Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts Older Adult Town Hall

May 21, 2025

Watch the video here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LfXOBUYeQM

Mayor Eric Adams: How's everyone doing? Too blessed to be stressed. Did the BP and councilman, did you get an opportunity? Okay, so why don't we hear from our borough president and our councilman, so they can tell you the work that they're doing. BP Gibson?

Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson: Hello everyone, good afternoon. It's so good to see everyone. Buenas tardes a todos. Bienvenidos. So great to have everyone here. Thank you to our Mayor, Eric Adams. To all of our Commissioners and Executives. Shout out to all of our city agencies and partners. Can we give them all a round of applause?

This is the team, ladies and gentlemen, damas y caballeros. This is the team that makes a difference in our borough and in our city. And today's Older Adult Town Hall, I don't see any older adults here. I see “seenagers,” Mr. Mayor, commissioner. “Seenagers,” right? Because we are filled with energy, filled with love. That is the Bronx spirit, right? No matter where we go, we know that public safety and affordable housing and good jobs and all the components that we talk about are so important to our livelihood, to our health and wellness.

I want to recognize our amazing Commissioner of the Department for the Aging, Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez. Leading our work, all of our NORCs and Older Adult Centers under DFTA all throughout the borough. We are so grateful to represent you in office and it is our responsibility to really use these moments, ladies and gentlemen, to hear from you.

What's happening? What can we do to make your life better? For you, your loved ones, your children, your family members? Because guess what? When we all work together, we are better together. So I welcome you. Thank you all for being here to all of our partners. And now I recognize our New York City Councilmember Rafael Salamanca Jr. Alright.

City Councilmember Rafael Salamanca: Alright. Buenas tardes. My name is Rafael Salamanca Jr. I'm the Councilmember for this area and it's an honor to be here. You know, I'm a Bronx kid, born and raised in this community. And now to be able to serve this community as a New York City Councilmember and address the issues that have been ignored for far too long has been my greatest honor. And the best honor of that is to see my 10-year-old watch how we're doing it and we're working together as a community.

I want to thank the mayor and his team for being here today. He could have been anywhere in New York City, but he chose to be here in the South Bronx with us today. Let's give him a big round of applause. You know, to have a mayor to go around, not only have town halls during the evening, but to have town halls during the day to allow the older adults to attend and to ask them the tough questions. And please, Mr. Mayor, I'm going to ask them to ask you the tough questions today.

You know, if you have an issue with food insecurity, if you have an issue with the food that they're giving you in your senior center, if you have an issue with crime or your sidewalks or that the street light is changing too fast and you can't cross the street without the fear of getting hit by a car, ask the mayor or his administration. We also have a rat czar. And I know that in these communities, and I know we have McKinley houses and Forest houses, and as I walk through the neighborhoods, there is an issue with our rats.

You know, don't be ashamed to ask those questions. And that's why the mayor hired a rat czar, to ensure that we address the issues with rats. We also have a Parks Department representative. If you feel that your grass is not getting cut or your trees are not being trimmed, please ask those questions. These are the reasons why this mayor is going around the city and having these town hall meetings to hear from you on these hyper-local issues. And with that, que Dios lo bendiga. Gracias.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thanks so much to both of our electeds. Being an elected official is not an easy task, and I know sometimes we feel it is. God knows how many times they miss events. They're not around their families as much as they would want to, and you give a lot back in the process. And so we're doing these town halls. These are number 24. What is the normal four town halls we're doing? We've done about 30-something. We're doing youth town halls. And people ask why. This is 37 regular town halls. People ask why. Because I have to get on the ground and I have to speak to you directly.

If I don't speak to you directly, you're going to believe what you read. And I became the mayor January 1, 2022, second person of color to be the mayor in the history of New York. And what did I inherit? I inherited a city where COVID was everywhere. Do you all remember that? Schools were closed down. Crime was surging. There was an oversaturation of guns on our streets. Jobs were leaving the city. Our young people did not have the services they deserved. People in public housing did not have high-speed broadband so their children could learn and do remote learning, and their elders could not do telemedicine. We were not invested in foster care children. Unemployment was through the roof.

Those who monitor cities determine how well they're doing. They gave us a low bond rating. Item after item after item. And I moved around this city in general, but specifically up in the Bronx. And I came with a list of items that I stated I was going to do. And I want you to look at what I ran on and what we accomplished. I said I was going to bring down crime. Last quarter was the lowest number of shootings in recorded history of the city. Second lowest number of homicides. The seven major crime categories we brought down.

We took 88,000 illegal cars, dirt bikes, scooters off our streets. And most of them we destroyed so they could never go back on our streets. We invested in foster care children. We gave them, we're paying their college tuition, giving them a stipend, and giving them a life coaching to their 21 years old so they don't age out at 18 with no support. We went even further.

