New York City mayor attacks the civil rights of the homeless
Last week, in a major breach of civil liberties, the Democratic mayor of New York City, former police captain Eric Adams, issued a directive to police and other city agencies to hospitalize people deemed to be mentally ill, whether or not they are willing to be hospitalized. Although officers will receive training, the directive extends the powers of the police to take actions that can—and will—begin to remove people involuntarily to mental health facilities.
Adams said at City Hall, “The common misunderstanding persists that we cannot provide involuntary assistance unless the person is violent. Going forward, we will make every effort to assist those who are suffering from mental illness.”
Adams claimed that he had the authority to issue the directive under state legislation passed in April that extends the right of the authorities to order treatment for mentally ill individuals. Police officers are now empowered to act, a significant departure from accepted practice since for decades the decision to bring a person involuntarily to a mental health facility has been limited by law to physicians or family members.
Civil liberties advocates were quick to condemn Adams’s policy. Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), said, “The federal and state constitutions impose strict limits on the government’s ability to detain people experiencing mental illness—limits that the mayor’s proposed expansion is likely to violate.”
The directive, as well as the new mandates by the Democratic-controlled state government, is not aimed at improving the treatment of mental health problems or helping those in need. The immediate goal of Adams’s directive is to remove as much of the homeless population as possible from plain sight, particularly in the richest borough, Manhattan. It should be noted that not once in the discussions by Adams or the media on the supposed concern for the health of the homeless has the spread of COVID-19 been mentioned.
In fact, the demonization of mentally ill and homeless people, who live on the street or in the subway system, has been a central project of the corporate media for months. The media has highlighted the statistically insignificant number of violent crimes by homeless people, often those who appear to be mentally ill, in what the New York Post, the city’s Murdoch rag, calls a “crime-ravaged subway system.” This has been accompanied by a nonstop media frenzy on shootings and other violent crime in poor neighborhoods, without an ounce of social analysis into the causes of these crimes.
As Jacquelyn Simone, policy director for the Coalition for the Homeless, told the media, “Homeless people are more likely to be the victims of crimes than the perpetrators, but Mayor Adams has continually scapegoated homeless people and others with mental illness as violent.”
In its annual survey published in June, the city found that 3,439 people live on the streets and the subways of New York. But according to its State of the Homeless 2022 report in March, the Coalition for the Homeless notes that the city’s estimate “is a vast undercount, and no accurate census of this population has ever been achieved.”
These figures do not include the some 60,000 who live in the city’s inadequate shelter system and tens of thousands of others who double-up with relatives or sleep on friends’ couches. Recently, over 110,000 public school students were estimated to be homeless.
The mentally ill homeless people hospitalized under Adams’s plan will likely have short stays and incomplete treatment. In its Fact Check on Homeless and Mental Health Care (February 2022), the Coalition for the Homeless noted, “Since May 2020, 9,231 unique individuals have accepted transportation to shelters, safe havens, stabilization beds, or drop-in centers … but only a third (3,105 unique individuals) accepted the placement once transported, and just 8.6 percent of those transported remained in their placements as of mid-February 2022.”
Again, the Coalition’s State of the Homeless 2022 report noted the “serious deterioration in access to mental health” in the city. For example, 600 psychiatric hospital beds diverted to COVID-19 treatment have never been replaced. The report observes, “As of 2019 and averaged across all inpatient facilities, one in five psychiatric inpatients was readmitted within 30 days, and nearly one in three was readmitted within 90 days.” While this statistic applies to the whole New York City population, figures are unquestionably worse for the homeless.
Additionally, the city’s public health care infrastructure, shaky to begin with, has been so ravaged by the COVID pandemic and recently by an increase in other respiratory diseases, particularly among children, that treatment of patients in many cases will be minimal.
