Press Room

After a man fleeing police in a U-Haul struck eight New Yorkers yesterday in Brooklyn, killing one, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams pushed today for legislation that would better enable the city to prevent traffic violence. In a City Council hearing of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, he advocated for collaborative measures to address this violence and prevent future loss.

“Unfortunately, while yesterday had unique circumstances, it is part of a larger problem that our city bears witness to,” lamented Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams. “For years, traffic violence has been dubbed a 'silent epidemic.' In 2022, 255 people died from traffic crashes, and our city has not seen this figure go below 200 for years. Even with the launch of Vision Zero, the lowest number of fatalities since the inception of the program was 208 people in 2018. Every person who is a part of these numbers should be alive today.”

The Public Advocate’s bill, Int 805, would require the Department of Transportation (DOT) to expedite studies of traffic crashes involving pedestrian fatalities or serious injuries every three years, an increase from the current requirement of a five years assessment. DOT would analyze the conditions and factors behind each crash and develop strategies to improve pedestrian safety. The bill would also require DOT to make publicly available inspection reports of locations that have encountered four or more crashes involving death or serious injury. The legislation, which would increase transparency and aid collaboration, was one of several traffic safety bills heard in committee today.

The Public Advocate also highlighted the neighborhoods and communities at greatest risk of traffic violence. Citing a review by Transportation Alternatives, he noted that “The top ten City Council districts with the most traffic fatalities housed a third of Black New Yorkers. In the top ten districts with the most traffic injuries, 87% of residents were people of more color. To meet the moment in our current street safety landscape, we must invest in our low-income communities and communities of more color for our collective safety.”

Public Advocate Williams’ full statement to the committee is below.

STATEMENT OF PUBLIC ADVOCATE JUMAANE D. WILLIAMS TO THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

Good Morning,

My name is Jumaane D. Williams and I am the Public Advocate for the City of New York. This time last year, my baby daughter was born two months early, immediately in the NICU - she’s one today. We planned to take the day, but decided to come because this is such an important issue and I didn’t want to miss it. I would like to thank Chair Brooks-Powers and members of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure for holding this hearing. Before I begin, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge what occurred in Bay Ridge yesterday: a truck driver took the life of one person and injured numerous civilians, most of whom were pedestrians, and I hope for their speedy recovery.

Unfortunately, while yesterday had unique circumstances, it is part of a larger problem that our city bears witness to. For years, traffic violence has been dubbed a “silent epidemic.” In 2022, 255 people died from traffic crashes, and our city has not seen this figure go below 200 for years. Even with the launch of Vision Zero, the lowest number of fatalities since the inception of the program was 208 people in 2018. Every person who is a part of these numbers should be alive today. In particular, I think about the children we have lost and how their young lives were regrettably cut short by something so preventable. Our children and all New Yorkers deserve to walk their streets, ride their bicycles, and be on the road safely and out of harm’s way. We cannot become desensitized to these numbers; every traffic death is preventable, that’s what makes it so much more painful, if we make improvements and changes to street infrastructure and pedestrian safety.

Today, the Committee will hear several bills- one of them, Introduction 0805-2023. My bill would require the Department of Transportation (DOT) to expedite studies of traffic crashes involving pedestrian fatalities or serious injuries from every five years to every three years. DOT would analyze the conditions and factors behind crashes and develop strategies to improve pedestrian safety. Strategies may include the installation of audible pedestrian signals and devices to support those with sight, hearing, and mobility impairments and prioritizing roadways and intersections for safety improvements. The bill would also require DOT to make publicly available inspection reports of locations that have encountered four or more crashes involving death or serious injury. These changes would be a starting point for greater transparency and collaboration.

Furthermore, we should increase investments and focus on communities that face the most traffic fatalities and a lack of street safety investment. According to Transportation Alternatives, in 2022, the top ten City Council districts with the most traffic fatalities housed a third of Black New Yorkers. In the top ten districts with the most traffic injuries, 87% of residents were residents of more color. To meet the moment in our current street safety landscape, we must invest in our low-income communities and communities of more color for our collective safety. 

We can envision a city free of traffic violence. It is possible. I urge my colleagues in the City Council to join me in sponsoring Int. 0805-2023. We all deserve to feel safe and know that leaving our homes and simply crossing the street does not run the risk of injury or fatality–that should be the bare minimum expectation, and I will continue to fight to ensure we make this a reality. As a driver, I know that our society is too focused on infrastructure for the vehicle, and the driver, who is the most privileged on the road even as we pose the most danger, and that has to begin to change. I want to thank the families who are here, and specifically my staff member who is here on her time, Fabiola, who lost her own son and has turned that into amazing purpose. So I want to thank you for all you do in making sure our office stays as an ally in helping with this issue.

Thank you.

"Since its merging with the Department of Homeless Services, the Department of Social Services – already containing the Human Resources Administration – has been much more difficult to operate effectively given the breadth of its mission and mandate. Combining these entities may be a factor in our worsening homelessness crisis and the struggles New Yorkers experience in accessing critical services.