Do you know we built in year one and year two, I ran on building more housing, we built more affordable housing in those two years, individual years in the history of the city. We moved more people out of shelters into permanent housing in those individual years in the history of the city. Many people who have the FHEPS voucher program, we had more people participate in that program in the history of the program in the city.

We cut unemployment in Black and brown communities by 20 percent and cut it overall in the entire city. Brought down crime in the subway system. You would think the subway system was out of control. Go look at the numbers in analysis. You see that crime under this administration in our subway system were 4.6 million people ride the trains a day. 4.6 million people. We have five felonies on average a day. Out of 4.6 million New Yorkers who don't want to go to work, we kept crime down. We are outpacing the state in reading and math for our children.

I have been on Rikers Island more than any man in the history of the city speaking to the inmates and the correction officers who were there. And when I go into the room and I say, how many of you have learning disabilities? About 8 percent to 10 percent of them, 80 percent raise their hand and say they have learning disabilities. So what do we do?

We're now doing dyslexia screening so our children don't grow up believing they're dumb, just learning that they learn differently so they don't end up in Rikers Island. The real crime is not only what they do on the streets, but the real crime is the fact that we didn't give them the support that they needed. I was dyslexic and was undiagnosed until I got to college. What we have done in the city is remarkable, but you'll never read about it. And we did it with COVID. We did it with 230,000 migrants and asylum seekers came to the city. At one time we were getting 4,000 a week.

Think about that number for a moment. The federal government told me, Eric, you can't stop the buses from coming in. You can't even allow people to work. A group of migrants and asylum seekers came to me and they said, Mr. Mayor, we would like to clean the streets, remove graffiti. We just need a stipend so that we can do it. They said, Eric, you're not allowed to do that. City law required me to house, feed, educate 40,000 children, and I had only one north star. No child or family should ever sleep on the streets of the City of New York. You go look at what I ran on and then say, did you live up to what you promised? And we didn't have the support that we deserved.

We had a media in this city, and I'm going to talk about it. They had one mission. We had to do everything possible, but I said, you are never reelected. People stopped me and said, listen, you didn't fix every pothole in the city. You didn't build housing throughout the city.

That was January 2nd, 2022, two days after I got elected. I'm not going to improve this whole city. You know what, folks? When you reach the age of 65 years old, you know what? You make mistakes. You trust people that you shouldn't trust. People break your heart. But I never did anything wrong to offend you in this city. Did 22 years as a police officer, state senator, first person of color to be borough president, the second African-American mayor to be in the City of New York. And when I fought for you, they came after me. And people stopped me and said, well, if you didn't do anything wrong, the federal government would never come after you. Yeah? Ask Dr. King. Ask the Black Panthers. Ask [inaudible].

Think about that for a moment. You ain't got to go back that far. Ask Brian Benjamin, highest African-American in the State of New York. Destroyed his life and then dropped the charges against him. I'm going to fight for you. I fought for you. And I'm going to give it my all. And when your grandkids walk through City Hall, they're going to see the first bald-headed, earring-wearing mayor in the history of this city and those pictures that's up on the wall. And so we want to open the floor, and I think that what councilman said is right. Just be you, because it might be me.

You got a question, ask it. We're going to try to answer everything. We're going to get back to the question. I got a dedicated group of people who believe in this city. And you have two members of the Police Department that's here behind me, and if you didn't realize, we go to the same barber.

So we want to hear from you so that we can do the job we want to do. I'm committed to this city. I wore a bulletproof vest for 22 years and stood on these street corners and protected the children and families of this city. That's a real love affair. That's a real love affair.

So let's go to the first table. Oh, yes, yes. My commissioner always reminds me. You know, I had this before Mommy transitioned. We created this when I was back in Borough Hall. It is just a card when there's an emergency at your home. Instead of trying to find the basic information, this has a magnetic back. You can put it on your refrigerator. It's just your basic information, your contact number, your name, your primary doctor, what you're allergic to, who's your emergency contact. This way, if EMS, NYPD, if they must come, they can just look for this information and instantly be able to give it to the first responders.

[Crosstalk.]

Question: Good to meet you. My name is Wanda Sewell, and my question from our table is, what has to happen for us to impact more after-school programs for our kids?

Mayor Adams: Great question. Those of us who can remember, after-school programs were important. It kept young people in a good environment, and we believe in that wholeheartedly. This is the first administration that is going to have universal after-school programs. Yep, high schools need it more than that.

Question: What happened to the PAL and all that stuff?

Mayor Adams: Still in place. And, you know, I'm glad you said that because what we found was the greatest problem that we were having is that we have all of these resources and people are not aware of them. And so we must identify how you receive your information, and we must lean into that more.

Because you got everything from SCRIE to DRIE to after-school programs, Summer Youth Employment, 100,000 children. And we also have… 110,000. And we have the Summer Rising Program. And we did something else under this administration where we opened the school buildings with, what is that? I always forget the name. Basketball. Saturday Night Lights. Saturday Night Lights, right.

