NYC NOW - October 11, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

A dozen New Jersey towns are joining a lawsuit seeking to invalidate a new affordable housing law in the state. Plus, some Manhattan public housing tenants held a rally this week calling for a stop to a plan to demolish their apartments and build new ones. Also, WNYC’s Sean Carlson talks with Pamela Johnson, founder of the Anti-Violence Coalition in Jersey City about the “Arrive Together” program. And finally, WNYC’s Ryan Kailath visits a brief art exhibit at David Zwirner gallery in Chelsea.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. We begin in New Jersey, where 12 towns are joining a lawsuit seeking to invalidate a new affordable housing law in the state. It brings the total number of towns suing the state to 21. Town officials claim the law Governor Phil Murphy signed earlier this year unfairly asked them to build more affordable homes than their community. communities can support. Christine Serrano-Glasser is the mayor of Mendem Borough.

She says her small town of just 6,000 doesn't have the space for the hundreds of new homes she says the state is asking for. We don't have the infrastructure. We don't have the roadway infrastructure. And there is no opportunity for building that because there's really not enough land. The lawsuit could upend the state's plans to develop tens of thousands of new low-priced homes over the next decade. Attorney General Matt Placken says he's confident the court.

will see the lawsuit as baseless. Back in New York City, some Manhattan public housing tenants are making a last-ditch effort to stop a plan to demolish their apartments and build new ones. WMYC's David Brand reports on a rally held this week by residents of Chelsea Elliott and Fulton Houses. The New York City Housing Authority and two private developers plan to build new apartment buildings, move tenants in, and then demolish the old ones. Renee Kitt lives in the Elliott Houses. She's afraid tenants won't be able to return, even though the city has assured them they'll have the same rights in the new apartments. It is my home. It is the place I grew up in. I now take care of my mother. It is my community. But Fulton House's Tenant Association President Miguel Acevedo says the plan is necessary.

Our buildings, if we wait any longer, they're going to end up getting condemned. I'm not going to wait until they get condemned. Then where do you stick 3,000 families? Developers also want to build thousands of additional market rate units. on the grounds. NYCHA did not immediately comment on the rally. A new program that helps police officers responding to mental health emergencies is coming to Jersey City. More on that after the break. New Jersey's second largest city is joining a state program called Arrived Together. Jersey City will pair mental health professionals with police

officers responding to 911 mental health emergencies. WMYC's Sean Carlson talked with Pamela Johnson. She's the founder of the Anti- Violence Coalition in Jersey City. Pamela, can you just start by explaining what your organization does and what inspired you to organize it? We were founded in 2014 by a group of Jersey City residents, I think it was about five of us. And we appealed to a Facebook post that was calling for residents to get involved after a police officer, Melvin Santiago, was killed at Walgreens in 2014. and then the individual who unfortunately killed him also lost his life through the police department. And so it was very tumultuous in our neighborhood and especially for those who are born and raised here,

and we wanted to do something about it. So we formed the Anti-Bolence Coalition. I've just been doing the work to make sure that we are in our communities, violence interruptors, credible messengers, and doing the work in our community to decrease violence and hopefully eradicated one day. Your organization was recently funded $2 million from a state law called the Seabrooks-Washington Community-led Crisis Response Act. It's intended to establish community crisis response teams, and it's named after Andrew Washington of Jersey City and Aji Seabrooks of Patterson, both who were killed by police while experiencing mental health episodes. Can you tell us more about what you hope to accomplish with the new funding? I'm born and raised in Jersey City. I am familiar and friends and family with Andrew Washington.

Washington's family. And so when I got the call the next day about what happened to Andrew, it just hit home. What we applied for was a one-year planning grant and a one-year implementation. And it's community-led. And then that first year, we'll be training, you know, local residents and individuals who work for the coalition already. And so that will provide us with the training necessary by experts to become trained professionals to respond to these crises. I'm also connecting the 911 centers in Jersey City to us so that those calls are diverted to the coalition, right? Because the calls will come in and sometimes they'll go in through 911, sometimes through the EMS system. If they're welfare, wellness checks, non-emergency calls, that they are diverted to us so we can respond with trained professionals and crisis responders to de-escalate and to make things a little better.

