Homeless & Housing Meeting Agenda for March 1, 2022

July 24, 2024 | admin

(MSCC) John Mudd, Event Date: Tuesday, March 1, 2022

SUMMARY

Today’s meeting agenda is with an emphasis on Direct contracting entities: Handing medicare over to Wall Street. We’ll have updates on the Empire Station Complex Development, Adaptive Reuse: Hotels to Housing initiatives, developing committees, partner commitments, and more.

Date: Tuesday, March 1, 2022  

Time: 9:30 am-10:30 am

Location: We will meet via video conference using ZOOM.US (See how to Zoom page. 3)

Chairperson(s): John Mudd

WELCOME / INTRODUCTIONS

We appreciate all suggestions to help us run this meeting proficiently.

  • Housekeeping (Zoom protocols) Signing in, copying chat, muting, etc.
  • Introductions, welcoming new members
  • Please email subject and speaker suggestions by the 15th of each month
  • Items to Triage: To give time to pressing topics, please forward items at least 24 hours prior to meetings

PURPOSE

The Homeless and Housing members, attendees, and speakers share knowledge, ideas, and resources to identify problems and find solutions to the homeless crisis.

10 min

POLICY MEETING UPDATES

The prior 8:30 Homeless and Housing Policy meeting wrap-up as presented by attending members.

5 min 

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION(S) AND OR UPDATES: 

  • Updates from our committee members
  • Updates from our elected officials
  • Daniel Pichinson, Ryan Chelsea Clinton—updates
  • Richard Perkins, Housing Works—updates
  • Rue Parkin, HelpNYC
  • Robert Seebeck, CB5 Info gathering: updates to come in April’s meeting
  • Betty Kolod, physicianadvocacynyc, Updates and actions
  • Sara Catalinotto, Parents to Improve School Transportation http://pistnyc.org/home.aspx, https://www.facebook.com/pistnyc/ , https://twitter.com/pistny : Maria Ortiz is to speak in Sara’s stead
  • Helen Obrien, PHD, studies mental health, poverty, race and homelessness issues
  • Layla Law-Gisiko, CB5, Empire Station Development AKA Penn Area Expansion Project
  • New Members?

10 min

HEALTHCARE: MEDICARE VS MANAGECARE

Direct contracting entities: Handing medicare over to Wall Street

Claire Cohen, M.D., Physicians for a Nation Health Program

10-15 min

ADAPTIVE REUSE: HOTELS TO HOUSING

Ted Houghton, President of Gateway Housing

3 min

RALLY HIGHLIGHTING THE INEQUITIES & BAD POLICIES

Locations: Midtown near Port Authority, Hudson Yards, NYCHA, Penn Station

 2 min

EMPIRE STATION DEVELOPMENT (ESD) 

Quick take: ESD/Vornado furthering inequality and poor living conditions through development. 

  • An opportunity to bring us closer together to oppose wealth extracting policies
  • Actions / developing actions

Layla Law-Gisiko, CB5, Chair of the Land-use Committee

5 min

OBJECTIVES / MISSION / VISION FOR THE NEW YEAR

MSCC is busily restructuring to become more effective in accomplishing its goals and planning for the new year: 

  • Mission: Midtown South Community Council strives to dismantle the causes of homelessness by building an equitable, just, and sustainable social infrastructure to ensure dignity, health, and home for all. 
  • Vision: Midtown South Community Council envisions a city where homelessness and poverty are eradicated

3 min

LANDLORD TENANT ISSUES

Jeff Seal’s New York’s Worst Landlord viral video have been viewed by millions, Vimeo Staff Picks, screened at international film festivals and have been featured on numerous TV clip shows around the world reveals the tenant struggles with landlords.

2 min

COMMITTEES

Committees are important to complete our mission. Anyone wanting to be involved with any of our committees serving our programs (Housing, Urban Farm, Education & Awareness, etc.) and projects (communications, Medicare, Medicaid, Managed Care, health care enrollment, workshop development, Midtown Street Sheets, etc.) and more, please let us know.

