Bronx

Homelessness Strikes More NYC Children

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The recession pushed an alarming number of New York City families, many of them with children, into homelessness in 2009, according to a new report by Citizen’s Committee for Children. The number of families applying to live in city homeless shelters increased about 27 percent to nearly 24,000 between 2008 and 2009, according to the annual report, Keeping Track of New York City’s Children .The trend mirrors the spike in adult street homelessness reported in March by the city’s Department of Homeless Services. Their annual one-night survey found a 25 percent year-over-year increase in the numbers of people living on the streets of New York, to about 3100 people.Keeping Track is a compendium of statistics describing the quality of life that New York City’s children enjoy. Many children enjoy little, the report notes.The number of children entering foster care declined almost every year between 1998 and 2008, the report shows, down more than half, to 16,200. And the city’s four-year high school graduation rate has steadily edged higher since 2005, increasing almost 10 percent.But several major problems persist, the report found:26 percent of all New York City children live in poverty.Children here are three times more likely to be hospitalized for preventable illnesses – such as asthma, pneumonia, and acute respiratory infections – than children in the rest of the state.The number of youth younger than 20 arrested on felony and misdemeanor charges was at a 12-year-high in 2008, with about 88,900 arrests.All indicators of child well-being in New York are worse among black and Latino children, the report found, with one of the greatest racial disparities being in the number of children born into poverty.

Bronx

Drive For Nonpartisan Voting Confronts '03 Failure

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Those calling for an end to party primaries say that they exclude thousands of voters who do not belong to the Democratic party, whose nominees win most races in the city. Photo by: Jarrett Murphy

Those pushing the Charter Revision Commission to propose an end to party primaries say politics has changed since voters rejected a similar bid seven years ago. By: Jarrett Murphy

The city’s Charter Revision Commission on Wednesday night was nearing the end of three hours of expert testimony–most of it about whether nonpartisan elections would be good or bad for New York City’s democracy–when Commissioner Ernie Hart raised a practical question.If a proposal to have nonpartisan elections were put before the voters in 2010, how would the commission do to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2003, when voters rejected such a change by a 70-30 margin?That’s the kind of strategic quandary now facing the 15 mayor-appointed commissioners as they mull ways to improve voter participation in municipal elections, which has dropped almost without interruption since the 1960s. One measure–the percentage of New York’s presidential race voters who return for the mayoral race the following year–fell from 67 percent in 2001 to 45 percent in 2009.Wednesday’s testimony–only the second of five “issue forums” where the panel is hearing from policy experts on areas of the charter that might change–raised a host of thorny issues. How much of the turnout problem is due to the mechanics of voting versus the larger political culture?

Bronx

Immigrant's Choice: Family Separation Or Child Mutilation

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People on the street in Saint Louis, Senegal. The U.S. State Department says femal genital mutilation is widely practiced in Senegal. Photo by: Alexandra Pugachevsky

Some deportees must choose whether to leave their citizen children behind or bring them back to the ancestral land. That choice is even harder when genital mutilation is a threat. By: Kateryna Stupnevich

After undergoing female genital mutilation as a child in Senegal, Fatoumata thought that her days of hardship were behind her once she settled in the United States.

News

The Whitest City Agencies

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A federal judge’s decision to appoint a special master to oversee the New York City Fire Department’s compliance with a court-mandated revision of hiring practices has once again put the FDNY’s racial makeup in the headlines.But New York’s Bravest aren’t the only city workers with a disproportionate racial skew. According to figures obtained by City Limits about the municipal workforce as of the end of 2009, several other departments are notably white. At the same time, other agencies are disproportionately black. (See chart below.)The Census Bureau, which treats race and Latino origin separately (meaning Latinos can be of any race), estimates that New York City is about 35 percent non-Latino white, 28 percent Latino, 23 percent non-Latino black and 12 percent non-Latino Asian. Overall, the city workforce is 38 percent white, 36 percent black, 18 percent Latino and 6 percent Asian, according to statistics from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (which, unlike the Census, considers race and Latino origin to be mutually exclusive).

News

Report: Fraud Common Among Top Debt Buyers

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In addition to shoddy mortgages, deed theft and usurious payday loans, there’s another predator sucking money out of low income neighborhoods of color: debt buyers. According to a study released this week by the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project these firms – which buy credit card, fines or other debts with the aim of collecting them from debtors – regularly file fraudulent lawsuits against low income, elderly and disabled New Yorkers. In many cases, the report alleges, debts have already been paid off or forgiven. A spokesman for DBA International, an industry association did not return a phone call and email request for comment. Between January 2006 and July 2008 the top such firms operating in NYC collected more than $1 billion through court judgments.

News

4th & 8th Graders Get National Report Card

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The reading abilities of New York City fourth graders are improving, according to the results of a national test released Thursday, but eighth graders’ scores remain virtually unchanged.Since 2002, the city’s fourth graders have posted steady, incremental gains on the test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, with 12 percent more students now demonstrating at least a basic command of the skills tested. The biggest leaps occurred among New York’s neediest students, said New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein in a webcast earlier today, citing a 13-point gain in the mean test score for fourth-graders eligible for free lunch, most of whom are Black and Latino. Scores for white and Asian student remained relatively constant.Overall, the city’s mean scores still lag behind New York State’s mean scores, but the city performed better than many large urban school districts. Among the 11 large urban school districts that participated in the test in 2007 and 2009, New York City was one of four that showed fourth-grade gains. Additionally, New York City’s mean scores are catching up with the nation’s mean scores.During his webcast, Klein acknowledged that eighth grade achievement was “the largest challenge” and attributed the gains in fourth grade achievement to his reforms. The Department of Education has implemented changes that will allow each school to opt out of one-size-fits all citywide curricula.

Bronx

Poll: New Yorkers Fear Becoming Homeless

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A study released today by the Institute for Children and Poverty, a research and advocacy organization, finds homelessness is a major factor in the lives of New Yorkers. A third of New Yorkers think about homelessness everyday; 15 percent have hosted someone who might otherwise have been homeless in the past six months; and 20 percent of poll respondents “perceived themselves as being at risk for homelessness,” with black and Latino respondents and Bronx residents more likely to fear losing their homes. The study is the result of a random telephone survey of 1,000 people conducted in January, according to ICP. It has a margin of error of 3.1 percent. According to the survey, New Yorkers felt city government needed to do more, with sevenof ten rating the job as poor or fair.