CORONAVIRUS & MONKEYPOX

1. HERE’S THE NY SCOOP 

THE STATS:

18, 233, 401 vaccines administered across NYC
283 new hospitalizations
8,288 new cases (wear your masks!!!)
3, 679 Monkeypox cases in NY

GOOD NEWS

San Gennaro Fest Starts This Week! The annual Feast of San Gennaro, the sausage and pepper filled festival starts this Thursday, Sept 15th through to Sept 25th in Little Italy! Get ready for exciting events like Cannoli and Meatball Eating Contests.

BAD NEWS

Jacking Those Ferries Up?  The NYC Ferry is now $4 per trip, up from $2.75. A financial audit released by the Comptroller found that the NYC Ferry system ran up a bill of over $66 million in “unnecessary expenditures” including overpaying for vessels by $34 million. Yeah…let’s just call the kettle black and call this corruption at its core.
Ugh…Fyre Fest’s Billy McFarland is Out of Jail – And he’s living in Bed Stuy. After 5 years in prison and 6 months of house arrest, he’s on the path to release a new book and figure out his next new tech gig.

TELL US YOUR THOUGHTS

2. WHY IS THE RENT SO DAMN HIGH?

WTF IS HAPPENING?
We all know NYC is expensive, but this wasn’t always this case. 
 
Quick history lesson here…after the Great Depression, a new form of housing popped up to accommodate for all of the low income folks moving to cities looking for work. This was called the Single Room Occupancy or SRO. 
 
SROs were single rooms where people could rent out single rooms in buildings with shared bathrooms, kitchens and living rooms (not to be confused with today’s trendy micro apartments). 
 
BUT THERE WAS DRAMA OF COURSE
At its peak during the 1950s, there were over 200,000 SROs in NYC.
 
They were affordable for one of today’s largest demographic of homeless people, single older males. Unfortunately, SROs started to get a bad rap as they started to fill with the recently incarcerated, poor, and those released from mental institutions. Crime began to prevail and officials began tearing them down. 
 
Between 1976 and 1981, nearly two-thirds of all remaining SRO units were torn down and converted into…you guessed it, luxury apartments, hotels and Starbucks (just kidding about the last one). Profit became superior to the poor, and tax breaks were written to support luxury developments. 
 
AND NOW?
Today, for every 100 low-income households, there are only 47 apartments available. That means NYC is currently short of 772,000 apartments for low income houses ($28,020 to up to $60,050 for a family of three).
 
As rents in Manhattan now average $5,000 for a 1-bedroom apartment, the price spikes are just the tip of the iceberg. Supply will continue to be tight, since building new affordable apartments takes years to approve, on average, over two and a half years.

OH HEY, HELLO, ciaooo! 

3.  IN MEMORY OF 9/11

Heart 911 is a team of first responders – FDNYNYPDPAPD and the NYC Building Trades – that bonded in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. With the experiences they learned from dealing with disasters, they leverage their unparalleled experience to support, supplement and transfer skills and knowledge to suffering communities. 
 
You can volunteer with their team or donate today. 

Community-first. Women-led. ciaooo! is on a mission to empower brands and organizations that make NYC a better place. Learn more! 

team ciaooo

ciaooo! is an NYC based editorial site, newsletter, and events company. We're the local's guide to conquering NYC. Follow us on Instagram @ciaooomag for the latest. Nice to see you here!

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