  • Charts of committees
  • Developing committees
  • Startup committees (Housing, Health Access, Home Improvement, Communications/Social media Messaging, Street Sheets…)

2 min

MSCC’s HEALTHCARE ACCESS & COORDINATION FOR NYC HOMELESS REPORT

Prioritizing and achieving our mandate: Medical respite beds, street medicine, hospital adjacent shelters, combating nimby, housing clinical coordinator, insurance (medicare) enrollment, record sharing, and housing

3 min

MEDICARE, MEDICAID VS MANAGED CARE

Medicare enrollment is a prioritized solution to resolving Homelessness in our Healthcare Access  & Coordination for NYC Homeless report

  • It’s important to provide proper care to our aging population

Maribel Ruiz, Nancy Pascal, Maya Contreras, Jennifer Mallicote , Sonya D, Nancy Young, Joycelyn Taylor

3 min

PUBLIC CONCERNS

  • We’re in search of support for a couple, 30-years or younger, struggling with mental health issues. Updates: Charisma White, John Mudd, Serafina Payne, LMSW
  • Other

7 min

ACTION LIST

  • Action requests
  • Summary of today’s actions

 3 min

PROGRAM UPDATES

  • Street Sheets
  • Urban Garden
  • Workshops / Workshop Street Sheets

2 min

ANNOUNCEMENTS / EVENTS

  • Other announcements from our committee members?
  • New Attendees 
  • Comments / announcements from our elected officials
  • Positive stories

3 min

AOB

  • Topic Suggests:
    • Natalie Naculich, WNSA, HCC, 421A Tax credit
    • Intersecting goals to be impactful as a nonprofit
    • Illegal Hotels
    • Talking points
    • Network marketing and communications committee (suggestion)
    • Planning committee with Mount Sinai about their unused wings (suggested)
    • Prison to shelter / policing the problem away; 50% of the jail population are mentally ill
    • Community oversight
  • Speaker Suggestions: All suggestions are welcomed
  • New Members: Thank you for joining, feel free to tell us your needs, schedule a presentation, and connect with anyone within this network
  • NEXT Meeting Homeless and Housing Meeting: 9:30 AM Tuesday, April 5, 2022 
    • Always the 1st Tuesday of every month

2 min

Contact hello@localhost for more information and your Zoom invitations.

ADDENDUM A: DEFINING HOUSING

DEFINING HOUSING

When advocating for housing rights with a focus on community, the below items are considered:

  • Shelters: Truly transitional; although purposeful, achieving our housing and community goals will eliminate or lessen the need
  • Medical Respite Beds: Health care unit for longer stay and transitioning to housing (see Addendum B: Medical Respite Bed Advocacy Plan)
  • SROs: Single Room Occupancy
  • Supportive: Accessorized with social services
  • Housing First: Unconditional placement
  • Really Affordable: Rentals below the medium wage of 55,000 and or below 30% of income (input)
  • Affordable: The market rate rentals currently available to people above the medium wage up to 88,000 with a 30% of income ask or higher (see Addendum x)
  • Option and Incentives for Home Owner

ADDENDUM B: Bio of Claire M. Cohen, M.D. 

Dr. Claire Cohen is an African American child and adolescent psychiatrist who has been practicing in the Pittsburgh since 1984. She grew up in Philadelphia, PA where she attended Hahnemann Medical College (now Drexel University Medical School) and did her General Psychiatry Residency at the University of Chicago. She then moved to Pittsburgh to do her Child and Adolescent Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh’s Western Psychiatric Institute. She fell in love with Western Pennsylvania and has practiced here ever since. She has worked in a variety of settings, including community mental health clinics, partial hospitals, school- based settings and, currently, an inpatient hospital setting. 