So the number of programs we're doing for young people, because you're right, the highest number of individuals who commit crimes and victims of crime fall into those teenage years. And so we have been leaning into that. But we're doing universal after-school programs. Our young people also, our teenagers can also get engaged, involved. But also Deputy Commissioner Stewart is doing some amazing things with young people. Why don't you go into some of those programs you're doing? Good afternoon.

Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, Community Affairs, Police Department: This is number 24. I've been here for 24. I clear my calendar when I get a chance to come out here and tell you. So listen, the mayor and I go back 41 years. We've been in law enforcement since 1984. And he's older than me. He tasked me to come back and change our Community Affairs Bureau and try to find programs for our kids. We have basketball. We have Saturday Night Lights. But we had to go deeper because a lot of our kids don't play sports.

So the programs that we set up, aviation program for our kids. We're on our sixth class. We're talking 30 kids a class. We go to every borough. We have real estate license programs for our kids. We just had our first kid who passed. He's certified. 18 years old. He can sell houses now. We have a drone program for our kids. They can learn about drones and how to operate them and how to fix them. We have a college course for our kids too. We go to the schools, we pick our kids up, we take them to college, because what was missing was transportation and opportunity. Now they have both.

Saturday Night Lights, can you imagine this? You're a kid, 18 years old, and you get to play the world championship at Yankee Stadium. That happened. So the programs are there. And we realize that nobody's going to the NYPD website to look up these programs. We just are not that cool. So we're working with DYCD trying to get other kids to get on their website to get our message out.

So hopefully then we'll get more kids. And listen, we got kids out there who are doing bad things. They're not coming to these programs. But we can definitely say the kids that are in the programs, they tell us if it wasn't for this program, I could be doing ABCD. So these programs are very important. And this is a collaboration with DYCD and DOE. So we have a lot of programs for our kids. And I'll give out the information after I leave here today, okay? Okay, thank you.

Mayor Adams: And he does something else that is really, really amazing. He does these baby showers where he brings in the young people who have children, and he hosts these baby showers. How many young people go through your baby showers now?

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: So year-to-date, the last three years, we have over 40,000 mothers, newly expected mothers, prenatal care, diapers, bassinets, whatever they need. We have over 100 vendors. And we do it in, listen, it started here in the Bronx. So, yeah. Not only hip-hop, but baby showers. Started here in the Bronx. So, yeah, it's something great that we're doing. And believe me, when they come and they see what they can have in prenatal care and different hospitals, it's just amazing.

Mayor Adams: Give them all these items out for free to start. Any of you new parents, you know what it is to get all of those items that you need. And as the commissioner stated, he did not have to come back into government. He was doing fine. I said, I really need you. He came back with a real vision.

He saw, as being a detective and as working for the DA's office, he saw what was happening to victims of crime, how young people were getting caught up in crime. He came in with a whole new energy, and I cannot thank him enough. He's been my deputy commissioner of Community Affairs, and he has changed the game, you know? Jerry's getting ready to leave me. She's getting ready to retire. She's breaking my heart. How are you?

Question: Hi. My name is Jerry, also. And I want to thank you for having this meeting this time of day, because the last time, you had to walk me to my car.

Mayor Adams: Oh, I remember that!

Question: Yes, late at night. But my question for my group is, what can be done about drugs now being so openly in front of our homes?

Mayor Adams: Yeah, so important. We were at a town hall meeting, and it was late, and you said, I came out here, but my car's a long way away. And at the end of the town hall meeting, we walked to your car.

So drugs is a real problem, particularly if they're being sold in front of your home. Alright, captains, let's find out what specific locations that we're talking about, because it should not happen. Now, what we did was after they passed the cannabis law, people were opening up the cannabis shops all over the place. They became a magnet for crime, for shootings, for robberies, because it's all cash business.

So we went back to Albany, modified the law that gave us the authority to go in and close the illegal ones. We closed 1,400 illegal cannabis shops. We found everything inside there, weapons, mushrooms, illegal cannabis, all sorts of things. And now the legal cannabis shops are operating accordingly. But we're also, the commissioner just announced the Quality of Life initiative. 1,500 police officers being trained for conflict resolution. They're going after abandoned cars, people injecting themselves in drugs on our streets, people selling.

As a matter of fact, the councilman called us about the hub that was taking place. We're doing a whole initiative over there. And we're zeroing in, because the residence of the mayor is Gracie Mansion. You can't sell drugs in front of Gracie Mansion. You can't have abandoned car in front of Gracie Mansion. You can't play your music loud at night in front of Gracie Mansion.

So if you can't do it in front of Gracie Mansion, you shouldn't even be able to do it on Gun Hill Road. I want the quality of life that I have in front of Gracie Mansion to be the same quality of life that you have. And that's what the Quality of Life initiative is about. So, captain, you want to talk about that? Is it a particular location block?

[Crosstalk.]

Captain Yoel Hidalgo, Patrol Service Area 7, Police Department: So we have, for PSA 7, we have 37 FTU officers that I have them out there in the development. They're all visible. And I do have them addressing hanging out, drugs, and everything along those sorts.