These conditions reflect the vast social inequality in New York City, in which wealth, public and private, is diverted to the needs of its very richest layers. The city is now the most expensive in the world to live in, according to the Economic Intelligence Unit of The Economist magazine. It has risen from 6th place in 2021 to first place as part of a global 8 percent average cost-of-living increase. The average rent for an apartment in New York is $4,000 monthly, well beyond the means of most of the population.
The Democratic Party operatives in the Adams administration conclude that the results of these levels of inequality, starkly visible everywhere in the city, but especially in Manhattan, where luxury high-rises spring up by the minute, must be addressed by police action without regard to the rights of the poor.
Armed and unarmed guards have been placed at some subway turnstiles to prevent people, especially working class youth, from riding without paying a fare. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), arrests for fare-beating have increased by 97 percent this year compared to last.
In October, Adams and Governor Kathy Hochul, who has ultimate control of the subways operated by the MTA, announced a bizarrely named program, “Cops, Cameras, Care,” that will pay for 10,000 more hours of NYPD overtime for cops to patrol the subways and to equip each of the MTA’s roughly 6,500 subway cars with two surveillance cameras. The initiative will fund a grand total of 25 psychiatric hospital beds for the city.
Adams is reviving the notorious “broken windows” policing launched by former mayor and current fascist Trump supporter Rudolf Giuliani in the 1990s. This focus on so-called “quality-of-life” issues like drinking in public led to the stop-and-frisk tactics that were later found to be unconstitutional, but not before tens of thousands of people, predominantly minority or immigrant youth, had been jailed at such hellholes as Rikers Island. Hundreds of thousands of these youth had their names and Social Security numbers stored in a police database.
Adams has also launched new Neighborhood Safety Teams within the NYPD, which are similar to the plainclothes units involved in the brutal treatment of whole working class communities, including police killings. These were disbanded in 2020, but Adams has reinstituted them, allegedly to get guns off the streets.
All these initiatives, including the blatant violation of the democratic rights of the homeless under his new directive, are meant to be used on the city’s enormous working class.
He has inaugurated a program of austerity in the city. He has refused to fill city jobs that have been depleted since the pandemic, ordered across-the board cuts of 3 percent to city departments and made enormous budget cuts to the already depleted public schools. Hundreds of educators have been “excessed” and scores of programs destroyed.
The vast expenditures for the war in Ukraine have made social programs and anything but the most cut-rate public education untenable.
This is combined with the volatile situation Adams and the Democratic Party from Biden on down has created by its continuing policy of mass infection during the pandemic. Cases of COVID-19 are rising again in the city, particularly in the schools. In the last two months, at least three children in the city have died of COVID-19.
These conditions are common to workers around the United States and the world, and New York workers are increasingly becoming a part of the broad pattern of social dissent, especially as annual inflation has eaten into incomes. Part-time faculty at The New School University have been on strike for two weeks for better pay and benefits, and HarperCollins workers have been on strike since November 10 for a new contract. Workers at the Brooklyn Museum have also threatened to strike.
A global movement of educators that includes university workers in Britain, Ontario education workers and tens of thousands of graduate students at the University of California have so far run up against the obstacle of the trade unions but threaten to expand.
Invariably, they will spread to large sections of the working class in New York City. Already over 70,000 educators in the school system are working without a contract. This layer of workers has been battered by the Democrats’ COVID-19 policies and is prepared to fight.
The success of the Will Lehman campaign for the presidency in United Auto Workers Union (UAW), which won nearly 5 percent of the vote despite voter suppression by the union bureaucracy—much more in some New York City locals, including striking workers at The New School—is a harbinger of things to come.
The working class in the city must be prepared to fight the policies of the Adams administration first and foremost through a thoroughgoing break with the Democratic Party and by building rank-and-file and neighborhood committees that will defend the entire working class from assaults on democratic rights now being implemented by Adams as well as those being planned.
Democrats Want $5.5 Billion Bailout of New York City’s Illegal Population
fundexcludedworkers.org/
17 Nov 20201,148
3:37
The coronavirus crash has completely impoverished New York City’s huge illegal-migrant population, so it needs a bailout from billionaires, says a far left group of open border activists.
