is not common sense. We need to make sure our lawmakers have the stronger laws. We need to make sure our judges are holding people accountable and not just allowing them to get back on our streets. And we need to talk to the City Council and say, let's stop making these laws that allow innocent people to be the victim of a crime. 

I'm 100 percent with you. And we need to go to those other parts of the criminal justice system and make sure they're doing their job. Our police officers are doing their job and going after those dangerous people on our streets. I think you're 100 percent right. And I want to post your letter so hopefully they will read it. How are you, ma'am?

Question: Thank you, Honorable Mayor, for your service to New York City. Thank you. My name is [Diana Capers,] who lives in this facility. Growing up in this city and aging causes a lot of things. One is the loss of health and mobility. The streets are in utter disrepair. We pay a lot of money in auto insurance, maybe the highest in the nation. And you can't drive your car without falling into a hole, a trench, locking your front end up, breaking your axle. I'm talking about real decay in a way that I've never seen. 

From Seagirt Boulevard all the way down to Beach right where the ramp, the ramp is in disrepair to the point that you can't bike across it. It's hazardous for it to be a merge where people are coming off the highway at 50, coming into a street that's riddled and then bouncing around and losing control. I've experienced it a few times, nearly hitting the rail. We need a lot of street service over here. And not to mention the crosswalk where vulnerable seniors with their walkers cannot cross safely without tripping and falling and harming themselves. I would like to see something done right away.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you very much. You were defining parts of the car like you were a mechanic, you know? You knew all those parts, you know? She says she stays in the auto shop a lot. And you're right. And particularly out here because of the salt water, the amount of repairs need to be kept up to date. And we were looking and continue to look at better ways and better asphalt. We're using the same system over and over again. And, you know, when you drop the snow, the ice down, it also plays an impact. But DOT can, okay, DOT is one of the favorite agencies. You get so many questions, right?

Nicole Garcia, Queens Borough Commissioner, Department of Transportation: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Nicole Garcia, and I'm the Queens Borough commissioner for New York City DOT. So what we do every year, and we were recently in the Rockaways, we have a resurfacing program. Citywide we tend to resurface about 1,000 lane miles per year. We tend to be in the Rockaways in the early spring because we want to be in and out before beach season. We know a lot of people are heading out east and then also, you know, to the famous beaches of Rockaway. 

If there are particular locations, we're happy to take them back to the team. But in the interim, what we do when we're not paving is we have pothole crews that canvass the city. This is a 365-day operation. We tend to get to them. If they are reported to 311, we tend to get to them in under three days. 

There's also some places in the road where maybe there's some undermining. So we work very, very closely with our counterparts at DEP to make sure that there's no, you know, water or undermining of the roadway. We are actually doing that on Beach 20th right near the hospital. DOT went in and did some resurfacing. But my understanding is DEP is actually doing some sewer work in the unpaved portion. We were just there, I think, like two weeks ago. And we'll be coming back to top that off. 

So we're always happy to take recommendations. Again, it's an all-season, you know, we're always out addressing potholes. But if we can't, if it needs more work, we can come back next year and do the curb-to-curb. 

With regard to crosswalks, a thousand percent agree with you. Those are our sacred spaces for everyone from our seniors to our school children. So we were, we redid Seagirt Boulevard several years ago installing a pedestrian safety project. We did a lot of, you know, there was a bike lane, traffic calming, et cetera. And since implementation, we actually saw a drop in pedestrian injuries by 26 percent. But if there are particular crosswalks around this development, I'm happy to come back, do a little mini walkthrough with you, and we'll get our pothole crew out to address those. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Now, we're doing some, is it DOT or Aging? Who's doing the walkthrough with our seniors? Okay, why don't you explain that program that we're doing?

Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, Department for the Aging: The mayor created a cabinet for older New Yorkers where he brought together 27 city agencies, which is now law, right? So that we could have a plan for the city for older adults. So that every agency, even though it's not the Department for the Aging, somehow interacts with older adults. One of the first things that happened in probably town hall number two, and today we're at 23, one of the things that happened was this whole idea of things going on at DOT but without the input of the older adults. 