Yes, yes. I recently just got assigned to PSA 7. I had my community council meeting. These are a lot of issues that were brought up to me last week. And I addressed it, and I've passed it forward to my FTU kids, and they will be addressing it.

Mayor Adams: Okay. So we go–

Question: I live in that same building. There's an apartment in that building that's been selling dope and everything for years.

Mayor Adams: The same apartment?

Question: The same apartment. And I understand weed is legal. I respect that. But there's [inaudible] and there shouldn't be whatever. If you walk in my lobby late at night, they're having a party there, the weed, the singers, holding their breath, even me.

Mayor Adams: No, not good. Not good.

Question: Up and down [inaudible]. And I said, wait a minute. You smoke weed? There was another little boy with him. He said, once again, I'm going to say, no, we're getting it for our mother. They served him, and I said, wait a minute. I've been knowing you for years, and you live in this community. You selling them weed? He said, well, it's money. I said, well, it's supposed to be with your brother.

Mayor Adams: Right. So we can listen. So when you finish, just speak with the captain. I will. Particularly that location where you said that people died in the building. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Trust me. So what you should do is write down those locations and give it to the captain. Yeah. So important. Precinct council meetings are very important. Where am I going? How are you?

Question: Hello. Good afternoon, Mayor Adams. You have a fan club in here. They're very shy, but they are definitely saying that they wanted me to tell you that they love you, and they want you to continue doing an excellent job.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Prayers work.

Question: So their concerns is about safety in the neighborhood. Residents have concerns about safety around Union Avenue during the early morning hours and evenings. Reports of incidents such as assaults in front of the building and also entry of unwanted people causing dangerous situations such as fire and harassment of older adults.

Mayor Adams: Are we familiar with this location?

Question: Right here in front of the building.

Mayor Adams: You familiar with?

Captain Hidalgo: No, I'm not familiar, but I'll meet with you after so I can get the details.

Mayor Adams: Okay. Alright. So the captain's going to look into it, okay?

Question: There was a community board meeting, 42 precinct meeting at Victory Baptist Church a couple of months ago, and I went. I had to get protection from the police to come out of the area to walk home. So no one is really in this area making sure we are safe.

Mayor Adams: You got a new captain up here, so he's on it. Where are we going? What's up, brother? How are you?

Question: Remember me? We met each other at the veteran parade? Thank you for coming down to my neighborhood.

[Crosstalk.]

Translator: Thank you so much. I'm going to help translate him.

[Crosstalk.]

Translator: So many people are coming inside and outside the building. They're very worried about their safety.

Question: Y también tenemos problemas con los elevadores.

Translator: And they also have problems with the lifts, you know, the elevators.

Question: Y es en la escalera, que ahí duermen, vamos a poner los delincuentes, como decirlo.

Translator: So many people are sleeping.

Question: Entonces, ahí se orinan.

Translator: In the stairs.

Question: Ahí duermen, en la escalera. Entonces, nosotros necesitamos que esto nos ayude, que haya seguridad ahí en el edificio.

Translator: We need so much help from you, mayor, for that security and safety in the building and in those areas. Thank you so much, it's been my pleasure.

Mayor Adams: Ayuda? [Laughter.] So are the doors unlocked? Is that what it is?

Question: Si la puerta está roto. No abre.

Translator: What he was saying is that there's one door that it cannot lock.

Mayor Adams: Is it NYCHA, or is it a private house?

[Crosstalk.]

Translator: It's a building, I think it's... NYCHA.

Mayor Adams: NYCHA?

Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, Department for the Aging: Yeah, Mayor, I think we'll have HPD as, is it a NYCHA building, or is it...

Mayor Adams: They say it's a NYCHA building.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: It is, alright.

Mayor Adams: Oh, who's that? But we don't have... It's always a NYCHA building. You don't have...You gotta have PSA. Who, what's the address? 3135 Park Avenue. 3135 Park Avenue? We're familiar with that location? They're saying they have a problem with the doors not being locked?

Theresa Bethea, Neighborhood 1 Administrator, Bronx Property Management, NYCHA: Yeah. So, we'll make sure that door's locked again. We have problems with vandalism over there.

Mayor Adams: With vandalism?

Bethea: We'll make sure that door's locked again, and then we'll work with DHS and do our outreach program. We're Officers, Safety, and Securities. I'm sorry, I got allergies. It give me a sore throat.

Mayor Adams: So, we're going to... And they... Who's the... What PSA is that? Seven? Do we have... We need to do some type of essays, special assignment.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Okay. Listen, listen. Just want to make one point, that we always have these town halls to make everybody cautious and clear. When we came to this administration, we put a community affairs cop in every PSA and every precinct. Any concerns that you have, you could go right to the community affairs cops. Two of them are here, Officer Soto, and the big guy, Officer White. He's in the gym, so if you can't find him. So, listen, you do not have to wait until the mayor comes here with your concerns. You can walk right into the precinct or the PSA, let them know, and they'll let the COs know what the problem is, and we'll address it, okay?