In addition to her career, Dr. Cohen has always been very active in her community. In the late 1980s, she was involved in supporting the strike of the Pittston coal miners. In the 1990s, she was a member of the group that fought to get a Civilian Police Review Board in Pittsburgh. More recently she has been involved in efforts to stop the school-to-prison pipeline on the Pittsburgh Public Schools , a founding member of the Pittsburgh Green New Deal, on the advisory board of the Pittsburgh Black Workers Center and is fighting for Medicare For All as a member of Physicians For A National Health Program, the Western PA Coalition for Single Payer Healthcare, and National Single Payer. She is also on the Medicare 4 All Committee of Democratic Socialists of America. 

ADDENDUM C: LEGISLATION ACTIVISM

Alex HS Yong, WESNA Member, reports:

It’s my pleasure to share info. As I told Natalie, legislation is now my favorite part of activism. Here are some we like…

  • A8899 (I’m over-the-moon thrilled this bill is even introduced) It asks for Rent Stabilization in perpetuity for the 3 major “types” of 421a tenants. I’ve created a white paper re: 421a shenanigans, which mentions the 3 types. I can send that to you if you’d like. It’s a GoogleDoc
  • A7265/S6384 Purpose: To audit 421a so that its rampant fraud/abuses, focus on luxury, and its overall failure to give New Yorkers affordability can be laid bare for all to see (This bill complements A1931/S260A and would give it real legs)
  • S3082/A5573 Good Cause Eviction, the bill on which the “Right To Remain” campaign is based. This one I know you know about already. Fyi in case you haven’t heard: Landlord groups and landlord cronies are now actively phone banking against S3082. I support Good Cause Eviction as well as A8899; I feel it’s sensible to support both;
  • A5988 Punish landlords who warehouse apartments. The punishment would be fines and the fines would begin at a reasonable level but would go up up up the longer the warehousing continues. There is also a component within the bill designed to help the homeless. Sue Susman has a sharper understanding of the bill overall, including that component.

ADDENDUM D: PHYSICIANS ADVOCACY NYC

Physicians Advocacy NYC are responding to the Mayor’s Subway Safety Plan so far, if you have thoughts, please forward.  They’ll shop it around for signatures soon.


There’s also a housing advocacy day in Albany 3/9 if you want to sign up, let Betty know bettykolod@gmail.com.

ADDENDUM E: PARENTS TO IMPROVE TRANSPORTATION

Sara Catalinotto, Parents to Improve School Transportation

https://www.facebook.com/groups/pistnyc/
http://pistnyc.org/home.aspx
https://www.facebook.com/pistnyc/
https://twitter.com/pistnyc

2/4/22 Campaign Talking Points
As IPV survivors, my child and I know what it’s like to navigate the NYC shelter system.

We experienced firsthand the inequities of this shattered system. Which is not accesible at all to students with different abilities & their families. Students in temporary housing, particularly students with different abilities in temporary housing are at a greater disadvantage from the start, than the rest of their peers. Pupil transportation is many times not attainable for them due to procedural roadblocks and prevalent bureaucratic measures. Leaving these students and their families stuck in a wormhole of bureaucracy. Students in temporary housing miss much needed instruction and services due to transportation inequality, compared to their peers. Students with disabilities suffer a higher cost, since without their related services and due to lack of instruction, they regress months and even years of learning, compared to their neurotypical peers. All this, in violation of IDEA.

We know first hand what it’s like to not receive a bus route for weeks on end due to a lack of a simple address change.
We know what it’s like to have to travel long distances in frigid temperatures by train and bus to and from a specialized program, but not have enough cents for the fare back.

We understand what it feels like to only be provided two way metro cards each day regardless of the student’s travel needs.
We know what it’s like to be kicked out of a DV shelter at night as retaliation for having the audacity to request a 7-day unlimited metro card.

The temporary housing system in NYC is broken, and deteriorating even more. We were some of the privileged ones. There are a lot of families out there today who are facing greater odds than we ever did.

Transportation is a human and civil right for students in temporary housing, for students with different abilities, and for all students!

-Maggie Sanchez

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