"We need to take this moment of a transition in leadership to explore transitioning our city’s approach and operations. Decoupling DSS/HRA from DHS in an effort to increase their focus and effectiveness could better serve the mission of each agency and the New Yorkers who rely on them. It should be clear that we cannot continue the structure of the past several years, which has largely failed New Yorkers most in need, regardless of who is in leadership roles."

In a City Council oversight hearing today, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams pushed for clarity on the administration's mental health strategy and raised several questions about the city's plan for involuntary hospitalization of New Yorkers perceived as being unable to take care of themselves. The tactic has been controversial, and the Public Advocate sought specifics to answer the concerns of many New Yorkers about its intention and implementation.

"Mayor Adams says that the city has a 'moral obligation' to help those who have acute psychiatric disabilities, and I agree," said Public Advocate Williams. "However, merely holding a person in a hospital before releasing them into the same environment does not help anybody and in fact may make people distrustful of and less likely to seek behavioral health services...If the city truly wants to fulfill its moral obligation to New Yorkers with psychiatric disabilities, it must invest in a continuum of care that everyone needs... Any continuum of care has to include affordable and supportive housing; affordable, community-based health services; accessible education; non-police responses to mental health crises; and employment. It should fund mental health support and services, not weaponize it."

Mental health has been a key focus of the Public Advocate, who released an assessment of the city's mental health crisis response strategies in 2019 and an updated review in November of 2022. He presented many questions and requests for clarification about the administration's latest plan in a letter shortly after its announcement, and as he noted in the hearing, many of these questions have not been addressed.

He expressed great concern about the level of law enforcement involvement in the city's mental health crisis response, saying that, "Involving the police as the primary people to respond, or having them be present without being called, when responding to a person in mental health crisis is extremely dangerous and has had historically deadly results. The number of NYPD officers who have received crisis intervention training has dropped over the last two years, to the point where two-thirds of active-duty officers remain untrained, and the NYPD has no way to ensure that those officers who have been trained are the ones responding to 911 calls reporting mental health crises."

The Public Advocate's full statement as delivered is available below. His previous, unanswered questions to the administration on the plan can be downloaded here, and the office's mental health report is here.

STATEMENT OF PUBLIC ADVOCATE JUMAANE D. WILLIAMS

TO THE NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL COMMITTEES ON PUBLIC SAFETY; MENTAL HEALTH, DISABILITIES, AND ADDICTION; HOSPITALS, AND FIRE AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT

FEBRUARY 6, 2023

Good morning,

My name is Jumaane D. Williams, and I am the Public Advocate for the City of New York. I would like to thank the Chairs and the members of the Committees for holding this important hearing.

In a given year, one in five New Yorkers experiences psychiatric illness, and hundreds of thousands of those are not connected to care or support. Those who are not receiving treatment or services for their psychiatric disabilities are more likely to be low-income people of more color. In addition to a shortage of inpatient psychiatric beds, our city is also experiencing an affordable housing crisis, forcing more and more people into the shelter system and the streets, making people experiencing homelessness and/or symptoms of psychiatric disabilities even more visible.

In response to a rise in crime rates in the subway, including two tragic and high-profile incidents where people experiencing symptoms of psychiatric disabilities pushed commuters in front of trains, Mayor Adams announced in November of last year that NYPD and FDNY would be allowed to involuntarily take people perceived as being unable to take care of themselves to hospitals. Many received this to mean they would be removed regardless of whether they pose any threat of harm to themselves or others. It also seemed that this was simply the announcement of a tactic, much less an entire plan. First, we have to make sure we are clear that mental health is not a crime, and that most people who are experiencing mental illness will not commit crimes.   

Until that announcement, people experiencing mental health crises could be involuntarily detained only if they were deemed to be an immediate risk to themselves or others. Now, it was assumed based on the announcement that those perceived to be “mentally ill” and unable to care for their basic needs can be detained and forced into a hospital, even if they pose no risk of harm to themselves or others. If this is the case, it could not only be dangerous but also a waste of resources.  

It is important to point out there is no evidence that court-ordered involuntary treatment in hospitals is more effective than community-based treatment. In fact, Martial Simon, the man who fatally pushed Michelle Alyssa Go in front of a train while experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia, had been hospitalized at least 20 times and reportedly was upset that hospitals were discharging him before he believed he was well enough to live on his own. Involuntary hospitalization also has a broad negative impact on many areas of a person’s life, often leading to the loss of access to basic rights and services, including employment, parenting, education, housing, professional licenses, or even potentially the right to drive.

Involving the police as the primary people to respond, or having them be present without being called, when responding to a person in mental health crisis is extremely dangerous and has had historically deadly results. The number of NYPD officers who have received crisis intervention training has dropped over the last two years, to the point where two-thirds of active-duty officers remain untrained, and the NYPD has no way to ensure that those officers who have been trained are the ones responding to 911 calls reporting mental health crises. To name only one tragic story: In 2019, two police officers were dispatched to the home of Kawaski Trawick, a 32-year-old Black man experiencing a mental health crisis. Within two minutes, the officers escalated the encounter to the point that one of the officers fired four shots, killing Mr. Trawick, who did not have a gun. The officer who fired the shots had attended crisis intervention training just days prior.