Mayor Adams: And what's important is also, it's crucial to go to the precinct council meetings. That's very important. But we're going to find... There is a PSA assigned, and we need to make sure that officer does patrol over in that area, and the verticals going up and down the building. But we're going to look at that door, the door problem.

Okay, so, you heard that, NYCHA? Okay, okay, that's no good, because we have a bunch of seniors in the building, and we can't have those chronic problems in the building. Okay? Alright. How are you, ladies?

Question: Good afternoon. My name is Mary Scott, and I want to ask you a question. Public safety in the senior citizen center, we need a lot of security guide in all senior citizen center. I'm a senior. My birthday today. I'm 72 years old.

Crowd: Happy birthday!

Question: Thank you. I am a senior. And I come to Davidson. I love Davidson. But we have a lot of seniors in here, and we would like to be safe inside the center, because this neighborhood is very bad. And what would you...

Mayor Adams: Now, so tell me, so you're talking about security within the center?

Question: Inside the center.

Mayor Adams: Do we have that, do we have that, commissioner? Is there security guards in the centers? I don't recall seeing any. No.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: There's no security guards. We do some security training for staff and things of that nature. Okay. But we also work very closely with community affairs officers that Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart has worked with us. But no, we do not have it at every older adult center.

Question: Yeah, so... But if you can have at least, they come twice a week or every other week, it'd be better.

Mayor Adams: Yeah, so what was...

Question: There's a lot of seniors inside these centers, and we need protection here, because there's so much going on in this world now.

Mayor Adams: Well, yeah. What I have not heard, unless you could help me if we have, but I have not heard incidents inside our senior centers. Have you, Captain?

Captain Hidalgo: No, there hasn't been any incidents. And just to elaborate, our cornerstone is coming back this summer, so there will be officers at all our community centers at all the developments. And just to add on top of that, we also have our mobile field force that is deployed throughout both our precincts. We get hundreds of officers that are deployed throughout the streets every single day. And just for the development alone, we have 24 seven, three mobile field forces, each on each platoon. So there's officers spread out through all the developments. Yes, I have them all over. Yes, they're on Jackson, Melrose, Patterson, Forest, McKinley, I have cops everywhere.

Mayor Adams: So can we do this? Can we do this? Is that part of precinct patrol? If officers can park, pop in, just look around, how's everything okay? That uniform present makes people feel good. And so part of the routine patrol, they're popping in.

[Crosstalk.]

Captain Hidalgo: It will be coming back.

Mayor Adams: You know, you got your birthday going on, so you know, you all. Love it. Okay. What precinct is this? This is the what? 42? So just popping in and just doing a quick visit. You know, people feel better seeing their uniformed officer.

[Crosstalk]

Translator: He says my case is about the people who have big dogs in the buildings, that can be [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Yeah, one, two. Yeah, he was talking about the dogs in the buildings, some large dogs in the building, and what could be done about those large dogs. They waste on the floor, and people don't take care of them.

Translator: In the elevator, you know, in the building, inside the building, all these things are happening.

Mayor Adams: Okay, now is this in a NYCHA building, or is this a private building?

Question: NYCHA.

Translator: It's in I-52.

Mayor Adams: Okay, what's the name of, which building?

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: No, 152nd Street is what he said, it's 152nd Street. It's a NYCHA building, and I'm 152nd Street.

Mayor Adams: You know what you're building? You know what you're building?

Translator: Adam Houses. Adam Houses, we got it. That's what I'm doing, but I got it.

Mayor Adams: Okay, so tell me, we're gonna let NYCHA respond. Talk to me, what's the rules on dogs in the NYCHA houses? You gotta give her a mic.

Bethea: Oh, I'm sorry. There are NYCHA rules and regulations on dogs. Each resident should have one dog. It should be under 25 pounds, and it must be registered.

Mayor Adams: Okay, and so…

[Crosstalk.]

Bethea: We can meet with him. I can meet with him right after.

Mayor Adams: She's gonna help you with that. So after I find out what you're building and talking about, it's sort of difficult to, because people don't always come out with their dogs, but some type of notice should be done on cleaning up after your dog, you know, what the regulations are, and do some form of enforcement, okay?

Bethea: Yes, we definitely have signs around the development that say curb your dogs. We put up some dog stations, but we'll follow up. Okay. We'll definitely follow up. I'll meet with him after. Okay.

Mayor Adams: Yeah, I know. Yeah, we gotta do enforcement. Do the cameras operable in the building, in that building? Can we check? Because that's a way of catching the habitual offenders by using those cameras. Yeah, yeah. Where we going? Yeah, look at you. You have three, four, five chances. You know that?

