NYC NOW - March 12, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

Another person accused of attacking police officers in Times Square in late January has been arrested in connection with the incident. Plus, two major charities will tap New York City’s wealthiest donors for help with the migrant crisis. Also, WNYC’s Michael Hill talks with Dr. Meisha Porter, President and CEO of the Bronx Community Foundation, about the importance of digital equity expansion for residents of the borough. And finally, WNYC’s Karen Yi reports the increased competition of people collecting bottles and cans is pressuring state lawmakers to double the refund rate from a nickel to a dime.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City. From WMYC, I'm Jenae Pierre. Another person accused of attacking police officers in Times Square in late January has been arrested in connection with the incident. Say 20-year-old Ecklerly Vega is charged with assaulting an officer outside a migrant shelter in a scuffle that was captured on video and received widespread media coverage. The dustup became the latest focal point of the city's debate about crime and immigration. The arrest follows a string of charges against several other suspects in the incident.

Though earlier this month, prosecutors dropped charges against a 22-year-old man who was initially misidentified as a suspect. Two major charitable groups in New York City are targeting wealthy New Yorkers to help the city navigate the ongoing migrant crisis. WMYC's Elizabeth Kim has more. The Robin Hood Foundation and the New Yorker. New York Community Trust are in the early stages of reaching out to individual donors, corporations, and foundations. City controller Brad Lander says he approached the Adams administration around six months ago with the idea of letting charities take the lead on fundraising. This is a great model in which they can do it directly, but still in a broader collaboration. City Hall will not control any money from the new fundraising. Mayor Eric Adams has struggled to raise money from.

the philanthropic class. His campaign is also facing multiple investigations into its own fundraising practices. We'll take a quick break here, but when we come back, we're talking internet access. Who has it and who doesn't, specifically in the Bronx? Stick around for that conversation and more. 50 community leaders say they know how to improve the Bronx, and they have 50 ideas to prove it. One is to expand digital equity in the borough. A recent report found that 40% of Bronx residents lack access to high-speed internet at home. And community advocates say that's essential for better schooling and higher-paying jobs. Dr. Misha Porter is president and CEO of the Bronx Community Foundation.

The group published the report along with the Center for an Urban Future. WMYC's Michael Hill talked with Porter about the report and ways to expand digital equity in the Bronx. The report states it's almost impossible to create a more equitable economy in New York City without putting the Bronx at the forefront. Why is that? One of the things I really think about when I think about New York City coming back, you know, post-pandemic is like, how are we really looking at communities across New York City that have been traditionally underserved? So the Bronx is a borough has seen the most significant disinvestment. And I think it's really important that the pathway forward for New York City is really about focusing on those communities, those

neighborhoods and really increasing the levels of investment, making sure that we have access to what, you know, when we think about Midtown Manhattan and businesses coming back, we need to think about how do we create more vibrant out-of-borrow communities as well. The report has ideas for better housing, for jobs, for food security, among other suggested improvements, but increasing broadband access is one item that keeps coming up. How far behind is the Bronx compared to the other boroughs and what's the cause for that lag? The fact of the matter is up to 40% of Bronx residents don't have access to high quality broadband. And what it says to me as an educator, that means that in the pandemic, up to 40% of families

didn't have access to high quality education. And if we think about all the ways that we use the Internet today to access health care to access resources, businesses in the Bronx were the lowest to receive business loans during the pandemic because they didn't have the access to systems to apply for them. And so there are many ways that we are being left out. There's an employment element to the idea to increase broadband access that we're talking about here. Spelthet Al Force, please. First of all, is access, right? Like, how do you start getting a job? You apply digitally, right? Like, no longer are the days when you walk into a store and fill out an application and leave it.

So there's that. There's also, you know, across New York City, folks aren't going back to work five days a week. People are working from home. And so we need to have access and the ability to do that. And so there's so many different ways and points of entry into the workforce that start with having access to quality, high-speed broadband. Technology is moving faster than we are with the advancements in AI, which is changing every day. We have to make sure Bronx sites are moving with that change. You know, once you have this technology, there's always the learning curve for digital literacy.

Describe some of the ideas to achieve that. So there are ideas around requiring digital literacy training for all city employees, expanding the New York Public Library's Tech Connect program that offers digital literacy programming. Geraldine Rodriguez, the founder and CEO of the Knowledge House, talks about creating a digital equity plan for the entire borough. And we're really proud to work with the Bronx Digital Equity Coalition to push that forward. And so digital literacy, right? Like I liken the internet to a number two pencil that we used many, many years ago.

