NYC NOW - March 5, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

New York City's budget director says the city will miss its legally mandated deadline to close Rikers Island. Meanwhile, tenants of a dilapidated Bronx apartment complex are urging the city to take control of their building after their landlord racked up $25 million dollars in unpaid property taxes and hundreds of housing violations. Plus, the City's Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously to landmark the The Tremont branch of the New York Public Library in the Bronx. Finally, in New York City, many efforts have focused on connecting Asian American teens with mental health resources, as statistics put them at an especially high risk of suicide or self harm. Dr. Cindy Huang, Assistant Professor of Counseling Psychology at Columbia University, says cultural differences often make traditional Western forms of therapy incompatible for Asian American families. Her practice is working on a study to find out how the therapy industry can better serve the community. WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with Dr. Huang to discuss the study.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Tuesday. March 5th. Here's the midday news from Lance Lucky. New York City's budget director says the city is on track to miss its legally mandated deadline to close Rikers Island. At yesterday, City Council hearing, budget director Jacques Jihad said pandemic delays are partly to blame. So we know it's not going to happen by 2027.

He also says the city can. can't borrow more money to quickly construct the proposed smaller jails across the five boroughs that would replace Rikers. The city is under a federal mandate to close the jail complex after years of complaints about violence and mistreatment of the population. Tenants of a dilapidated Bronx apartment complex are urging the city to take control of their building. That's after their landlord racked up $25 million in unpaid property taxes and hundreds of housing violations. Tenant leader Janelle Young says she wants the city to turn over the building to a non-profit. profit to make repairs and give residents a chance to buy their units.

The ideal end and the goal is for the tenants to take over. But the Bronx tenants are in limbo since four years ago the city suspended a program that seizes properties from owners who owed years of taxes. The building landlord did not respond to request for comment. The Tremont branch of the New York Public Library in the Bronx is New York City's latest landmark. The City's Landmark's Preservation Commission voted unanimously today to landmark the building at Washington Avenue and East 176th Street. It opened in 1905 and was funded by a grant from Steel Magnate Andrew Carnegie, one of 14 New York City Libraries funded that way. The commission says the library was home to one of the first girls reading clubs in the New York

Public Library System and continues to provide community programming and multilingual education. It's 44 now with light rain and fog, maybe 50 and lots of rain this afternoon, ending early this evening. Stay close. There's more after the book. On WNYC, I'm Michael Hill. Before we start a warning to listeners, there will be mentions of suicide in this conversation. Doctors and parents continue to sound the alarm on teens and kids struggling with mental health in what's been described as a nationwide crisis. Here in New York City, many efforts have focused specifically on connecting Asian-American kids and teens with mental health resources, as statistics put them at an especially high risk of suicide or self-harm.

But our next guest says cultural difference often make traditional Western forms of therapy incompatible for immigrant Asian-American families. Her practice is working with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene on a study to find out how the therapy industry can better serve the community. Dr. Cindy Huang is an assistant professor of counseling psychology at Columbia University, and Cindy joins us now. Let's go into some of these figures. What are the rates of suicide for Asian American youth, Cindy?

So among Asian American youth, we're looking at suicide being the leading cause of death for young people between ages 15 to 24. And depending on the statistics, sometimes as young as 10 to 19. And in New York City, the rates are very similar. Second leading cause of death among 15 to 25-year-olds and the third leading cause of death among kids as young as 10 to 14. Is there any sense of what's driving these suicide rates, driving them up? You know, in our field, it's really hard to say it's one direct cause.

I would say that we did see an increase during COVID. And so among the Asian American community, a lot of our research has found that because of all the anti-Asian sentiments that happened during COVID, that led to increases in discrimination. experiences, racial discrimination, which is definitely a stressor and has actually been found to be a chronic stressor for those who experience discrimination over time throughout their lives. And so for young people, especially for some, they might be experiencing it themselves for the first time. Cindy, how do those suicide rates compare to the rate of seeking therapy?

Yeah, that's a great question. So among Asian Americans, we already know, they are the least likely of other racial groups in the U.S. to seek mental health services. Why is that? There's a lot of cultural factors that might be playing into it. In Asian communities as a whole, there are high levels of stigma that are pervasive, even with immigrant families, even with families who have, you know, maybe been in the U.S. for many generations. We also have stats that have shown that Asian Americans are more likely to seek health care or mental health care when they're at a higher elevated level of distress than other racial groups. Your medical practice, as we mentioned, is working on a study to find out what the barriers to therapy are for this group and how to make a better fit.

What are your patients saying? How can traditional forms be incompatible? When we're talking about young people, we also think about parents. And so my work has focused primarily on parents because parents are the gatekeepers to their children's mental health services. And being able to understand what factors might be contributing to a parent's willingness to seek services for their kids is one of the first steps that we would need to understand. So, for example, a construct that we look at oftentimes in our work is self. disclosure. Somebody's willingness to share personal information about themselves, about their family, you know, with their friends or maybe with strangers. And what we what research has found are

Asians tend to self-disclose less than other groups. And this is self-disclosure to friends, but also self-disclosure to strangers, which if we can think of a mental health provider, that's a stranger. My work has looked at other constructs such as a social validity. So these evidence-based interventions, which we know are very effective, have really not been tested on Asian Americans as a whole. Asian Americans are under-researched group. So what that means in life is that we don't have a lot of information on what, on Asian American mental health. What do you recommend as changes to make therapy more culturally relative to Asian Americans?

One important aspect is to make sure that when we are articulating our goals of the treatment, that we are matching it with the values and goals of our patients. That relates back to the social validity construct, which is how valid is therapy, how valid is this treatment for this particular patient? And for Asian Americans, there is a focus and a highlight on, you know, concrete, like applicable goals, right? This is a generalization, but they want to do well, whether it's I want to be able to get to work, I want to be able to get to school. And so if you were to say to your patient, who's, let's say, a student, and they're really

struggling because they're heavily depressed and not feeling well, and you tell them, we're here going to make you feel better. And that's their goal. That's, of course, always our goal. As psychologists, we're trained to help people feel better. And we have an underlying assumption that that's what people want to. However, oftentimes we see that early termination, we call it, where they drop out of treatment earlier because there's that mismatch. Okay, yeah, that's great. I want to feel better, but I really want to get back to work. I really want to, you know, I want my grades to improve. And so if we just make that quick link of just making it, clear to our patients. Look, when you feel better, you will be able to go back to school. You'll be

able to do better at work. That is one of the best ways we can get their buy-in and increase their engagement in the treatment process. Our guest has been Dr. Cindy Wang. She is an assistant professor of counseling psychology at Columbia University. Cindy, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Michael. If you or someone you know is experiencing thoughts of suicide, call 988. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday,

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