Caption the Emergency City Mayor

From Sanctuary City to Emergency City

 

AMNY 

Mayor Eric Adams declared a city State of Emergency Friday over the more than 17,000 migrants who have come to the Big Apple seeking shelter since April, calling on Washington and Albany to provide the city with additional resources to handle the influx.

During a live streamed speech at City Hall Friday morning, Adams said the city has been doing all it possibly can to handle the thousands of asylum seekers who are getting bussed here by southern states like Texas after coming from South and Central America across the southern border. This includes stretching the shelter system to nearly 100 percent capacity, opening 42 emergency hotel shelters and building a tent-like shelter on Randall’s Island – first cited for Orchard Beach in the Bronx – he’s dubbed a Humanitarian Relief and Response Center (HERRC).

The emergency declaration, the mayor said, is coupled with an executive order intended to expedite construction of the HERRC.

“New York City is doing all we can, but we are reaching the outer limit of our ability to help,” Adams said. “Today I’m declaring a state of emergency in the city of New York and issuing an executive order. This executive order will direct all agencies to coordinate their efforts to construct the humanitarian relief centers. We are also suspending certain land use requirements to expedite this process.”

Without mentioning them by name, Hizzoner blasted southern elected officials like Texas Governor Greg Abbott for bussing thousands of asylum seekers to the five boroughs every day without coordinating with his administration or so much as a heads up of when and how many buses will be arriving. Adams repeated what has become a common refrain that Abbott and others are exploiting the city’s “right to shelter” law – that requires it to house anyone seeking shelter – for “political gain.”

“Our right to shelter laws, our social services, and our values are being exploited by others for political gain,” he said. “New Yorkers are angry. I am angry too. We have not asked for this. There was never any agreement to take on the job of supporting thousands of asylum seekers. This responsibility was simply handed to us without warning as buses began showing up. There’s no playbook for this, no precedent.”

And the responsibility of accepting 17,000 asylum seekers and counting comes with a hefty price tag. The mayor said his administration expects to spend at least $1 billion on handling this crisis alone by the end of the current fiscal year next June.

Legislation is being drawn to suspend evictions for the rest of the year

Gothamist

 Responding to dire predictions that thousands of New Yorkers, unable to make rent because of COVID-19, could soon wind up on the street, a group of state lawmakers want to block landlords from evicting tenants until the end of the year.

The new legislation would extend Governor Andrew Cuomo's moratorium on evictions, which is set to expire on June 18th, for an additional six months from when the State of Emergency is declared over.

"That moratorium, while welcome, is not enough," Manhattan Senator Brad Hoylman, who introduced the legislation on Tuesday, told Gothamist. "We have to create this safe harbor to give tenants time to get back on their feet."

The bill would ensure tenants cannot be removed from their homes for unpaid rent for the duration of the public health crisis. It would not suspend rent altogether, as other state lawmakers have proposed, and would still allow landlords to sue delinquent tenants for monetary judgements.

But housing attorneys said the bill is a critical first step in addressing a looming evictions crisis that Cuomo has largely waved off.

"Without any state action, there are going to be New Yorkers across the state who will be unable to pay their rent, and very soon the courts are going to reopen and the cases will start piling up," said Ellen Davidson, a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society. "This is a step in the right direction to ensure we don't end up with hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in the street at a moment when coronavirus is wreaking havoc on the homeless population."

Expert predict that as many as 40 percent of New York tenants may be forced to skip April rent payments, as COVID-19 containment measures have pushed unemployment to historic levels. Bronx Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, who introduced a companion bill in the State Assembly, said that tenants who'd lost income during the pandemic were now facing "a ticking time bomb."

For his part, Cuomo has repeatedly insisted the "rent issue" was solved through the three-month eviction moratorium. He has declined to support a bill with bipartisan support that would cancel rent payments and provide relief to landlords as well.

New York City is in a state of emergency from coronavirus pandemic

NY Daily News

Mayor de Blasio declared a state of emergency, and Gov. Cuomo banned public events of more than 500 people Thursday as the dogged and potentially-deadly coronavirus picked up steam, nearly doubling the number of infected New Yorkers in just a single day.

No bright lights. No Bible studies. No big or jam-packed crowds. That was the effect of the governor’s gathering ban, which goes into effect 5 p.m. Friday, and applies to large houses of worship, arenas and concert halls including Madison Square Garden, Barclays Center and the Apollo Theater in Harlem.

All Broadway theaters went dark Thursday evening.

Venues that draw crowds of less than 500 people — including bars and restaurants — can only be filled to 50% capacity under the ban, Cuomo said.

"We’re going to take very dramatic actions,” Cuomo said.

Exempted are hospitals, schools nursing homes and mass transit, he said.

The new restrictions and the state of emergency were put in place amid a rapid rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city. De Blasio said there were 95 confirmed cases across the five boroughs including an alarming 42 cases in just one day. Of the sobering total, 29 people were in mandatory quarantine, de Blasio said. The mayor predicted the city could have 1,000 cases by next week and said the crisis could last six months or longer.

Under a state of emergency, the mayor can order public spaces to be closed and cleared, restrict vehicle access, initiate curfews and modify labor contracts.

De Blasio said the restrictions will be hard on city businesses.

“We don’t do any of this lightly. This is difficult stuff," de Blasio said. “It’s really going to be kind of a hole in our lives. It’s painful. It’s not something we would ever want to do, but we have to do.”

“There’s one small piece of good news,” the mayor said. “We had the first case of somebody coming out of mandatory quarantine and able to go back to their lives.”

De Blasio said he wants to keep the schools open.

“We are going to fight tooth and nail to protect our school system for many, many reasons,” de Blasio said. “It where our children are very safe, and our parents have no alternatives. We’re going to do our damndest to keep the schools open.”

The city has also suspended evictions anywhere in city housing unless criminal activity is involved.

The state, meanwhile, will impose restrictions on nursing homes across the state, including banning all visitors, and will mandate that all staff wear masks and be monitored for symptoms.

The elderly are particularly susceptible to the coronavirus.

Cuomo said nursing home facilities can make exceptions for those visiting a family member who is critically ill or facing death, though they, too, must wear protective gear.

I might sound persnickety but when Cuomo declared a state of emergency for New York State, isn't de Blasio's announcement redundant?

Governor Cuomo declares state of emergency for coronavirus, case found in Far Rockaway

NY Daily News

Gov. Cuomo declared a state of emergency Saturday as the New Rochelle coronavirus virus cluster continued to expand, with 23 new cases bringing Westchester County’s infected population to 57 people — the most in New York state.

Cuomo announced the number of people testing positive statewide has now reached 76, climbing steadily over the last few days. There were also new cases in the Rockaways and in Saratoga County, he said, and a pair of Rockland County positive tests were also linked to the same New Rochelle lawyer who was one of the first two reported cases of the virus.

“We have a situation in New Rochelle,” the governor said at his daily update on the virus. "You’re seeing those numbers in New Rochelle expand as you have seen in other clusters. One becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes 10, then 12. And then 12 people go out and touch 200, and 400, and 800.