The advocacy group, Make the Road NY, wants to raise $5.5 billion from 120 New York billionaires to provide roughly $750 per week in aid for up to 1.2 million illegal migrants and their dependents. Numerous Democratic legislators back the campaign.
The New York Times gave the draft legislation a boost on November 15, with an excellent video report that showcased some of the unemployed, illegal migrants who were trying to earn some cash as street vendors:
On one corner, Cristina Sanchez stood forlornly at a produce stand. She had not sold a single thing. During the pandemic she had lost her job, and then her rented room, triggering a frantic hustle to survive: First she sold produce, then tacos, then produce again …
…
“This has affected my children [in Mexico] a lot,” Cristina said, as she started to cry. “I try to tell them that because there’s no steady work, whatever I make is only enough for me to survive for the day.”
The New York Times showcased one of the group’s members, “Gerardo,” a Mexican who arrived in 2006:
He decided to sell tacos de alambre — made with steak, chiles, bacon and cheese — on the street. The owner of a local deli let him use an enclosed sidewalk stand at night, free of charge. During the day it sells smoothies.
…
Gerardo’s sales have not been brisk. His tacos cost two for $5. He needs to sell at least 130 each day, a target he often misses by half.
Many excluded workers have become street vendors in the past few months as a new source of income.
Our member Gerardo, also featured, has fought to #FundExcludedWorkers after losing his job and having to sell his car to make ends meet.https://t.co/Z9AwjTqiIH
— Make the Road NY (@MaketheRoadNY) November 16, 2020
The group also wants the state legislature to approve more licenses for street vendors — even though the extra supply of vendors would reduce income for the native-born and immigrant who operate the existing stands.
The Make the Road group said its surveys showed that:
92% of respondents reported that either they or another earner in their household has lost their job or income as a result of the crisis.
84% of respondents are now themselves unemployed, with 88% of them reporting job loss due to COVID-19.
Only 5% of respondents received unemployment benefits in the last month.
90% of household cleaners had lost their jobs. Those that were working had fewer clients than usual and had lost income.
The group’s survey says that 28 percent of renters in New York pay more than 50 percent of their wages on housing in the city’s migrant-crowded neighborhoods.
The scale of the imported poverty is huge but unclear.
Make the Road claims 1.2 million people “who haven’t received any aid,” while the New York Times says the city includes roughly half a million illegals.
The leaders in New York City choose to build their service and real-estate economies on cheap imported labor, so denying wages, jobs, and home to the many Americans who did live – or want to live — in the city.
Now the coronavirus crash is threatening the city’s economy by pushing out impoverished migrants, and their departure is pressuring employers to raise wages high enough to attract Americans to jobs in New York.
New York’s problem with impoverished illegal migrants is mirrored in Boston, Massachusetts, and in Los Angeles.
Mass immigration shifts investment, jobs & wealth from the central states to the coastal states.
NY shows how Trump partly reversed the wealth transfer by curbing migration.
Yet GOP pols keep voting for immigration that makes their states poorer. #H1B https://t.co/NsKy7qY76V
— Neil Munro (@NeilMunroDC) September 19, 2020
Chuck Schumer Puts Migrants over Moms
The United States needs more immigration to compensate for declining fertility, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said at a press conference Wednesday.
But Schumer said nothing about the alternative policy of helping American families have the number of children they prefer.
“Now, more than ever, we’re short of workers,” Schumer said on the Hill at a press conference, which was intended to tout several draft amnesties for illegal migrants. He continued:
We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants, the dreamers and all of them — because our ultimate goal is to help the Dreamers [illegals who were brought in by their parents] get a path to citizenship for all 11 million — or however many undocumented there are here [emphasis added].