Question: First thing she said was keep it short. Okay, so, okay. First, okay, I'm gonna try to make this quick, but I gotta say something before I answer my question. Mayor Adams, I love you so much. I'm your stalker. I've been emailing you since you came into office. You have responded. You have answered a lot of questions and things that I emailed before. Email, I emailed all of them. He’s next. And I'm always, and Vanessa Gibson facing a whole bunch, okay, she told me, you know, anyway. And I just wanna know-

Mayor Adams: You can talk as long as you want.

Question: No, I like to do that. No, I'm gonna make it quick, but I gotta say what I gotta say, because when I’m at Gracie Mansion, you know, I prayed with you and I gotta get my love on, okay? Because I know that you sought the Lord and he heard and he answered. And through all your storms, I prayed. I said, don't you quit. Don't you get down. That's not what God got for you. That's the devil. You know what I'm saying? And you just, people don't see you, but if they got God in them, they see you. So you a fighter, do not give up. If you don't quit, you gonna win, okay? So now, what I wanna say is, okay–

Mayor Adams: Let me tell you something. You know what? And she says something that's so important. People, you know, back when I grew up, you know, when mom would be backing her rent and can't pay, and can't pay for it, all of a sudden, she'll hit the number. And I would say, you know, mommy, isn't that illegal? Mommy would say, baby, God uses who he uses. And so when people start talking about who got my charges dropped and this and that, God uses who he uses.

Question: That's right. 100 percent. 100 percent. You know, because– Okay, I'm gonna get to my question, but I just wanna- I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna take advantage, but I got, while I have, everybody's saying that, yeah, well, while I have the opportunity to be this close and facing you and say what I gotta say, I have to tell you first, I love you.

And the only person that can take that love away is Jesus Christ, and he ain't gonna do it. Okay, and I'm in your corner. And also, I had an opportunity to be hired by your company. Yes. Okay, for the same things that I'm doing at the NYCHA Developments here in the Bronx. And, but you was gonna put me in Brooklyn. And housing said, no, you can't give up the Bronx. What they gonna do? So we need to talk, because I'm a usable vessel. Alright, so now, my question is–

Mayor Adams: Make sure DJ, make sure you get her contact. She's a usable vessel.

Question: That's right, that's right. But you know, I wanna just bring it to your attention with so many questions that have been asked, have similar things to what I wanna say.

I wanna say that, you know, you know, I had, I almost got shot three times in McKinley. And it's the grace of God, so I don't walk in fear. You know what I'm saying? I walk with power, the grace of God. I ain't worried about no weapon ain't gonna form against me, possible.

But you know, what I wanna say, you know, these things gotta stop. Now, I had partnership with Feed the Children. They gave me 36 plaques of Haagen-Dazs ice cream. The supermarket gave me their plaques. The people we was walking into the TA room with the plaques, McKinley shooting across the street, the farmers, and farmers shooting across the street, McKinley. And I end up losing the ice cream and everything that was for, not just for my development, because we can't eat 36 plaques.

I was sharing that with farmers and other developments that I reached out to. And these things, you know, they really need to stop. But see, people gotta understand that you human. You can't be everywhere. When you over there, why he don't come over here? They say that about her. You know what I'm saying? But you can't be everywhere. And yes, you do have eyes.

But say this officer here, okay, the whole McKinley look like it's full of officers out there. So they see you like I see you. Now they're around the other corner doing their shooting or selling their stuff. Yo, we gotta walk down here. You know, the police is right there. You know, so you can't be eyes. So what I'm saying is like the community of like tenant associations, like I'm the vice president of one, we need to step it up and have a meeting with someone that can really help us. And some of us be your eyes. We have, like they said, it take a village to raise a family. Well, it takes a whole seven communities to come together to get this job done.

Mayor Adams: Well said.

Question: You know, okay. And I just want to tell you, that's what I want to say. Yes. You know, and I just hope and pray, okay, that we can get the guns out of the youth's hands. Three young boys, black masks and everything, standing by the crossroads and they shooting over McKinley. You know, and who the police first came to? Me. Because somebody said, that's the vice president. She know everybody. She don't play. They came and said, could you get in the car with me? Because I know you know the people. I looked at them. You must think I'm dumb.

Mayor Adams: Yeah.

Question: No, but see, I'm the type of person that, yeah, he the one right here. Where your mother at? You know, I'm like that. But then I know, you know, but I know the one, I know when to step back and come to y'all too.

Mayor Adams: So true. So true.

Question: I just want to say, whatever y'all can do to help get these guns, it's the youths. Yes. Y'all already locked up all the older drug dealers in McKinley and Forest. They all came out and changed. But it doesn't end there.

Mayor Adams: And it is a problem with, like I said, we removed over 21,000 guns off the street. 1,400 of them were ghost guns that were made, you know, off of 3D printers. And, you know, we saw what happened in the Bronx. I was with the, wait, right, right. A 14 year old young boy shot, yeah.