And as part of the pedestrian commitment, the mayor said, okay, how are we going to address this? So DOT, a great sister agency, a brother agency, Commissioner's boy, it came up with these ideas of creating teams of older adults who go in communities and basically give information to the engineers before they start making any traffic calming devices, the balls they put, all of those things. And so what we could do is think about a team to come out here and look at what things you would need. They look at the lights, should they be 30 seconds, 40 seconds, whatever it is. But it's to inform the engineers as to what the public needs, what the older adult needs. But that came as a result of his creating this cabinet that he never talks about that is really an amazing thing.

Mayor Adams: So what we do, we walk around with you and see it through your eyes. Because if you're using a walker, like I see here, if you're trying to move around a curve cut problem, an uneven sidewalk, we need to see it through the eyes of the participants. So let's coordinate and do a walk through, particularly here in the area where you have the older adults. Great, great question. Where am I? Over here, sir.

Question: I'm living in Far Rockaway, but I'm 65 years already, and Far Rockaway wasn't like this. Now, you walk around Mount Avenue in Far Rockaway, all the small shops are there, all garbage. They cannot plant anything on the street.  You cannot be safe.

Mayor Adams: Lower your mic a little. There you are.

Question: Nowhere you go, you can be safe. Because Far Rockaway, now you go, there's a park in Far Rockaway, Mott Avenue. They wash their face. They wash everything in the water fountain. All garbage is around. All the smoking in the street. You cannot be safe nowhere. So how can we do that?

Mayor Adams: So who I got from the – what's up, Captain? How are you? First, sometimes when we see things, we get overwhelmed by those things. You know, I've been coming out of Rockaway a long time, a long time. And this precinct is doing well. We need to look at those areas that you're talking about. Can we talk about that, captain? Where's that shelter located? Just introduce yourself, captain.

Captain George Ng, Commanding Officer, 101 Precinct, Police Department: Good afternoon. Again, I'm Captain George Ng, Commanding Officer of the 101 Precinct. Mott Avenue has been a focus for us since forever. Yes, and I'm actually happy to announce that NYPD just recently created the Quality of Life Commission. The 101 Precinct is the only precinct in Queens that has been named as one of the six pilot commands. 

I can confidently tell you that we are very focused on quality of life issues. Anything that comes over 311, we are responding at a rate that has never been seen before. We're down over 38 percent since inception of this pilot program. 

I do urge any quality of life complaints, non-emergency, please call 311. Please notify us via 311. And that's the way we can help monitor and engage it. Unfortunately, with the new laws, smoking is not a crime anymore. It's not something that we can enforce on public streets like we used to. But if there's something that's a police matter or a police emergency, please let us know.

Mayor Adams: And I smell reefer everywhere. Everybody is smoking. I'll come to you, brother. We're going to finish table, but I'll come to you before we leave. Everyone is smoking. I was walking down the block the other day. I noticed this brother was on his way to preach a sermon. I looked at him. I said, man, you got a joint, you know. Everybody is getting high. 

Now, we closed 1,500 illegal cannabis shops. 1,500 illegal cannabis shops, we closed, you know. Millions of dollars. It was unbelievable what was in some of those cannabis shops. But the commissioner put in place a 1,500-person unit. Every precinct is going to have a quality-of-life person assigned group, officers. 

In addition to fighting crime, they're going to deal with quality-of-life issues, you know. Abandoned cars, people loitering, all those quality-of-life issues, as the captain said, call 311. Because now we are monitoring all of those 311 calls. Because we brought down crime, but you must feel safe to match the success we've done in bringing down crime. 

Those type of issues is what we're going after, and that's what this new unit, this quality-of-life unit is going to do. So we're with you. So let's look at that park and by the shelter, particularly around shelters. You get a lot of loitering. You got to stay on top of that because we don't want people to feel unsafe in their community. Alright?

Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, Community Affairs, Police Department: One point I want to bring up that I spoke about earlier. You don't have to wait for the mayor to get here to talk about your concerns. This is the captain. Go meet him. Meet him and tell him that your concerns. See, this is what we're trying to eliminate, that you go home and you don't feel safe at an area, here’s who you should talk to. Go right to the precinct. Yes, yes.

Mayor Adams: And our community affairs. Talk about your community affairs first.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Our community affairs cops, too. We're here to help you. You don't have to wait until the mayor is here. We can take care of these problems. Somebody approached you with a situation, and I walked in the door. I'm going to take care of it today. So do not feel like you have to do the situation, especially with the police. Go right there. You can. 

Mayor Adams: Yeah. That's a good thing. This is one of the initiatives that Commissioner Stewart, brother, I'm going to get to you. I'm going to finish the tables, and I'm going to come back over to you. I'm not going to forget you. We're going to get to you. 

This is one of the initiatives that Commissioner Stewart did. In every precinct, there is a older adult representative. So you don't have to try to navigate the complexities of things like you're talking about now. This is your older adult representative. So you all should know how to reach him. You should know how to contact him. He's there to make sure that you don't have to try to figure out the complexities of government and all that bureaucracy that comes with it. So know who he is. And this is what we find out often. 

There's so many resources that are available that we leave on the table. You need to know the resources that are available. You need to know about SCRIE and DRIE and SNAP benefits. You need to know about free tax prep that we pay for free. You need to know about reduced fare MetroCard. You may have a child that's looking for Summer Youth Employment. You need to know how to sign up. So there's a lot of resources the city has that we don't take full use of. 

We send so much resources back to the federal and state government because people don't take use of them. You should take use of everything that your tax dollars pay for. So know Dominic. If there's an issue where you think dealing with the quality of life, raise your hand, Dominic. Alright? And the other community affairs officers that's here. 

Question: My name is [Martha Cordo.] I've been living in Far Rockaway for eight years now. I wanted to ask you a question about affordable housing. Affordable housing, you need to make $68,949 a year or $27,000. We can't afford that.

Mayor Adams: Yeah. There are, for affordable housing, there are income levels. And we want low income and moderate income. Because if you only do low income, you're going to miss that teacher. You're going to miss that firefighter. You're going to miss that accountant. So we have to do moderate also. But you also want to do low income, which we have been doing. 

We have put $25 billion into our housing plan. And as I shared with you, the big problem we were having, we have a 1.4 percent vacancy rate, really functionally zero. So we have to build more. That's why we passed the City of Yes. Every neighborhood needs to build a little more housing. We have 59 community boards in the city. Out of those 59, 10 of them were building more housing than the other 49 combined. All the pushback. Every time we want to do a new housing development, you know, everybody that says housing is a right, they're the first to stand up and say, well, it's not a right on my block. Let's do it somewhere else. No. 

Everyone needs to build a little bit more housing. And that's what we have done. We have broken records on the amount of housing that we have built. And we want low income and moderate income. And the reason, when you go to Housing Connect, folks are saying, Eric, we go to Housing Connect and we can't get enough, you know, housing. It's because when we build units, we had a unit that we built in the Bronx. It must have been about 600, 700 units. We were getting 30,000, 40,000 applicants because there was not enough housing. 

We're building more now to make sure that everyone can have an opportunity to get housing. And we're doing low income also. Some of our projects are extremely low income, but we have to do moderate income as well. Thank you. Make sure we don't forget this brother when we finish up. 

Question: Hello, Mr. Mayor. So the table number five here, they wanted, they're shy. But they did have a question. And the question was, how can we get more police presence as crime is increasing in their community? They want more police presence.

Mayor Adams: I love when I get those questions. Because I tell people all the time, people who want to defund and disband our Police Department, people who say we need to get rid of our police department, I tell people all the time, I have not been to one forum, not to one older adult center, not to one community group, but people say we don't want our police. So who are they talking for? All those folks that are saying disband our police department, don't bring on more police officers, who are they speaking for? Because they're not speaking for you. We hear this all the time. We want more police here. Captain, how are we doing in our manpower here?