Schumer’s more-migration policy echoed the economic strategy adopted by New York’s elite, which uses low-wage migration to subsidize an elite-run economy of investors and landlords. The huge inflow of cheap and compliant foreign workers has forced down New Yorkers’ wages, boosted their rents and housing prices, and reduced native-born Americans’ clout in local elections.
His comments also echoed many Democrats’ support for changing the demographics of the United States. “Twenty-six percent of every child who’s in school today speaks Spanish — 26 percent,” President Joe Biden said in September. “We’ve had large waves of immigration before but the thing is, we just have so much opportunity to make this country so much better … so as my father would say, ‘Let’s go get ’em.’”
Schumer’s willingness to replace Americans’ absent children with foreign migrants also dismisses the widespread preference by American women for more children.
“We can see that every single estimate of ideal or desired fertility, including our hardcore minimum estimate from adjusted GSS data, is way above actual fertility,” a 2018 report by the Institute for Family Studies said. The report added:
What this comparison makes clear is that no matter whether you use intended or ideal fertility, women report greater childbearing ambitions than they have achieved or are likely to achieve, and this has been the case for a long time. Cut the data however you like, use whatever indicator floats your boat, and you’ll find the ship of American fertility sinking, steadily underperforming what women have been saying they want or intend.
…
Longer hours, lower wages, less consistent employment, high childcare costs, poor access to credit, burdensome loans, all-too-few good husband candidates—take your pick of the problem—a growing number of women are simply lowering their expectations for their own family lives, even as they continue to believe that something like 2.3 kids would be ideal for them [emphasis added].
But the Census Bureau reports that married couples have an average of only 2 children per family, up from 1.9 in 2010.
(Children per family chart by the U.S. Census Bureau)
Stastista.com reports that the “average number of own children under 18 in families with children in the United States from 1960 to 2021” is only 1.9
“In 2018, U.S. woman [sic] had 1.7 children on average,” according to PopulationEducation.org.
In addition, a growing number of women do not have any children. “In 2006, 26.2 percent of women ages 30 to 34 were childless, meaning they had never given birth to a child.,” according to a 2017 report by the Census Bureau. “By 2016, that number had risen about 4 percentage points to 30.8 percent.”
Schumer’s migrants-before-families policy prompted a pro-family response from Bryan Griffin, press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis:
Griffin followed up with a description of Florida’s workforce training programs. which could help Americans gain the skills and wealth needed to have their own families — complete with the number of children they prefer:
Meanwhile, in Schumer’s New York, poverty is growing as Democrats continue to extract more migrants from poor countries. NY1.com reported in May:
A total of 1.4 million New Yorkers, including one in five city children, are currently living in poverty, according to an annual report by the non-profit Robin Hood, which shows that the city’s poverty rate is nearly twice the national average and disproportionally impacts Black, Latino and Asian New Yorkers.
THE BANKSTERS' RENT BOY CHUCK SCHUMER HAS BEEN WORKING ON OPEN BORDERS SINCE BILLARY CLINTON AND THEN SENATOR JOE BIDEN PERPETRATED NAFTA!
Chuck Schumer has also been in government since the 1980s and helped create the economy of today that makes it virtually impossible for people my age to build wealth and start a family. The man has literally done nothing but preside over America’s decline. OLIVIA MURRAY
HOW MANY OF THESE PIGS ARE GAMER LAWYERS?
“Protect and enrich.” This is a perfect encapsulation of the
Clinton (LAWYERS-2) Foundation and the (LAWYERS-2)
Obama book and television deals. Then there is the Biden
(LAWYERS-3) family corruption, followed closely behind by
similar abuses of power and office by the (LAWYER) Warren
and Sanders families, as Peter Schweizer described in his recent
book “Profiles in Corruption.” These names just scratch the
surface of government corruption (YOU CAN ADD LAWYER KAMALA HARRIS
AND LAWYER CHUCK SCHUMER TO THE PATHEION OF DEMOCRAT BRIBES SUCKING
CORRUPT LAWYER POLITICIANS!). BRIAN C JOONDEPH
"Along with (LAWYER) Obama, Pelosi and (LAWYER) Schumer are responsible for incalculable damage done to this country over the eight years of that administration. (JOE BIDEN (LAWYER) WAS OFF SUCKING OFF BANKSTERS AND BRIBES)."
