NYC NOW - June 21, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

. Former Rent Guidelines Board member Leah Goodridge expresses concern over potential increases on stabilized rent as the board is set to cast their decision tonight. Riders Alliance members plan to gather today to urge Mayor Adams to approve a car-free busway on Fordham Road in the Bronx. Lastly, New York City's largest criminal justice program, supervised release, has seen its enrollment numbers surge in the wake of bail reform. Nowadays, if you're arrested, you're more likely to be released from jail on supervised release than cash bail by a ratio of four to one. WNYC’s Michael Hill discusses this growing program with public safety reporter Matt Katz.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Wednesday, June 21st. Here's the Midday News from Michael Hill. The city's Rent Guidelines Board will hold its annual vote tonight to decide how much rents will increase on stabilized units. Leah Goodrich is a former Rent Guidelines board member. She says any kind of increase could put tenants at risk. Even if it's 1% or it's 2%, if the rent is already unaffordable, we're talking about a 1% putting you in housing court for eviction. The board is weighing potential rent hikes between 2 and 5% on a one-year leases and between 4 and 7% on 2-year leases. Landlords say they need rent heights to make upgrades and repairs.

The vote takes place at 7 tonight at Hunter College and streams on the rent guidelines board's YouTube channel. The fight to bring a busway to one of the busiest streets in the Bronx continues. Members of Riders Alliance plan to gather today to demand that Mayor Adams approve a plan to add a car-free busway to Fordham Road in the Bronx. Supporters say the addition is necessary to alleviate crowding at bus stops and reduce wait time and would mostly serve working-class communities of color. Some local businesses, though, oppose the plan saying it would create more car traffic. Under one of the proposals, cars would be restricted between Morris and Webster

Avenues. Mayor Adams has promised to oversee 150 miles of new bus lanes by 2025. The Riders Alliance bus lane tracker says there's still some 50 miles to go before the city meets this year's goal. Summer has begun, 70 and some sunshine out there now, mostly cloudy and 73 for a high day with a slight breeze, and then tonight a 50-50. chance of showers by midnight and 60. Public safety experts say it's New York's biggest criminal justice program that almost no one knows about. It's called supervised release and its enrollment numbers have exploded in the

wake of bail reform. If you're arrested, you're now more than four times as likely to get out of jail on supervised release than cash bail. WNIC reporter Matt Katz has been looking into this growing program and he joins us. Now, Matt, give us the primer on supervised release. How long has it been around and what does it do? It's relatively new. And what's amazing is how quickly it has become a centerpiece of the city's justice system. It started as a pilot program in Queens in 2009, began citywide in 2016.

And it was intended to give judges an option to release people pretrial to the supervision of social workers who are employed by nonprofit agencies that contract with the city. By 2019, city officials said it was already responsible for freeing so many people before trial that there was a 38% decline in the detainee population at Rikers. And right now, more than 8,000 people are on supervised release. So the point of it is to take people charge with crimes instead of just telling them to go home and return for a court date or instead of locking them up at Rikers until their court date, they instead get linked to social services run by social work. and peer specialists who have experience with being arrested themselves or have a history with the city mental health system.

And the idea is that people will be more likely to show up to court due to the support they get through this. And they'll also be less likely to be re-arrested. And so far, it's had an astounding reach. According to the mayor's office, more than 50,000 people have so far been diverted away from Rikers and city jails because of this. That's a huge number, Matt. What kind of services do people get on supervised release? I went out to Queens to check out the criminal justice agency. This is one of the nonprofits that run the city's supervisor release programs.

After people are arraigned and assigned to this program by a judge, they come into this office for a 45-minute assessment to talk about their needs, employment, education, treatment, and it's here where they're connected to services, everything from art therapy groups to substance abuse counseling, to anchor management programs, to housing assistance. The only requirement is that they check in with case managers as often as every week by visiting here or calling, sometimes with a cell phone that the social workers actually

provide them. Joanne DeHesuze, who oversees the program in Queens, she says people need help just figuring out how to get help. Some people don't have core support, family support, individuals that can really help them through some of the things that they're going through, and that's what our case managers provide. People come here for a cup of hot soup for a little baggy of snack bars and water. And Matt, when you visit it, what did the people in the program say themselves about their experience on supervised release? I spoke to a guy named Brian. He didn't want his last name

used because of his pending drug possession charges. He told me he uses heroin every day, but the folks here are working to get him food stamps and into a detox program and flushing, which he's looking forward to. I sat in. on one of his meetings with a caseworker. Hopefully I can get my life back. Well, you're doing a great step. Being ready to do something different, to do treatment. That's a very big step.

And you getting your life together, how you foresee it for yourself. Brian was recently hit by a subway train while panhandling, and he shows me a nasty gash on his leg. And then he gives himself a bit of a pep talk. You've had many chances. You got hit by a train and you survived. So God is leaving you here for a reason. So you need to find what that reason is and fulfill it.

Brian says his caseworker is really helping him. She's one of those people that this is not just a job. She does this because, you know, you know the saying, you got to love what you do and you don't work a day in your life. I feel like that's her. How is this program connected to bail reform? We mentioned earlier that enrollment in Supervisor release skyrocketed in the wake of bail reform. Laws passed in New York.

Why is that? Most of the people in the program now are not low-level drug offenders like Brian. Supervisor release had started as this program just for people like Brian, charged with minor crimes. But in 2020, bail reform goes into effect. This prevented judges from imposing bail on most people. it meant far more people were getting out pre-trial. And that's when the city made anyone charged with any crime eligible for supervised release.

So now most people in the program have felony charges and more than a third have violent felony charges. And data shows that supervisor release is not really working for this cohort of people in terms of A, not getting them re-arrested and B, making sure they show up to court. Supervisor release program leaders say they just don't have the resources to adequately assist people with higher needs like this, people with domestic violent arrests and mental health challenges. Also, the caseload is tremendous. They say that if bail reform is going to be successful in preserving public safety, then the city has to figure out how to make supervisor release work for people who keep getting arrested on these serious charges. That sounds like it will require more.

money, man. Are there any budgetary issues around the program now? The city is spending $201 million on supervisor release now over three years. The social workers say they need more because the current funding doesn't allow them to support these new violent offenders with a long arrest histories. They say they need a more rigorous system with more requirements on the clients, more money for people to provide more supervision. But when you're talking about more money, Steve Ziedman, He's a former public defender and director of the criminal defense clinic at CUNY Law. He says he sees mission creep here. He says a once narrowly targeted program is now hugely expensive and faces little accountability.

As the mayor is cutting services, it struck me as troublesome that no one is really questioning this money. Zyman calls it the supervised release industrial complex because he thinks it vacuums up money that should be redirected into communities to provide services there. And sure, he says it's great that people aren't getting locked up at Rikers, which is a humanitarian disaster, but he asks why so many people even need to be on supervisor release if most people show up to their court dates anyway. And on top of that, Zyman sees supervisor release

as being yet another criminal database that black and brown New Yorkers can find themselves in maybe forever, even though so many ultimately get their criminal cases dismissed. He worries that if people on supervised release miss a check-in date with their social worker, they can get in trouble with the judge, which would entrench them deeper into the system. So that's one criticism there, but city leaders still do generally seem to like this program. They think it's successful. And we're waiting to see if the city's budget includes any additional funds this coming year. A lot of issues there.

Matt, thank you very much. And for a more detailed explainer on supervised release, go to gothast.com. Thank you, Matt. Thanks, 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 dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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