Captain Ng: Thank you for that question. I'm actually very happy to announce that we're going to get 20 brand-new officers tomorrow from the class that is graduating. And, yes, Mott Avenue, back to your question, ma'am. Mott Avenue, they're going to be placed on Mott Avenue for a majority of the Summer. And going forward, you'll see a lot more police presence on Mott Avenue. So any concerns when you're out there, please approach the officers and speak with them.

Mayor Adams: Love that. Love that. Love that. So, I don't know who raised the question over there, but obviously you heard them. And so, ma'am, you're going to see the presence you're talking about on Mott Avenue, okay? 

New police officers are coming here. We are bringing on, I believe, 4,000 are coming on. We're bringing in a large number of new classes. We're trying to get to 35,000 by 2026. We're online to do that. We modified the rules to be appointed as a police officer. And you're seeing that we're getting a great deal of interest. Young men and women are now being excited about being in the department. And what you're seeing that I like the most, you're seeing diversity. Diversity, you know? 

You're seeing people come from all walks of life, Russian-speaking, African-American, Asian police officers. I was just at an event yesterday with Arab officers. You're seeing diversity in the department. The department is now reflecting the diversity of the city. I don't think you've ever had a captain of Asian descent here before. You know? And it just sends the right message when you see that diversity in our department. Yes, ma'am, how are you? 

Question: I'm fine.

Mayor Adams: I didn't say how you look. 

Question: First of all, I want to say we're very sorry about hearing about your sister. And God is willing and he is able. 

Mayor Adams: Yes, yes he is.

Question: I am standing here speaking for our seniors. And I wanted to know, what are we going to do about these cuts? You understand the social security, Medicaid? We need Medicaid. We need our social security. Because if, God forbid, something happens today or tomorrow, and we cannot afford cuts. So we want to know if you can help us and how do we get through that?

Mayor Adams: Well said. And I assume you're talking about on a federal level, the cuts. Because talk about the cuts. We held our adult daycares, I mean our adult centers, [inaudible]. From, you know, your food, delivery, all of those areas, we were very clear. And it was a challenge, folks. Let me tell you something. You know, we were dealing, we had a $7.5 billion with a B hole in our budget. And we had to look and see what we were going to hold harmless. And our adult centers and our adult programs are places that we said we're going to hold harmless from those cuts. And there's a lot of challenges and a lot of things we have to fight for in D.C. As we always have to do to make sure Medicare and these other programs stay in place. And that's what we're going to continue to do so. 

EOs have been, executive orders have been sent down. We don't know the results of them. There's been rumors of them. But we're going to continue to fight here as a city and a state to make sure we get our resources. Particularly for what goes into our older adult population. Okay?

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Yeah, I want to emphasize that, sir. I don't know what you're doing it as. We were at the point of losing $102 million for older adult clubs. And this mayor said no. And as a result, we saved 80 older adult clubs. So that is what commitment is talking about. It's $102 million. We'll put back into the aging budget so that we would not be able to close older adult centers. And this mayor did that.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you. Where are we?

Question: Yes, my name is [Lynn Hardy.]

Mayor Adams: How are you, Lynn?

Question: I'm fine, thank you. I would like to talk about the rent increase. Because every time I turn around, the rent is going up more and more. And sometimes they said with the heat, that if the weather goes up to 60, the heat is cut off. When it goes down, the heat still don't come back on. So a lot of people is complaining about the heat as well. But the rent is outrageous.

Mayor Adams: I think one of the greatest philosophers of our time said, the rent is too [] high. So I agree. And I assume you're talking about an affordable housing? Rent Stabilized housing? 

Question: Stabilized housing. Because I live in Ocean Park.

Mayor Adams: Okay. So each year, the rent guideline board get together to determine what the increases are on the rent. They are looking, they're presenting 7 point something percent. And we have made it clear that it's too high. And we're going to fight like heck to bring it down to the appropriate levels and independent board. But we're going to fight with other advocates and say, renters are struggling. 

We need to, this is a renter city. We need to bring it down to a level that's respectable, particularly for small property owners. If you're a small property owner and you own an 18 unit house, a building, or 12 unit building, all of your wealth is in there. Everything is going up around them. The water bill is going up. The heating cost is going up. The electric is going up.

