NYC NOW - Midday News: Cold Temps Prompt Code Blue, NYC’s Most-Checked Out Books of 2024, and Delays for Emergency Transfers in NYCHA

Episode Date: December 18, 2024

A Code Blue takes effect Wednesday night as temperatures dip in New York City and parts of New Jersey. Meanwhile, New York City libraries have announced their top checkouts of 2024. Finally, thousands of public housing residents fleeing domestic violence face years-long waits for emergency transfers. WNYC’s Sean Carlson speaks with Legal Services NYC executive director Shervon Small and City Council Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Wednesday, December 18th. Here's the midday news from David Furze. A code blue designation takes effect tonight in New York City and much of the region as temperatures are expected to dip below freezing through much of this weekend. Homeless shelters and drop-in centers will be open to those who need them, including for walking. Code Blue protocols go into effect anytime temperatures, including wind chill, dropped below 32 degrees during certain parts of the day. In parts of North and South Jersey, the designation will activate tonight and run through the weekend. As of now, in New York City, the Code Blue is running

through 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. And New York City's libraries have released their top checkouts of 2024. Number one is Gabrielle Zevon's tale of love, friendship, and video games. tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. That's followed by Emily Henry's novel Happy Place and Rebecca Yarrow's fantasy fourth wing. New York Public Library's chief librarian Brian Bannon reflected on what the top checkouts say about New Yorkers' taste in books.

Self-help and memoir are really generally are among the top sold books. Self-help didn't rise in its high in hours. Definitely New York City is reading and New York City has its own sort of unique taste. Absolutely. New York City is reading. You can see the full list at our news website Gothamist. So 50 degrees right now, mostly sunny so far, but rain is expected this afternoon,

mostly after 4 p.m. areas of fog as well tonight, rainy and breezy overnight. Tomorrow, sunny and breezy, a high of 44. The very cold weather coming up this weekend, high of 33 on Saturday, a high just around 25 degrees on Sunday. Stay close. There's more after the break. On WNMIC, I'm Sean Carlson. Thousands of New York City public housing residents trying to flee domestic violence often wait years for emergency transfers to new homes. That's according to a new report from the legal nonprofit legal services, NYC.

Chavon Small is the organizer's executive director. He authored the report and joins us now. Also joining the conversation is City Council Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala as she chairs the Council's Committee on General Welfare. Shavon, we want to spend some time talking to you first on packing your findings before we bring the Deputy Speaker into the conversation. Can you just explain the existing laws on who gets priority on emergency request to move to a new home? Thank you, Sean. Many thanks to you on WNOIC for highlighting this issue and, of course, to Deputy Speaker Ayala for prioritizing it. But yes, my team has found that when it comes to,

prioritizing individuals who need transfers out of night chair apartments, folks who are survivors of gender-based violence are shockingly low down the prioritization list. They come next to folks in crowded apartments, those with noisy neighbors, folks who have to travel 90 minutes or more to work. And basically, we found that there approximately 2,000 gender-based violence survivors waiting to be transferred and waiting an average of

over two years for these emergency transfers. We do feel like this problem is a shocking issue. issue and that it should be resolved immediately. Your organization found that NITHA failed to comply with the federal law. Why do many survivors end up waiting months for an emergency transfer? So years. So they are waiting years because we thought there's an issue with the vacancy rate. So we know in a city like New York, the vacancy rates are way too narrow.

Especially in NITHA apartments, there are approximately 5,000 vacant units. and that if these units are prioritized, if they're repaired, that these individuals who, again, 2,000 survivors of gender-based violence, then they can be placed in these affordable units at the nature apartments. Can you talk more about the residents that you talked with for the report and what the risks are of waiting? Oh, yes, absolutely. So we have a number of clients who we found that they were, again, waiting on these, you know,

unconscionably long list. And we have a client by the name of Sarah, actually, who was waiting a year and a half on this, long, on this transfer list. And she was actually stabbed by someone working with her abuser. Even after she was stabbed and she, you know, was clearly in a situation of danger, she went to NITHA and said she needed to move, but NITHA did not prioritize the situation even then. In fact, she was forced to move out of her apartment into a homeless shelter. And again, no one should be forced to choose at all between staying in a dangerous living situation or becoming homeless. Again, NYCHA should prioritize this residents who are facing these really dangerous conditions and move them up the list in order for them to be in a place that they would be safe.