PATRICIA McCARTHY
Chuck Schumer Prioritizes Migration over American Fertility
The United States needs more immigration to compensate for declining fertility, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said at a press conference Wednesday.
But Schumer said nothing about the alternative policy of helping American families have the number of children they prefer.
“Now, more than ever, we’re short of workers,” Schumer said on the Hill at a press conference, which was intended to tout several draft amnesties for illegal migrants. He continued:
We have a population that is not reproducing on its own with the same level that it used to. The only way we’re going to have a great future in America is if we welcome and embrace immigrants, the dreamers and all of them — because our ultimate goal is to help the Dreamers [illegals who were brought in by their parents] get a path to citizenship for all 11 million — or however many undocumented there are here [emphasis added].
Schumer’s more-migration policy echoed the economic strategy adopted by New York’s elite, which uses low-wage migration to subsidize an elite-run economy of investors and landlords. The huge inflow of cheap and compliant foreign workers has forced down New Yorkers’ wages, boosted their rents and housing prices, and reduced native-born Americans’ clout in local elections.
His comments also echoed many Democrats’ support for changing the demographics of the United States. “Twenty-six percent of every child who’s in school today speaks Spanish — 26 percent,” President Joe Biden said in September. “We’ve had large waves of immigration before but the thing is, we just have so much opportunity to make this country so much better … so as my father would say, ‘Let’s go get ’em.’”
Schumer’s willingness to replace Americans’ absent children with foreign migrants also dismisses the widespread preference by American women for more children.
“We can see that every single estimate of ideal or desired fertility, including our hardcore minimum estimate from adjusted GSS data, is way above actual fertility,” a 2018 report by the Institute for Family Studies said. The report added:
What this comparison makes clear is that no matter whether you use intended or ideal fertility, women report greater childbearing ambitions than they have achieved or are likely to achieve, and this has been the case for a long time. Cut the data however you like, use whatever indicator floats your boat, and you’ll find the ship of American fertility sinking, steadily underperforming what women have been saying they want or intend.
…
Longer hours, lower wages, less consistent employment, high childcare costs, poor access to credit, burdensome loans, all-too-few good husband candidates—take your pick of the problem—a growing number of women are simply lowering their expectations for their own family lives, even as they continue to believe that something like 2.3 kids would be ideal for them [emphasis added].
But the Census Bureau reports that married couples have an average of only 2 children per family, up from 1.9 in 2010.
(Children per family chart by the U.S. Census Bureau)
Stastista.com reports that the “average number of own children under 18 in families with children in the United States from 1960 to 2021” is only 1.9
“In 2018, U.S. woman [sic] had 1.7 children on average,” according to PopulationEducation.org.
In addition, a growing number of women do not have any children. “In 2006, 26.2 percent of women ages 30 to 34 were childless, meaning they had never given birth to a child.,” according to a 2017 report by the Census Bureau. “By 2016, that number had risen about 4 percentage points to 30.8 percent.”
Schumer’s migrants-before-families policy prompted a pro-family response from Bryan Griffin, press secretary for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis:
Griffin followed up with a description of Florida’s workforce training programs. which could help Americans gain the skills and wealth needed to have their own families — complete with the number of children they prefer:
Meanwhile, in Schumer’s New York, poverty is growing as Democrats continue to extract more migrants from poor countries. NY1.com reported in May:
A total of 1.4 million New Yorkers, including one in five city children, are currently living in poverty, according to an annual report by the non-profit Robin Hood, which shows that the city’s poverty rate is nearly twice the national average and disproportionally impacts Black, Latino and Asian New Yorkers.
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