NYC NOW - January 11, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Governor Hochul is pushing ahead with her plan to bolster mental health services in New York, especially in schools. Meanwhile, the National Weather Service says powerful winds and rain are returning to the New York region on Friday, following the storm from earlier this week. Plus, on Wednesday, the new head of the Department of Correction met with the city’s jail oversight board for the first time to address complaints by Rikers detainees about not being able to wash their clothes for at least a year. WNYC’s Michael Hill spoke with reporter Jessy Edwards who has been following the story.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Thursday, January 11. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Governor Cathy Hokel is pushing ahead with her plan to bolster mental health services in New York State, especially in schools. The governor went to the Bronx this morning to highlight her state-of-the-state agenda. She says she wants to open up mental health clinics in any school that wants one. with the state picking up the startup cost. Parents can't take time off their jobs and take the kids an appointment.

That might be 11 o'clock in the morning. That doesn't work. You do it in school where the kids are. That's where they're showing up every day. The governor will need to secure a funding in the state budget to enact her plan. She delivers her budget proposal on Tuesday. From there, Hockel and lawmakers faced April 1st deadline to have a final spending plan in place.

The National Weather Service says powerful wind and rain are returning to the New York region tomorrow after a storm this week caused power outages and floods. The metro area is forecasted to get up to two inches of rain from Friday into the Saturday and wind gusts up to 50 miles an hour. John Christantello is a lead meteorologist with the weather service. He says there's no widespread risk of flash flooding, but residents should monitor conditions. So far, it doesn't look quite as strong as the previous one, but, you know, it still looks like it's going to pack a pretty good punch. Coastal and river flooding is possible with the risk highest on Saturday morning. Temperatures

should stay above freezing long enough to prevent flash freezing. Forty-four and mostly cloudy out there now, mostly sunny today and 47 for a high. Let me on the windy side too. Tomorrow, increasing clouds in 47 and Friday, heavy rain Friday night, thunderstorms, high winds, temperature rising in near 50, more rain, showers, showers, Saturday, temperature falling to the mid-40s, and then here comes a cold front. Stay close. There's more after the break. Lawyers for detainees on Rikers Island say some of their clients haven't had access to a regular laundry service for at least a year. Yesterday, the newly appointed head of the Department

of Correction, went in front of the city's Jail Oversight Board for the first time to address the mounting complaints about this situation. WNIC's Jesse Edwards has been following this, and she's here now to talk about it. Hi, Jesse. Hi, Michael. What do we know about the laundry situation at Rikers? Well, we know that detainees across nearly all of the jail facilities on Rikers Island are reporting that they don't have access to a regular laundry service to keep their clothing and bidding clean.

The laundry service is supposed to happen on at least a weekly basis on Rikers. But lawyers for people detained their toll men, that some of their clients are going six weeks to two months without laundry service. And this is even in the infirmary. Yeah, they say that detainees are resorting to washing their own clothes. So some people might have plastic storage tubs that they wash their clothes in, but others do not. So we're hearing that some detainees are washing their clothes on their bodies in the shower. And we've even heard about detainees washing their clothing in toilet

bowls. Yeah, lawyers for people detained on Rikers Island told me that the issue goes back at least a year, if not longer. How are laundry services at Rikers supposed to work? Well, the Department of Correction is supposed to follow what's called the city's minimum standards. So under these minimum standards, any detainee who enters Rikers Island is meant to get a set of clothing and bedding. So the clothing items that includes one T-shirt, one set of, of pants, a pair of shoes, two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, plus bedding and a mattress. The department is supposed to provide a laundry service for the clothing twice a week and supposed to provide laundry service for the sheets once a week. Also, under the minimum

standards, this is all meant to happen under the Department of Corrections budget at the Department of Corrections expense, I should say. And that's bearing in mind that the city spends more than half a million dollars per year per person to house each detainee on Rikers. What do lawyers say not having laundry services means for their clients there? One lawyer I spoke to at Brooklyn Defenders, his name is Michael Klinger. He described how detainees are forced to either wash their own clothes with body soap or some will purchase at their own expense laundry detergent from the commissary. But then, Michael, there's the problem of drying the clothes.

They have to wash their clothing in the shower. They have to wear wet clothing afterwards. They have to sleep in a damp bed because they chose to dry their clothes on their bed. Some people will wash their sheets and then put them back on the bed wet, and that can exacerbate the existing mold issues that we know about on Rikers Island. But there are other detainees who simply are not able to wash their own clothes. One lawyer who I spoke to at the Bronx Defenders, She has a client who is in a wheelchair, he has two broken legs, and he's in the infirmary on Rikers Island.

He's there alongside other detainees who are either older, elderly, or sick. She told me that he's been complaining since last summer that he and other detainees in the infirmary have gone six weeks to two months without laundry service. And he reported that some of the detainees in the infirmary suffer from incontinence. and are left in soiled sheets and underwear, which is obviously a hygiene issue. Other lawyers I spoke to, they told me that they are sending detainees fresh clothes on an almost daily basis. There are permissible clothing items that you can send to detainees on Rikers.

They say otherwise they've had detainees turning up to family visits or even court appearances and dirty clothes, smelling bad, and feeling a lot of shame. What are jails officials saying about this? Well, jail officials say they do offer the regular laundry service. They say it's up to detainees to bring their items for exchange each week. And they also point to the number of complaints that they've had. So they said they had 27 complaints about laundry issues last month, and they point to the fact that that represents less than 1% of the population on Rikers Island.

But they do say that they take each and every complaint seriously, and they investigate them. But lawyers for detainees say that their clients have a lot going on, so they're not necessarily complaining about laundry issues every day, although it is a persistent issue. This issue came up at an oversight meeting yesterday. I'm wondering what happened there? Yeah.

At the Board of Correction meeting yesterday, city officials were confronted with some of the impacts on detainees that these laundry issues have. We heard about detainees who have gone more than a month, without laundry service who are living in dirty clothes. This is despite them saying they have lodged multiple complaints about the issue. We even heard about some detainees who don't have mattresses who are sleeping on the floor. At the meeting, the department's associate commissioner of facility operations,

her name is Alison Pace. She said she was committing to an audit of the laundry services on Rikers moving forward. I am not saying we come with no issues at all. we're going to identify an audit process to see how we can better be of service. So she told the board that the department is trying to commit to change. Jessie, just a couple of seconds left here. How does this fit into the bigger picture of what's going on at Rikers now? Yeah, well, the city is facing a takeover of its jail systems,

and that's due to the rising violence and the poor conditions that we've been reporting on, on Rikers. So last month, the new commissioner was appointed to the Jail's Department. and the federal monitor and the federal court are watching her moves closely to see if she can make the jail system more humane and reduce violence there. If she can, that could perhaps help fight this takeover. That's how Jesse Edwards. You can read more of her reporting on this at our news website, Gothamus.

Jesse, as always, thank you. Thank you, Michael. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day. for your top news headlines and occasional deep guys. Also subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.