So this is unconscionable. Nitro has a legal and moral obligation to keep these individuals safe and is feeling to do so. Deputy Speaker Ayala, can you talk about what the city can do to expedite these emergency transfers? I mean, one of the things that we can do is help ensure that there's priority in the budget for renovating these vacant units that exist throughout NYCAP's portfolio that have not been prioritized historically. Just the last fiscal year, the administration was considering cutting funding to these turnover apartment to that unit, which we found, you know, just unbelievable because we understand that, you know, know, not even just talking about the gender-based violence matter, but, you know, as it relates to folks in, you know, in homeless shelters, people that have been on house for years cannot access an apartment because, you know, NYCHA claims that the vacancy rate is really low when we know

that there are thousands of units just sitting there, you know, waiting for renovations to be completed so that those apartments can be turned over to a family member. And we've done that. We've done that this fiscal year. We did it last fiscal year. But we can put the money, you know, in the budget. NCHA has to be able to use it, right? And so they also have to do better about attracting and hiring staff assigned to this specific unit so that they can, you know, turn these apartments over at a faster rate. Deputy Speaker, current state rules can force families in domestic violence shelters out after 180 days, meaning that some people who leave NICHA and go into shelters may hit a deadline and then have to move.

Is there something there the city can do to better serve families? Well, those families would have to leave a domestic violence shelter, but then they would be forced to go into path. You know, if they're family members, single shelters, if they're singles. But nobody that has, you know, that has a roof over their head should be forced to become unhoused in a situation that could be easily remedied if this was prioritized. We have seen it, and not just with,

under base violence tenants, but we've seen this with victims of violence, right? People that get stabbed in their development and put in a transfer because their assailant lives in the community. They put in a transfer request that gets immediately approved, but then it stays in the system for two or three years. You know, that's that that's just, you know, incomprehensible. Like, I don't, I don't understand how, you know, we continue. to allow this to happen. And it's a pattern, right? It's a pattern with public housing and NYCHA in general.

Shavon, what would you like to see the city do to help speed up the process of emergency transfers? Yeah, so we do have a long list of recommendations because, again, we do think this is an avoidable problem. So NYCHA has the power to fix this issue. It has to power to make the repairs quickly to lay out. So we lay out our recommendations, including moving these higher, these emergency transfers to a higher ranking.

Investing in staff, as the deputy speaker said, to speed up the vacancy turnover rate. Also, hiring Bauer, the violence against women at coordinators to protect survivors. So those will go a long way to resolve in this issue. And again, the priorities should be moving these individuals up the list

and repairing these apartments. Deputy Speaker, is there other city support that people can access who might be experiencing domestic violence? I mean, they can always reach out. to their elected offices to see if there's, you know, the ability to help expedite these, these moves. You know, we have been successful in some cases. But again, you know, even in our

best attempts, if the units are not readily available for such transfers, and also you have to remember that and keep in mind that, you know, these types of transfers, if you live in one borough, you know, usually people, you know, are offered a unit, you know, in a different borough so that they're as far away from the individual as possible. And that makes it a little bit more, you know, more difficult. But definitely they should be reaching out to us because there are city resources that will help them. If somebody's feeling unsafe in their apartment, we can, you know, put them in temporary shelter and try to work with that individual to try to get NYCHA to expedite that move. We should note NYCHA spokesperson Michael Horgan told us the agency attempts to move residents at risk of violence as quickly as possible and offers them vouchers that allow them.

them to move into private housing. That's Legal Services, NYC Director Shervon Small and Deputy Council Speaker, Diana Aiala. Thank you so much to you both. Thank you. Thank you very much, Joe. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WMYC. 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. See you this evening.