Question: Section 8, they said, oh, it's a freeze on it. So you can't even get that now.

Mayor Adams: Who's HPD? We have a freeze on it? Yeah, I'm not aware of that. Do you know something that I don't know? Do we have a freeze on Section 8's vouchers? Now, I'm not aware of a freeze on them. But one thing I do know, we have thousands of vouchers out there that people can't get housing for. 

Because we don't have the inventory for them to get the housing. That's why this circle of when folks are in one building in their community, people are walking around with vouchers. I think we have about 10,000 vouchers that people are walking around with in their hands. And they can't get housing for because we don't have the inventory for it. But I don't know if there's a freeze. But we're checked. And why there's a reason.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: The other thing is that if a landlord doesn't take your voucher, our Department for Consumer Affairs and Human Rights will work with you to make sure that that landlord takes the voucher. That's really important to all of us also.

Mayor Adams: You can't discriminate if a person has a voucher. You can't be discriminated. Where am I? Who's doing the question over there?

Question: Condolences on your sister. It's hard for you to be here today with us. Thank you. We had multiple questions regarding the safety and police presence. One of the major questions that actually we came up here is about Internet in this building. Given that the spectrum took out the cell phone line, now their prices are a little too high. And they would like reconsideration. And also, they have something to add for you specifically.

Question: My question is… Could you please clarify why the community rooms in building 1925 are closed? And they are not open. They used to be like a storage room. And another question. In the waiting room downstairs, the waiting area, there's no chairs for seniors who is waiting something. And nobody wanted to help them. They were standing and waiting and suffering. And when we asked somebody for the security to give the chair, because it's very hard to stay and wait in the ambulance, they said it's not our problem, we cannot do this. Can you help us?

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: We’ll look into that, and I will work with the local older adult club to see what the issue is so that we can address it. Whether it's a building issue, whether it's something that the community room can do, we'll look into that.

Mayor Adams: So just make sure we get the contact over there at the table. Alright?

Question: I wanted to say great thanks and appreciation to the old social workers and the leader. Who provide the great range of social activity for the seniors.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Okay. Okay. So we're going to look into that. My person is going to get your information so we can follow up on that, okay?

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: And the elder adult director just said she'll handle it.

Mayor Adams: Hold on. Grab her information, okay? Oh, you know her. Okay, good. That's a good thing. Ma'am, we're going to meet with management and find out. You know, little things matter. You know, little things matter. 

We're going to come over to the table. I'm going to get to this brother, then I'm going to get to you guys. So I want to make sure that we go through the table flow. Then I'll come back and get you.

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor. How are you? I'm doing well. My name is Lizzie. I'm speaking for my wonderful table. I know you guys already touched on this a little bit. But they wanted to ask, what is the city doing to prevent city social services and benefits from being cut or eliminated?

Mayor Adams: And that was what the commissioner was talking about. Our goal is to do just that. As we knew we had a huge deficit in our budget. Imagine being many of you like many of our older adults on fixed income. If something tragic happens, you know, like you were saying with your car, if you have car insurance, something tragic happens, you want to go to your insurance company. That is how the city is run. We have a fixed budget. And that budget is used to pay for our cops, our teachers, our older adult centers, all of those things. 

So when something happens that gut that budget, sometimes we'll lose a million dollars because of a major issue. Sometimes we'll lose $5 million. But when you lose $7 billion with a B, that comes out of your budget. And Washington was supposed to be our insurance, and what they said, we're not taking your claim. 

So we were stuck with finding $7 billion with a B. And so some of the cuts we had to do, we had no other choice. But we minimized them for those issues like our older adults, our children, our law enforcement, our hospitals. 

We wanted to minimize that so that it won't have the impact, but we still had to find $7 billion. And so we want to minimize those cuts, we don't want to do those cuts. That's not the budget I want. We had a budget where we could have put great resources. And we did. We were able to do some successful things like drop the cost of child care and investing in our libraries and cultural institutions. But at the same time, we had to find efficiencies in all our various agencies. Where am I?

