NYC NOW - Midday News: Subway Fire Suspect Pleads Not Guilty, NYC’s Strong Economic Outlook, City Charter Commission Holds First Meeting, and Homeless Advocate Shares Their Story

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Sebastian Zapeta, accused of setting a subway rider on fire in Coney Island, pleaded not guilty to murder and arson charges in Debrina Kawam’s death. He faces life in prison if convicted. Meanwhile, a new report shows a strong economic outlook for New York City, with Artificial Intelligence expected to drive growth. Plus, a new city charter revision commission holds its first meeting this Tuesday to address the housing crisis. Finally, WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with an advocate from Care for the Homeless about her journey from homelessness and the challenges faced by the city’s homeless population.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Tuesday, January 7th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. The man accused of lighting a sleeping subway rider on fire last month in Coney Island has pleaded not guilty to murder and arson charges. Prosecutors haste, Sebastian Zepeda, ignited to Brina Kawham's clothes,

fam the flames, and watched her burn to death. He faces up to life in prison without the person. possibility of parole if convicted of the most serious charge. Prosecutor says Zepeda told police after his arrest that he drinks a lot of alcohol and doesn't know what happened. A judge ordered him held without bail in jail while he awaits trial. His defense attorney said he may challenge that decision later, but he's not opposing it for now. The economic outlook for the city is strong. This is according to a new report. WNYC's Arun Venticle Paul says artificial intelligence is predicted to help lead the way.

AI transformation has begun, according to the city's Economic Development Corporation. That's thanks to 2,000 AI startups already based in the five boroughs. Andrew Kimball, the EDC's president and CEO, says the technology could benefit a variety of sectors in the city's economy, including life sciences and medicine, as well as the green economy. The report predicts that for every job that is displaced by AI, between four and 10 jobs would be augmented by it. In the last decade, the number of tech jobs in the city grew by 72%. A new New York City Charter Revision Commission meets at noon today for the first time. This is the second Charter Review Commission convened by the Adams Administration in the last 12 months.

City Hall says this one will focus on the housing crisis in the five boroughs. 31 and sunny now, that's our high for today. It feels as cold as 15 degrees at times. It'll be gusty. Cold tonight, cold again tomorrow, sub-freezing wind chills 10 to 15. Fahrenheit and cold Thursday. Stay close. There's more after the break. Nearly 4,000 people sleep on the streets in New York City every evening, even on the coldest nights.

This is according to the latest New York City data. For years, Cynthia English was one of them. English lived on the street for 10 years before finding her way into stable housing. She joins us out to reflect on her life then and now. Cynthia, would you lay out the different types of homeless, and tell us what your experience looked like? Sure. There are several different types of homelessness. First of all, obviously the most severe is street homelessness.

And then there's homelessness in shelter. There's also a category of homelessness that is very seldom counted anymore. And that is when people are couch surfing, so to speak, or sleeping on the floor at their grandmother's house. That form of homelessness comes in where you don't have a lease in your name so that if something happened, you yourself will end up being homeless as well because that dwelling is not actually yours. You're not authorized to live there. What was your experience like? My experience was kind of multifaceted because in the early 90s, I was in shelter with my ex-husband and my two older children.

How did you wind up there? Well, we moved back to New York from North Carolina, and we were staying with family. And as often happens with family, our time just kind of ran out. It was a domestic violence situation, and we ended up having no choice but to go into the family shelter system. So I worked our way out of that in about a year's time. We got a lovely apartment. and then the marriage broke down a couple of years after that. And I couldn't pay the rent.

So I ended up losing that apartment. I sent my children to live with some relatives. And then I got into another dysfunctional relationship and ended up physically and mentally ill. And so I just started spiraling. and I ended up on the street. I was so ill that when I lost my job, I did not even go to clean out my desk.

And I was a program director at a small, it was Forest Houses Community Center in the Bronx. And I had built up a little homelessness prevention program where I went as a lay advocate with people to housing court. When I lost that job, I was really ill. I had just kind of lost touch with reality, and I was so sick mentally that it started to affect me physically. What were your biggest obstacles to getting safe and stable housing after that? It was my mental health, because what happens when you're on the street, unfortunately,

there's a lot of police contact because, you know, homelessness is often criminalized. You know, you go to jail for 10 days or 15 days. And as you keep getting locked up, they add more time. And that police contact adds trauma to an already traumatizing situation. And it made me really not trust the system because every time I went to jail, I was never heard. When you were on the street, what did you find most helpful? What I found most helpful, and this may sound a little strange. was the community that I became a part of.

Other street homeless people who helped me, taught me how to survive on the street, where to go to eat, where to get clothing, places that you could go and get warm, like the emergency room or the subway. And they were, those people were a great help to me.

They were an actual support. court system and kind of became a family. Isn't that a sad indictment? It is. It's a sad indictment on greater society and the tools that are not readily available to people who are in my situation. Because you see, when you become homeless and you have mental illness and you've not gotten support from the quote unquote system, you tend to become paranoid and distrustful. And so when street teams come around and offer assistance, there's a big lack of trucks. What do you think? I'm curious, Cynthia, what do you think if in the throes of living on the streets, the city would have come along and forced you into,

treatment and said you're a danger to yourself or it's dangerous out here. You're not taking care of your own needs. And the city had a law that you must go into treatment. You must get off the street. My opinion is my opinion alone. It has nothing to do with any of the organizations that I'm involved with. But it would have been the best thing for me. If they had said, Cynthia, we see that you're not able to properly care for yourself, your mental health, is not good and we're afraid you're going to get hurt or killed. I was I was assaulted several times living in the street sometimes hospitalized as a result of those assaults. So it would have taken years off of my homeless journey instead of being homeless for 10 years maybe I would have only

been homeless for two or three. What are the limitations of that though? How far do you think the city can or should go in circumstances like that? In circumstances like mine, I think that the city has an obligation to make sure that people are safe. And if that means that they need to be mandated to treatment, then so be it. You know, people are mandated to the shelter system coming out of prison. Why not have such a program for people with severe mental health issues. Cynthia, what did your interactions with how's people look like during the years you experienced homelessness?

Was there anything particularly helpful that someone did for you? Absolutely. There was the lady that I called Joy who finally got me to go to the program when I was pregnant. There were several people who used to feed me. They would give me little errands to do. go to the store for them or do their laundry, things like that. There was a particular senior gentleman named Mr. John,

and every morning at 7 a.m., I would be at his truck, and he would give me a dollar for himself for his morning coffee, and he would give me a dollar for myself, just to go and get him a cup of coffee. There was a night manager at a McDonald's that was a couple of blocks from where I stayed. And in return for me, cleaning up the dumpster, he would give the bag of unused food to me,

even though it was against the rules. So I encountered a lot of kindness from people who were housed. I don't know if it was just something that they saw in me underneath all of the illness, or if I was just blessed. You know, I think I was meant to survive those years so that I could go forward and do the work that I do now. But I do know of many people who were street homeless who did not have that same grace given to them.

They were shunned. They were abused verbally. That is more often the type of thing that happens to street homeless people. Cynthia English is an advocate for homeless individuals and retired shelter specialists with the nonprofit care for the homeless. She now serves on the organization's board of directors. Cynthia, what a conversation. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you so much.

Thank you. You all have a blessed day. Okay. Take care. 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.