Question: I was watching with the mother the other day. I don't want to start crying, but I just want to say, we on the outside looking in, but we can't say to her, I know how you feel because you really don't. But I've never held so many people and helping them that cried over my shoulder. Grandmother was really bad.

Mayor Adams: Right, right.

Question: But the worst thing that happened to them, I don't know if you know that. When you left from over there by the school, them kids went over there and the candles, they threw the candles and broke the candles, cut up the teddy bears, just destroyed that area. And then went on Facebook and said, she shouldn't have been there. So she got what she got. How could they do that? And I meant to email you about that and you, because the mother is hurting and the grandmother is really, really bad.

Mayor Adams: And I went to the wake and spoke with, you know, the family. But when you see a child break the candles, tear up the teddy bear, go on social media, that is a child that's yelling out for help.

Question: Yeah, I know that.

Mayor Adams: That's pain. That's pain. And we have to, right.

Question: React.

Mayor Adams: Right, we have to minister to that pain.

Question: Yeah, they said it was the girl's boyfriend or something.

Mayor Adams: Social media has hijacked our loved ones and our family members. And we have to, we have to be there and it's gonna take the village to do it. That's what you said.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: And you have a program at DYCD that does just that. So why don't we have? Yeah. Okay.

Joseph Kovac, Director, Discretionary Contract Review and Compliance, Department of Youth and Community Development: Yes, hi. If you go to DYCD's website, there's Discover DYCD. If you put in your address, it will list all programs. So it will list youth programs, afterschool programs, SYEP, Summer Rising, plus also our intergenerational programs that we work for with older adults. And we also administer the anti-poverty funds from the federal government. So in this district, it's a combination of youth and adult programs. And plus it would list all of the food pantries that we operate.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Yeah, and in particular, the programs that you have for families of victims.

Kovac: Yes, so we took over some of the programs from the former Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice. And we do have a lot of programs that we fund now in regards to victims of crimes and their families. So all of that would be on our website. And everything has been enhanced through the mayor and through the administration. So it's nyc.gov\DYCD. I'll say it again. I'm gonna write it on a card.

Mayor Adams: Yes. Alright, thank you. Thank you. When are we doing it? June 11th. June 11th, we're gonna do a town hall in the area where the shooting took place on June 11th. Yeah, over the little girl. Okay, alright. Did we get, did we get? Yes, yes sir.

Question: How you doing Mayor Adams? Good, how are you? Thank you for coming up here and spending time with us. Really supporting you too. I have like two questions. But the first question is, remember how you had the COVID and you had the people coming through the train system, cleaning up at night when things slowed down and there was a cleanup thing?

It's horrible, like in the mornings when I come to work, I work here, when I come to work, they have people laid out on the seats and you can't even get a seat because people are sleeping and got 30 bags on the seats. You know what I'm saying? All the people that's working is standing up and the guy that ain't working is now sleeping. I mean, that's a hell of a sight to see coming to work in the morning. And the seats that people sit on, they have urine on them, it's a horrible thing, man. I don't know if they still got the night program thing with the transit.

Mayor Adams: Yes, it's called PATH and we have another program called SCOUT. And the goal is during the overnight hours, we go into the subway system. Many of them we're doing, giving them alternative. We moved over 8,000 people off the system to get them the care that they deserve. Some don't want to leave.

That was that big battle we had in Albany with the involuntary removal because some people can't take care of themselves. We know that we're going to have to involuntarily take them into care. But no one wants to start their day with seeing someone in the subway system sleeping. And no one really, if they were in a right state of mind, would want to sleep in the subway system. It's mental illness. Right, exactly. And that's our focus.

Question: Yes, my second question real quick is, I'm in the CityFHEPS program, right? I have a room, one room. I've been in that room for like eight years and I need to get at least a one bedroom because I can't, I only have no room in my room. Right. You know? So I need some help getting in that direction because I went to the Waverly House downtown on 16th Street. I went there yesterday, spent all day there. They sent me uptown to a location on 126th and 3rd. When I get there, they say it was closed.

Mayor Adams: Shouldn't happen. We got Ahmed here from HPD. Are you familiar with that program?

Acting Commissioner Ahmed Tigani, Department of Housing Preservation and Development: I'm not. That's not, I don't think that's a program run by HPD. Maybe another agency. CityFHEPS. CityFHEPS. So that's through our sister agencies, Department of Social Services or HRA.

Question: Yeah, can you help me?

Acting Commissioner Tigani: Well, I'm happy, I'll give you my card and I want to talk to you about your situation directly. Just to say, to build on some of the numbers the mayor's talked about, since this administration started, we've built over 6,000 units. We've either financed new or preserved 6,000 units of senior housing.

Last year was a banner year for us. We financed, through creation and preservation, of over 2,900 units of senior housing. But the most important message to take away is that whatever housing we build in the city of New York, it should be for all New Yorkers.

Older New Yorkers should have access not just to our senior units, but we are now building all the units we finance to be universally accessible. That means making the changes so that you can live there with additional reasonable accommodations, like grab bars, or making sure the spacing is there so you're able to move around the apartment. We're not only financing housing, but we're making smarter, more accessible housing so that you can live in place.