Question: Good afternoon. I'm [Natalie Robinson Arnold.] I am a graduate student intern at the Department of Aging. And before I start, I would like to thank you for your keen and continuous interest in our older adults. Thank you. Thanks a lot. From this table, some of the buildings in this community oftentimes do not have heat. What can be done to address this?

Mayor Adams: Heating your apartment is the law. It's by law. There's a certain temperature, a certain time of the year, and a certain temperature outside that should determine your heat. And if you don't have heat, you call 311, an inspector will go out, and an inspector will make sure that that landlord is held accountable. 

So everyone should know of the number to call if there's a heating problem because the landlords are required to have heat at a certain level during the Summer months and during the Winter months. So everyone should know the number to call if you have any heating complaint. An inspector will come out and assure. 

Question: Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. My name is Verna Harris. I hear you make many statements about building more affordable housing. However, I never hear you say anything about building housing for senior citizens. 

Now, you have many senior citizens who lives in a one-room unit that includes their refrigerator, their stove, their bed, their everything, and a small bathroom that has a tub. As you know, many senior citizens, we have limited mobility. And to step in and out of the bathtub, it creates a safety hazard for us. So my question is to you, what do you plan to do about building senior citizen housing that will consist of one bedroom and a walk-in shower?

Mayor Adams: My apologies if my definition of affordable housing gives the impression that we're not talking about senior housing, because we are. We have a major project that we're doing in Manhattan at Elizabeth Street Garden, and it's a big fight. because people tell me instead of building 100 percent of senior housing, that I should leave the garden there in place. 

These are the types of battles that we're having all over the city. So you're right, senior housing is crucial, and at the right income level, and at the right accommodations inside, and this is what we have been fighting for, to make sure we do affordable housing and to build senior housing and veteran housing. This is the type of housing that we believe we need in the city. Do we have any, HPD, are you familiar with any projects that we're doing around senior housing?

Kevin Parris, Director, Queens and Staten Island Planning, Department of Housing, Preservation, and Development: No problem, hi everyone, again, Kevin Parris, I'm the director for Queens and Staten Island at HPD. So I just wanted to start off and piggyback off of the mayor. All affordable housing built across the city is also available for seniors, and I understand the question of having developments specific for seniors, and I will get to that in a second. 

We have our universal design guidelines that make all of our units adaptable and available for seniors at all of the bedroom number sizes. What I also want to do is talk about, we also have our ability to retrofit apartments, and part of the key in HBD is preservation, so we don't only develop, we also reserve existing units and make them more usable for new tenants that come in. And in this community specific, we do have a couple of projects that's coming online within the next year or two that's specific for seniors. HBD, we have a number of different programs that's available for different types of developments that we're creating, and we do have a program that's specific for seniors. It's called our SARA program, and that's specifically for the development of senior housing in the various communities across the city. 

We have two projects that's going to be coming online in about the next two years, for a total of about 260 senior dedicated units across the two projects. And I would tell everyone that's looking to get into these senior developments to go onto our Housing Connect. When these projects come online, it will be advertised and made available through the community board and through the centers just like this, so folks can apply and have a chance to get into those developments.

Mayor Adams: So it's big for us. It's big for us, and although we build specifically senior housing, but seniors also can apply for non-senior housing. We don't say that if you're your age, you can't apply for it. So we're dealing specifically with senior housing, but in addition to that, you can apply for the non-senior housing.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: And then in addition to that, every new development has to be designed with a universal design, so that older adults, children, people with disabilities, and all other people can navigate those apartments. 

Question: Well, I'm not seeing that in Far Rockaway. Maybe it's being built in some other areas. I'm speaking about Far Rockaway, because this is where I live.

Mayor Adams: And so here's what we were saying. That's why City of Yes was important, because there were many communities that were not building their share of affordable housing and senior housing. City of Yes rezoned the entire city, and we said we need to build a little more over the whole city, so that we can build that type of housing in Far Rockaway that you're talking about. Thank you. 

