In this issue:
| Let’s talk about homelessness, free Covid tests and what you can do to help. |
CORONAVIRUS
1. HERE’S THE NY SCOOP
THE STATS:
| 16,052,317 vaccines administered across NYC 496 new hospitalizations 😱 16,330 new cases down from 20,200 last week |
GOOD NEWS
| Covid Cases Going Down, Down In An Earlier Round 🎵– Today’s NYC COVID #s show continuing rapid drop in cases and positivity but that doesn’t mean we’re out of the doghouse yet. More people get Covid-19 at the post-peak than during the pre-peak days, so continue to mask up w the K95s. TREAT YO’SELF… To Free Covid Tests – Every home in the U.S. is eligible to order 4 free at-home COVID-19 tests. The tests are completely free. Orders will usually ship in 7-12 days. Order now so you have them! |
BAD NEWS…
| Heartbreaking MTA Murder – An Asian woman, 40 year old Michelle Go, was pushed into the train tracks to her death on Saturday by a homeless man with multiple past crimes and mental health issues. Gov Hochul and Mayor Adams are partnering to provide more protection for the subway and offer more mental health services. The case has not been declared a hate crime, sadly. |
DID YOU KNOW?
2. LET’S TALK ABOUT HOMELESSNESS
| How does one become homeless in NYC…Is it crime? Lack of policing? Too much policing? Drugs? Mental Health? The #1 cause of homelessness is actually none of the above. It’s a lack of affordable housing. We all know NYC is expensive, but this wasn’t always this case. 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). SO WHAT DO WE DO? Today, the multitudes of homeless people flooding the subway systems and streets, are the very same group of people who would have been living in SROs just a few decades ago. The number of homeless single adults is 92 percent higher than it was ten years ago. According to the NYPD, while overall subway crime is down from pre-pandemic levels, transit crime is up 41% over the last month and up 65% so far this year. There were 30 subway shoving incidents in 2021, compared to 26 the year before. The solution should be a mix of ACTUAL affordable housing, integrated social work and mental health support. What do you think? |
WHAT CAN WE DO?
3. WHAT SHOULD WE COVER NEXT?
| What do you want to read about next? Is there an issue you think we should cover or feature in an upcoming newsletter? We’d love to hear your suggestions. Feel free to write back, we read every response! |
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