Without a sharpener, right, that pencil was useless. We shouldn't have our communities be in that place. And so first access, then innovation so that all communities are learning and moving at the same pace and no one's left behind. In New York City, there's the Affordable Connectivity Program. for a discount on your internet bill and link NYC for free public Wi-Fi access, among other programs. But do these programs go far enough for what the Bronx needs? They don't go far enough in terms of ensuring access, right? They're important. Like, having affordable internet, low cost is one step. But if you can't access it, then it's almost like

it's non-existent. And so there's the opportunity to make it affordable, if not free in many cases, but it has to be accessible as well. What's next? What does the Bronx need from the city, from the state, from the federal government to get on a better path? The Bronx needs the level of investment, significant resources, financial investment in the borough, financial investment in these ideas,

financial investment in the infrastructure. Let's show Bronx sites that we believe in them, that the city believes in us. I live in the Bronx. I've raised my family in the Bronx. And I came back to run the foundation because I believe in the Bronx. Let's make a level of investment

that the Bronx hasn't seen before so this borough can thrive. That's Dr. Misha Porter, president and CEO of the Bronx Community Foundation, talking with WMYC's Michael Hill. More New Yorkers are turning to collecting bottles and cans found on city streets or piled in recycling bins in exchange for a small deposit. The increased competition is pressuring state lawmakers to double the refund rate from a nickel to a dime. WMYC's Karen Yee has more.

54-year-old Josefa Mading is sorting through piles of empty cans that she's collected over two days, digging through the trash from popular bars and apartment buildings. After 20 years of doing this back-breaking work, she's got a system. She sits in the middle of several open plastic bags, slinging each aluminum container into a different bag, according to brand and distributor. The cans land just where she wants them. You have good aim, I say. She says it's all practice.

At the Redemption Center in Williamsburg, where she sorts her hall, beverage distributors arrive weekly to cart off truckloads of bottles and cans to recycle. Lateros or canners like Maring are a growing workforce in New York City. Many workers who lost their job during the pandemic and newly arrived migrants who can't get traditional work are finding they can earn money as independent recyclers. But with more competition and rising rents and food prices, an association of canners want state lawmakers to double the deposit they receive from $0.5 to $0.00.

It would be the first boost in more than 40 years. The $0.5 deposit was created in 1982, and it hasn't changed since that time. Ryan Castalia heads, Sure We Can, a nonprofit redemption center in Brooklyn helping canners. His organization released a report earlier this month that found canners earn an average of $5 an hour, a third of the city's minimum wage. Most are immigrants, and nearly half of them are between 50 and 65 years old. Lots of canters will come once a week, maybe earn $8, $10, $20.

Some will come a few times, $40, $60. So we have folks who work to earn your whole livelihood from this. It's really hard work. A bill before the state legislature would not only increase the deposit rate for canners, but also widen the lists of containers eligible for a refund to include wine bottles, juice boxes, liquor bottles, and mini-alcohol containers. Not everyone supports the plan. Michael Correra leads the state association of liquor stores. He says businesses don't have the room to store empties until recyclers or distributors can come pick them up.

Plus, the whole process could attract vermin. The last thing we need is issues when it comes to bugs and rats, and that's what this brings. When the state created a deposit for certain empty bottles, it wasn't necessarily meant to create job opportunities. But for many who struggled to say employed, it became a more steady way to pay their bills. The work is tough. Lateros pick litter off the street, go through other people's trash, risk getting cut by unlabeled broken glass, all for a nickel. But they also play an important role in the recycling ecosystem. properly sorting what they gather so that the right distributors can collect the bottles and recycle them. Maring says imagine how clean the city would look if there were more products they could recycle.

Working six days a week in rain, snow, or extreme heat, canning helped her pay rent, put food on the table, and helped her daughter through college. George Irick has been canning for about a decade after working in the city's Parks Department. Right now, his neighbors set aside bottles and cans for him, since due to his health, he can't pick up containers from the streets like he used to. It's enough for everybody, but no, but going up to tens it makes it so when you can't get enough, you'll have a least, you'll have a least some. Pedro Romero says he used to look down on this work,

but now he sees it as a business, just like any other. He says it's all about the details. like the deli, like the grocery, like the one of a pizzeria, that has to take details, portions of the polloo. Romero says it's like working in a deli or a pizzeria.

As the rain comes down while he sorts his cans, he says the only difference is his job sometimes means he gets wet or cold, but at least he gets to be his own boss. That's WMYC's Karen Yee.

Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Jena Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.