Question: My name is-

Mayor Adams: Look at you hijacking the mic.

Question: Because my name is Joyce. Okay. I lived in Rockaway a long time. But when y'all say affordable housing for seniors and people with disability, they're not affordable, because they know the seniors and the disability, they only get a certain check once a month. And without that check, they got to buy their food, do their laundry, and all that stuff. I don't see it, and I have never seen it.

Mayor Adams: Okay. And as I shared earlier when someone else raised that question, we have to build based on income bands, because the affordability issue, folks, is hurting everybody. Don't, if I have a school teacher and an accountant with four children, they're hurting. 

We lost– almost 200,000 people left this city of middle income that are hurting. If you work in McDonald's and Burger King, you and your husband and wife full time, do you know your salary reaches the point where you can't afford, you don't fall into the low income range anymore? So we have to build, and we have to have affordability levels to hit low income and modern income. If you don't, you're going to have a city of only one level, and we can't have that.

Question: And then when y'all build these houses, y'all want to put the seniors up on the high floor. To me, that should only go as high as the fourth floor.

Mayor Adams: But some seniors are saying, listen, man, don't put me on the fourth floor. I want a view. Yeah, well, that's true. You may want the fourth floor. I don't want the view. You may want the fourth floor.

Question: If that elevator breaks down, I don't want to have to try to lock my food upstairs, my laundry upstairs. 

Mayor Adams: I got you.

Question: No, but the seniors and the disabled, if you get one check and it's only a certain amount- Sister, I agree.

Mayor Adams: That's why we have to build on different income levels. But, you know, I like what the sister says that she wants to be on the fourth floor. Let me tell you something about New York, folks. Let me tell you something about New York. 

We have 8.5 million people, and we have 35 million opinions. New York is, man, New York is, boy, they- Some would tell you they want this. Another would tell you they want that. You know, New York is something else, you know. Go ahead, brother. You said we're going to come back to you.

Question: It's an in-house issue. It's a safety issue. My intercom for an emergency, when I press it, nobody responds. And I know I'm not the only one that has that problem. And they need to check. 

Mayor Adams: The intercom. So add that to the list when we speak with the management. 

Question: Okay. Yes. No one responded. I pressed it today, nobody responded.

Mayor Adams: We're going to speak with management about that. There was another somebody else that I said we're going to come back to. 

[Crosstalk.]

Question: I sent them to have my rent frozen and they refused me. If it's possible, will you please look into it? Because my check, my rent is catching up with my check.

Mayor Adams: Got it.

Question: Every year it goes up and I don't know why they refused me on the freeze. Please check it. Yes.

Mayor Adams: And what we want to do in addition to doing that, you did it through SCRIE? Okay. Let's find out. Let's do an analysis. But what we're also doing, we're going to sit down with you and show you all the benefits that you are eligible for. Not only the rent freeze, you may be eligible for other benefits. So we're going to have one of our public engagement people sit down with you. 

We got a little profile that we do and tell you all the benefits that you are available. Because I'm telling you, folks, we leave a lot- I'm going to come to you, man. We leave a lot of benefits on the table, and these are your benefits. You pay for these benefits. We want to make sure you get them. So we're going to look at them to see why they denied you, but we're also going to show you here are some other benefits you may be available for. Because every dollar we take in is a dollar that can help us from going out.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: And we have somebody at the table right outside that can help you with that even today.

Question: Okay. My name is [Karen Radley.] First, I also want to extend my sympathies about your sister. But my issue, I was going to not say much here, I'm in a different age range, is about affordable housing. I am in the lottery. I don't find $90,000, $100,000 for a one-bedroom minimum income affordable. I've got to settle for a studio where I'm basically sleeping in the sink if I want affordable housing. What is being done to control this? How are these rents set? People my age need some place to live, too, as does everyone here that we can actually afford.

Mayor Adams: So there are several types of housing in the city. So we need to be clear on that. Several types of housing. You have housing where people want to build higher. They either build it on their own property, but they want to build higher. That allows us to negotiate the prices. They can say to us, we don't want to build higher. We're going to build whatever we can build, and we can charge whatever we want. 

