Homeless & Housing Meeting Agenda: Tuesday, March 5, 2024  

July 24, 2024 | admin

Date: Tuesday, March 5, 2024, Time: 9:30 am-11:00 am, Place Zoom

SUMMARY

This meeting will focus on housing development alternatives; achieving better standards of living. This city has a misunderstanding of what real development is, their policies increase instability, homelessness, housing, and health crises.

CHAIR: John Mudd

WELCOME / INTRODUCTIONS

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

  • Housekeeping (Zoom protocols) copying chat, muting, etc.
    • Signing in: Please sign in with your name and organization
  • 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
  • Introductions, welcoming new and old members (keeping it short and sweet)
  • Need someone to summarize actions and followup

PURPOSE

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

5 min

POLICY MEETING UPDATES

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

3 min

COUNCIL HIGHLIGHTS

Council’s progress report on actions and initiatives.

  • Farms!
  • Web
  • Healthcare (medicare) Committee
  • Vornado / ESD Development / Community-led plan
  • For The Greater Good Forums (4)
  • Other

5 min

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION(S) AND OR UPDATES: 

The below list of intros and updates are brief; everyone is welcomed to present for a planned lengthier discussion

  • Elected officials/agencies—updates
  • Katy Lesell, Right To Counsel
  • Daniel Pichinson, Ryan Chelsea Clinton—updates 
  • Rue Parkin, HelpNYC—updates
  • Alex Yong, WSNA NYC, Member of the End Apartment Warehousing Coalition—Updates
  • Charisma White
  • Right To Counsel
  • Saving Public Housing Coalition
  • Others
  • New attending members?

5 mins

HOMELESSNESS BY THE NUMBERS

The crisis is deepening. Before, during, and after, no real serious plan to even keep it in check is working. Evictions are being processed like a bread-line in a shelter. More than half the renters are cost burden. Today, we’ll discuss the numbers with DHS, Department of Homeless Services.

  • Increase of numbers
  • Effects of rotating people in and out of the shelter under the limited stay policy
  • Where do people transitioning too (particularly families with children and their proximity to schools and other resources),
  • Actual placements
  • Plans to ameliorate…
  • Anything on housing and shelter stock developing

Speaker(s): Steven King, DHS, Tamara Felix, CUCS

15 min

HOUSING DEVELOPMENT ALTERNATIVE

We’re looking for alternatives and a better standard of living. The Empire State Development Corporation misunderstands the word development. We must look outside the normalized wealth extraction policies. 

Speakers: Arielle Hersh, UHAB, Elise Goldin, New Economy NYC

30 min 

DEMOLITION ALTERNATIVES TO THE ELLIOT CHELSEA  AND FULTON HOUSE 

Related and NYCHA plans to end public housing. They have plans to reduce people’s protections and demolish their homes. We’re strategizing to educate, coalesce, organize, and save public housing

5 min

PUBLIC CONCERNS

  • Immediate needs?
    • Charisma White

10 min

ACTIONS

  • Summary
  • Additional Requests
    • Letter writing campaign, press releases

2 min

ANNOUNCEMENTS / EVENTS

  • Additional announcements from new attendees, committee members, elected officials, others 
  • MSCC’s Forums
  • Last words?

2 min

DEVELOPING INITIATIVES & PROGRAMS

  • Forums: Health, Housing, and Development
  • Rally to highlighting the inequities and bad policies
    • Locations: Midtown near Port Authority, Hudson Yards, NYCHA, Penn Station
  • One Stop Shop
  • Hurt Committee
  • Objectives/Mission/Vision: MSCC is busily restructuring to become more effective in accomplishing its goals and making plans for the coming new year to complete their:
    • 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
  • Committees: Managing our overwhelming tasks together with our intersecting network. If anyone wants to be involved with building committees to serve programs and projects of mutual interests (Housing, Urban Farming, Education & Awareness, healthcare, incarceration, workshops, health access, Home Improvement, communications/social media messaging, Midtown Street Sheets…), please let us know
  • Street Sheets; New batch printed

4 min

AOB

  • Topic Suggests:
    • Illusion of Choice: How Source of Income Discrimination and Voucher Policies Perpetuate Housing Inequality, UnlockNYC
    • Charisma White (MSCC), what does deeply affordable housing mean
    • Network marketing and communications committee (suggestion)
    • Planning committee with Mount Sinai about their unused wings (suggested)
    • Common Point’s services
    • Prison to shelter and back again
    • Policing the problem away; 50% of the Riker’s Island jail population are mentally ill
  • 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 2, 2024
    • Always the 1st Tuesday of every month

2 min

Contact hello@localhost or john.mudd@usa.net for more information and Zoom invitations.

ADDENDUM

Announcement:

“on Monday, March 11 at 11 AM on City Hall Steps the NYC Council Progressive Caucus and the NYC Comptroller’s office will launch the Homes Now, Homes for Generations Campaign with a coalition of housing advocates, unions, and faith groups. The Homes Now, Homes for Generations campaign is calling on the City to invest $2 billion over the next 4 years to build and preserve permanently affordable, community-controlled housing in NYC. We’re calling for 25% by 2025: a 25% increase in the capital HPD budget so that the city can build more affordable housing AND protect existing affordable housing. We know that the private market alone cannot solve the housing crisis. We’re calling for a 25% increase of the HPD capital budget to fund housing controlled by the people – not private developers. we’re calling for funding two existing programs: Neighborhood Pillars and Open Door.  We’re not re-creating the wheel, but funding two existing programs with great potential that have been underfunded.

Neighborhood Pillars helps community organizations acquire and rehabilitate for-profit-owned housing. This would allow community-based organizations with deep ties to the local neighborhood to control housing stock. The City put this program on the back burner in June 2019 and preserved less than 400 units since the program was launched in December 2018. Increased funding would scale this program back up to its original vision. 

Open Door finances the new construction of multi-family shared equity co-operatives. This grants New Yorkers a path toward homeownership so that they can stay in their homes and create generational wealth. For thousands of New York families left out of the traditional homeownership market, this can change the trajectory of generations.  Our campaign seeks to quadruple the annual budget of this program, creating more affordable homeownership opportunities for working-class New Yorkers.

Related Articles

Business

MSCC Homeless & Housing Meeting RECAP: November 5, 2024

Read More
Business

MSCC Homeless and Housing Recap: December 3, 2024

Read More
Business

MSCC Homeless and Housing Meeting RECAP: September 3, 2024

Read More

Make NYC a better place –
sign up for our newsletter!