NYC NOW - May 26, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

The New York City Council passed a package of bills this week that'll expand eligibility for rental assistance programs. Plus, advocates are questioning who the city is counting as a migrant. Also, a popular Jersey Shore destination is cracking down on alcohol on the beach and boardwalk. And finally, WNYC’s Amy Pearl shadows a volunteer in Brooklyn who is helping New York City’s chestnut trees make a comeback.

Good evening and welcome to NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre for WNYC. The New York City Council passed a package of bills this week that will expand eligibility for rental assistance programs. The bills eliminate certain rules that have made applying for housing vouchers notoriously difficult. There are four bills total. One includes a measure that eliminates how long someone must stay in a shelter

before they can get a housing voucher. And there's also a cap on how much people in these programs pay for utilities. The bills passed as the city says the migrant crisis has overloaded the shelter system, providing fewer housing options for asylum seekers. Mayor Eric Adams says the city has seen record high numbers of migrants arriving in recent weeks, but advocates are questioning who the city is counting as a migrant. WNYC's Baha Oostodon has more. The mayor said that 5,800 asylum seekers arrived in the city,

last week. But advocates aren't convinced that migrants from the southern border are responsible for the city's ballooning homeless shelter population. Volunteers in Texas border towns and a spokesperson for Governor Greg Abbott say they busts about 700 asylum seekers up to New York last week, nowhere near as many as the mayor claims arrived during that period. Some advocates in New York City say that officials may be counting a larger universe of foreign-born people who just need a place to stay. A spokesperson for the mayor say they are counting people who say they're seeking asylum, but declined to

answer questions about the methodology behind their estimate. In New Jersey, one of the most popular Jersey shore destinations is cracking down on alcohol on the beach and boardwalk just as the summer kicks off. Drinking booze has always been banned in Wildwood, New Jersey,

but the city is taking it one step further. Alcohol possession is now also prohibited. While Wood officials say the new ordinance is the city's response to years of complaints about people drinking alcohol and smoking weed shoreside. The city says

it will make exceptions for restaurants on the boardwalk and special events. The new law will go into effect in mid June. Stay close. There's more after the break. It's been more than a century since a blight wiped out thousands of American chestnut trees that failed

New York City's parks. But a Volunteer in Brooklyn is helping the trees make a shaky comeback. WNYC's Amy Pearl has the story. Come over here. This giant guy is a chestnut? This is an American chestnut tree. Bart Chazar is showing off one of the 70 American chestnut trees he planted in Prospect Park. You planted this exact one?

Yeah, yeah. They grow amazingly fast. This one is a good 40 feet tall, and at nine years old, it has avoided the blight long enough to do something important. You see those two little sticks kind of coming up vertically? Those are Katkins, flowers on the chestnut. Those flowers mean that if you come back here in the fall, you can grab yourself some real American chestnuts.

If you get to it before the squirrels. At one point, there were probably over 2,000 chestnut trees in the park. Bart is wearing his green Prospect Park volunteer T-shirt and pulling a little cart with a shovel. a bottle of water and a 15-inch-tall American chestnut sapling. Were you going to plant this one? Yep. The tree came from the American Chestnut Foundation.

They gave me the nuts in the fall. You have to overwint them, and so in my vegetable bin, I keep them. You keep them in your fridge? Yeah. My wife gives me a little area that I could use. Bart plants the chestnuts and cares for the trees inside his apartment until they're big enough to move outside. Look at that tree.

It's an oak. Oh, my God. Look at it. We walk to a spot where he has a few saplings already planted. Take apart the fence and just sneak in here. I love with laughing. BART stops at an American chestnut that he planted years ago. You see the broken bark and stuff, that's the fungus.

Oh, this is the blight. Its bark is pitted and bulging out in places. Yeah, it just girdles the tree and kills it. The tree we're about to plant might just beat the blight. That's because it was crossed and back crossed with a species of chestnut that is blight-resistant. Somewhere in that clear in here. Yeah, what about it? Where the sun is there. Deeper in the woods, we find the perfect spot.

We're going to start this in a hole. Okay. I love digging. When the hole is deep enough, Bart gently lowers in the baby tree. Let's give it a little more water. Do you know any chestnut blessings? Good luck. little guy. Yep, it'll do okay.

Yeah. Scientists at the State University of New York are working on producing a genetically altered American chestnut that will be fully blight-resistant. In the meantime, Bart is going to keep planting trees. You can find our way out of here. That's WNYC's Amy Pearl. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC.

We hope you have a great Memorial Day weekend. Just a heads up, we won't be. dropping the usual three episodes on the holiday, just one, and right in the middle of the day, after you've marinated your chicken, but before putting it on the grill. Stay tuned for that. We want to give a shout out to our production team. It includes Sean Boutage, Ave Cario, Audrey Cooper, Leora Noam Kravitz, Jared Marcell, and Wayne Schollmeister, with help from the entire WNYC Newsroom. Our show art was designed by the people at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadrato.

I'm Jenae Pierre. We'll be back Monday.