Because in private industry, whatever you want to charge for rent, whatever the market can demand, you can get. The problem is, since we have such a small amount of units, because we haven't been building as much as we should have, people are able to charge even more. We want prices to come down. You know supply and demand. Prices come down when you make sure the supply is plentiful. That's why we want to push forward with housing. 

We build more affordable housing and projected to build more affordable housing in our administration and the previous two administrations combined. Because we're saying everyone should build more. If we saturate with more housing, it brings down the cost of the housing. That was our mistakes that we were making. Then you have people who are building on sites that need no government interaction at all. We can't tell them how much to charge. They're allowed to charge whatever the market can bear. That's outside our span of control. That's the largest amount of housing in the city. Okay? Yes, ma'am. You're going to be out last, and then we're going to bounce.

Question: I was wondering if there's any way possible that we can get the hospital over here a two certification to handle traumas like knife wounds, gun wounds, because they won't handle it over here. By the time you get to Jamaica Hospital, as you know, a police officer died because of it. Is there anything that you can do about that?

Mayor Adams: That's a perfect, perfect segue into your amazing councilwoman who walked in. She has been fighting. We have been teaming up. We're getting a trauma center here on Rockaway. We've done some other things with her support, but you need a trauma center. Why don't I allow her to get the mic and say hello to her constituents? Councilwoman Selvena Brooks-Powers.

City Councilmember Selvena Brooks-Powers: Thank you. I know we need a lot, and we're going to get what we need. I do apologize for being tardy. We had our Mother's Day event on the mainland, and tomorrow is our Mother's Day event on the peninsula at the Rockaway Y, so we hope to see you there. 

Yes, I'd like to thank the mayor for coming out with his team out here today, but just going to the point on the trauma facility, that is an area that I really have to commend the community for continuing to lift and elevate that issue, because it's a real issue. When we think about even just in February, there was a young woman at the age of 24 who delivered twin babies, and she went into an emergency episode at her home in Redfern, and by the time she got to St. John's Hospital with a pulse, she unfortunately did not make it. 

So we need to understand that we are geographically isolated, and while our numbers are growing because of all of this housing that is being created, there are people that are living here right now. We all got a pulse, right? We all are here. We want to make sure that we are able to. So right now in this budget that we are negotiating at this time, we're fighting to secure $300,000 to be able to complete the process to transfer NYCHA property that has been identified to DCAS, which the mayor's administration had committed to providing for this effort, in addition to the capital funding we've already set aside. 

So we're plugging along. It is an urgent need, and we continue to definitely fight for it. And just going back to housing, I just want to highlight, and I'm sorry because I came in late. I'm not sure if this was touched on, but we have about two that I could think of, senior housing that are in the pipeline right now with HPD. And so we are looking forward to those being built and being further opportunities. And also right now there is an application open at Edgemere Commons. That's the old peninsula hospital site, and that's a beautiful new space. It's going to have a supermarket right on the ground floor. The application is open right now. 

So you are eligible to apply for that, and if you have a voucher, you know that is helpful as well because, as the mayor said, there are different bands of income that it allows for. So you can always reach out to my office if you need the application. If you want to walk into the office, we'll have some printed there. I know y'all are real tech savvy in here, so we'll make sure we email it to you, too. And I just want to commend JASA for the amazing work that they do here. And I see Raymond, our president, that's here. Thank you for all that you do, too. And again, thank you, Mr. Mayor, for coming out.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you so much. You probably got these cards here. It's something that I learned from mom. Whenever there's an emergency, a medical emergency, either NYPD or EMS must come, you forget all your basic information. This has a magnetic back. You can put it on your fridge or wherever you want. Just your basic information, your name, your emergency contact, any allergies, who's your doctor, your primary care doctor. 

This way, EMS, NYPD, they will have this basic information, and it's easy to just make sure that there's a minimized mishap as much as possible. So again, thank you for allowing me to come out. Please enjoy your summer. I appreciate you so much. Thank you.

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