Additionally, when we preserve units, we don't just give the money based on the scope that they've asked us for, I see housing developers in the room, they know, we make them do a survey, our Aging in Place Initiative, where they do a survey of older New Yorkers in the building and we take down the information we need to put that housing in better condition, including some of the stuff I just said, and we put that in the scope as well so that when we're building out and preserving those units and rehabbing, we're thinking about our older New Yorkers as well.

Mayor Adams: Good stuff, good stuff, good stuff. I'm gonna do, hold on, I wanna do this brother in the back that wanted to ask a question before I bounce.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Sir, before you answer that question, there's some people in an overflow area watching you on a computer. I want you to say hello to them.

Mayor Adams: Hello, overflow. Thank you, thank you. Hold on, I'm gonna get to you and get to you and then we gotta move.

Question: I just wanna ask a question. I'm not complaining, I just don't understand.

Mayor Adams: All good.

Question: It's about Rikers Island. Yes. Why the problems that seem to be at Rikers Island seem to be amongst people. Why are, why is the city trying to move off of Rikers Island to settle the problem?

It doesn't seem to me that the problem is the island or the buildings, or even if it's the buildings, it's easier to rehab or rebuild on the island than to spread out throughout the city, creating problems. Well, I don't know if it's going to create problems, but I know people are not happy with having the system in their neighborhood. So my question is, why does it have to come off the island? That's the basic question.

Mayor Adams: Who's from, did somebody record that? Did we get that? Is that savable? Okay, please give me that clip. You are right.

Here is the problem with Rikers Island, as you just observed. The previous administration, they had idealism and it collides with realism. They wanted to close Rikers Island by 2027. They wanted to build four more new jails in communities, one of them in the Bronx. One borough gets a jail. The cost of doing that was supposed to be $8 billion.

It's now $16 billion. And the number of inmates on Rikers Island, currently 7,400. The four more jails that we're building only will hold about 4,600. So we have roughly 3,000 that we can't house. That's when we build the four more jails.

Now here's the problem. 51 percent of the people on Rikers Island, they have mental health issues. So what I said to the city, let's build a state-of-the-art mental health facility to give people the services they need so we don't incarcerate them because we're in a revolving door criminal justice system. That's what we should be doing.

Because to, as you just alluded to, to create four more miniature Rikers with the same problem, it's not solving the problem. So as my folks from Alabama would say, you're making too much sense. You are dead on, 100 percent.

It's the wrong thing that we're doing and we need to rethink this plan. We need to make sure we get this right. And if we build a real mental health facility that people proactively will get the services they need, then we won't wait until they push someone on the subway system and then send them to Rikers Island. We won't wait till they slash someone on the street and then send them to Rikers Island.

People are crying out for help and we need to give them help proactively. You're 100 percent. I'm gonna play your tape on my website. You're so right.

[Crosstalk.]

Question: So my question is, me, I live for 15 years in one studio. Me, I live in 150C in St. Ann Avenue, Apartamento 6B. I got one studio. I got two kids, right? So I got me, Jonathan, I'm sure…

[Crosstalk.]

Translator: He's basically saying that the studio he has is too small for him and his two kids and he would like to spend more time with them but he can't because the location is too small.

Mayor Adams: Got it, got it. And that's what we were just talking about. We're going, let him know, let him know, let him know that, see, have him speak with Ahmed, and put him in contact…

Translator: I'll connect that with the person here who will be able to do that. Okay, thank you.

Mayor Adams: Okay, okay. De nada.

Question: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for accepting this. This is not a question. This is just a statement. I mentioned it earlier. I'm Reverend Dr. J. Loren Russell. I'm the president of the 42nd Precinct Community Council. And I mentioned it earlier. I said, come to the precinct council. It's important that we do that.

When I have these precinct council meetings and I look around and I've been here, I've spoken here before too. The precinct council meeting that we had at Victory Baptist Church right down the street. We need you there because everything that you're saying is necessary for the police to hear face-to-face, one-on-one. The meeting is tomorrow evening at 7 p.m. And it will be at the Cary Leeds Tennis Center in Crotona Park. 7 p.m. Crotona Park.

Cary Leeds is probably the most, it's the most, it is the best tennis center in New York City. And it's here in the Bronx. And we're gonna have our precinct council meeting there tomorrow evening at 7 p.m. Please, seniors in particular, because we don't hear your voices, please come. That was my announcement.

Mayor Adams: And thank you. Thank you for leading the precinct council so important. Thank you.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: I have a recommendation. I can't let it go. I also recommend to you the way the mayor created town halls for older adults. You may wanna consider an older adult council meeting for older adults at an earlier hour. All right, because that's a…

Mayor Adams: Yeah. Okay, okay. Alright, good stuff. Thank you all for coming out. Really appreciate you all. Thank you.

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