Given what we know happened to Andrew Washington and Najee C. Brooks when they called for help, like in that context, can you talk about why people might be fearful about calling 911? I think folks have always been in the past fearful of calling 911. And it's just the unfortunate non-connection with community and police. I don't want to utilize our 911 system or our police department to non-emergency matters that, you know, their presence may further escalate simply because some of our may have been traumatized by them previously for just the system as a whole. You know, Andrew Washington, I don't know how much you know about him, but he was previously

shot by JCPA. So the simple arrival of them and him knowing that they were there will further escalate. His family called for a welfare wellness check simply because he wasn't opening the door, but it wasn't that he was, you know, harmful to himself or harmful to anyone else. The situation became violent because he was probably triggered by what happened to him previously. Let's talk about Arrive Together. We should note that is different from the Seabrocks Washington Community-led Crisis Response Act, but has a similar goal. It's a stateway program. It's now active in several communities across the 21 counties of New Jersey. And again,

to remind listeners, this program pairs officers with a certified mental health screener to respond to 911 calls. Pamela, what do you think about Arrived Together's potential impact on Jersey City residents? I really can't say anything too much about Arive Together because I haven't met with anyone from Arrived Together, and I don't know how they're being rolled out. So I don't even know if we're going to cross paths with each other because of our one year planning. And I don't know what calls they're responding to. In our grant that we wrote for the CCRT, we specified that we wanted non-emergency welfare and wellness check calls. So I don't know if the incorporation of Arrives together with law enforcement means that they're basically, you know, appearing at violent scenes. I'm not sure what

that situation is, but I look forward to talking to some folks from arrive together to see how we can figure out how the programs will coexist or work together. What steps do you want to see the state take beyond arrive together and the C-Brooks-Washington Community-led Crisis Response Act? A lot of these grants start in January, at the beginning of the year, and at the end of the year, but folks are not getting upfront funding until, you know, the summertime. And so, you know, that creates a hardship for folks that we serve in our communities. So I would like to see a little a more robust system of planning and how to roll out the funds. And more importantly, too, from the city, I would like to see a more backing administration

to, like, violence intervention, mental health crisis, and just having a robust response to those. That's Pamela Johnson, the founder of the Anti-violence Coalition in Jersey City talking with my colleague, Sean Carlson. Lines have been down the block for the chance to spend two and a half minutes with an art exhibit at David's Werner Gallery in Chelsea. The best way to describe it might be not to describe it at all. Here's WNYC's Ryan Kaila. What have you been told about what this is? Apparently it's a really trippy place, is what I heard. A lot of trippy art. I heard it was really cool

in there. That's all you heard? Yeah, that's all I heard. No description, no. No, nothing. I'm going here with my class. I'm from Baruch College. I don't know much about art, but I'm looking forward to it. The line to see the Doug Wheeler exhibit is stretching down the block on a Tuesday afternoon. On Saturday, staff said the wait was almost three hours. And it's not just the usual gallery crowd, but everyday New Yorkers, like the Baruch freshman you just heard, Richie Ahmed, Nathaniel Omarjit, and Arby Shuti. They agree with their classmate, Sarah Agabobie Beava, who says, do not read about the exhibit. Don't do any research, just go. Just go You're going to be really surprised.

Like, if you switch it up, it's going to, like, spoil it, so it's not going to be as fun, I think. There's no recording inside, but people come out transformed. If I may say you are beaming. Yeah. That was just incredible. Yeah, wow. Really disorienting. Kind of, like, a dreamlike.

Oh, this is creepy. You just, oh. You just like, how did you do it? And it was crazy. Like, you were outside of the world. Like, you were in another place. It's scary. It is.

Scary. Imagine staying there for 24 hours by yourself. You'll go crazy. Now, would you tell your friends to come? Yes, I would. Page Sayer had heard of Wheeler before, a pioneer of the light and space art movement, when Kunio Dorago and Santiago Petino had not.

Strangely enough for a bunch of art dealers, the gallery staff almost prefers it that way. Like senior partner Christine Bell, who says with no phones, allowed in the exhibit, Buzz has built up via good old-fashioned word of mouth. You can't describe it and you can't replicate it. It's just one of those once-in-a-lifetime moments that really exist in your memory and people like to be in that club. I was like, I've been in a Doug Wheeler. I've experienced it for myself. So it's a small club,

but a really happy one. The exhibit is free and opened through October 19th. That's WNYC's Ryan Kaila. Thanks for listening to NYC Now from WNWNW. NYC. Quick note before we go, we're taking the day off Monday to observe the holiday. But don't worry, we'll drop one episode in the afternoon to keep you up to date with what's happening in our region. Got a shout out our production team before we go. It includes Sean Bowdage, Amber Bruce, Owen Kaplan, Audrey Cooper, Leora Noam Kravitz, Jared Marcel, Jen Munson, and Wayne Schollmeister, with help from all of my wonderful colleagues in the WNYC Newsroom. Our show art was designed by the people at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadrato. I'm Jenae Pierre. Have a lovely weekend. See you on Monday.