Mayor Adams says that the city has a “moral obligation” to help those who have acute psychiatric disabilities, and I agree. However, merely holding a person in a hospital before releasing them into the same environment does not help anybody and in fact may make people distrustful of, and less likely to seek, behavioral health services. Just before that announcement, my office released a report saying how we were doing on mental health, and what we could be doing better – I did not receive any response from the administration, and all of our reports do go to the administration.

If the city truly wants to fulfill its moral obligation to New Yorkers with psychiatric disabilities, it must invest in a continuum of care that everyone needs. I also want to mention that on December 1, my office sent a letter to the administration to get questions answered about many of the things that not only my office but many reporters and New Yorkers have asked, to try and see if we could flesh out if there was a fuller plan here. As of today, we have not received any response. Any continuum of care has to include affordable and supportive housing; affordable, community-based health services; accessible education; non-police responses to mental health crises; and employment. It should fund mental health support and services, not weaponize it.

I want to be clear that most communities that can access this continuum of care are generally white and wealthier. Most who cannot are generally poorer, Black and Brown, and unfortunately receive a response of police, forced hospitalizations, and arrest. So I always want to make sure that we can provide the continuum of care that’s actually needed, that may include hospitalizations, but it needs to be clear what that plan is, and my hope is that with this hearing today, perhaps we can get many of the questions answered that many of us have, including mine, and hopefully my letter can be responded to shortly.

Thank you.

Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams and Council Member Pierina Sanchez will put forward a package of legislation today aimed at providing long-overdue transparency and reform to the co-op sales and management process. The lawmakers will introduce three bills at today’s Stated Meeting of the City Council, where Council Member Sanchez chairs the Committee on Housing and Buildings, a role formerly held by the Public Advocate.

The Public Advocate, who has long worked on the issue of co-op sales, approvals, and denials will re-introduce two bills as part of the package, now with the Chair as co-prime sponsor. The first, Int. 915, would require co-ops to provide prospective purchasers with a written statement of each reason for denying a sale within five days after the decision is made.

The second, Int. 914, would regulate the application process for cooperative apartments in order to ensure that applicants receive timely approvals or denials. It would require a standardized application and list of requirements for prospective purchasers, and mandate that within ten days of receiving those materials, the co-op would be required to acknowledge receipt to the applicant. They would then have to reply to the application within 45 days.

Chair Sanchez and the Public Advocate will also introduce Int. 917, which would require a co-op to disclose its finances to a prospective purchaser after their offer is accepted. The financial information would have to be provided within 14 days of a request by the prospective purchaser.

Together, these bills would combat a history of discrimination among some co-op board processes, while enabling boards acting in good faith to continue unimpeded. The length and depth of the co-op application, review, and approval process has made such discrimination both more easy to perpetrate and more difficult to identify and prevent. By providing uniform guidelines and a ‘reason requirement’ for rejected applications, the process with be clarified and the standards codified.

“For too long, a complicated, nebulous, and opaque co-op process has left open the possibility for discrimination and denial of housing to qualified applicants,” said Public Advocate Jumaane D. Williams. “These bills will go a long way toward reining in that process and providing transparency, and I’m proud to partner with Chair Sanchez to get them passed.”

“A long history of discriminatory practices, both overt and more insidious, have longed served as barriers to homeownership for people of color in the United States,” said Council Member Pierina Sanchez, Chair of the Committee on Housing and Buildings. With this legislation, we take strides toward increasing transparency to the byzantine process of purchasing cooperative units in New York City. Boards and shareholders acting in good faith will have nothing to fear, while boards with secretive practices that serve to perpetuate discrimination will need to revisit their practices. I am proud to partner with Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to pass these bills.”

“Co-op disclosure is a long overdue addition to the City Human Rights Law," said Craig Gurian, veteran civil rights lawyer. "The values of civil rights and transparency must trump the secrecy, privilege, and unaccountability that the co-op industry has relied on for so long.”

"I thank the governor for heeding our request for state funding to support asylum seekers, and I urge her to more strongly speak out moving forward, as well as further address the need to engage other municipalities statewide.  

"Prioritization of crises – or misprioritization – is clear across this budget, nowhere more so than in public safety. Increases in community-centered gun violence prevention, though far short of the investment needed, are certainly welcome. But they are paired with expansions in law enforcement and so-called 'hotspot' policing, a pursuit of failed policies of the past. Where is the discussion of providing other services to these 'hotspots' - whether economic opportunity, health services, or truly affordable housing? I’m glad that the governor is addressing housing and public safety, but this budget largely fails to see how those issues intersect at their roots, and does not address either one in a large enough scope or urgent enough timeline. Eventual development, though necessary, is not a substitute for affordability and protections now. 

"As we continue to review the budget specifics, it’s important to note what was highlighted in the address, what was minimized, and what it means for the governor’s priorities in the coming months of the budget process."

"I can’t bring myself to watch the video of Tyre Nichols’ murder, just as I still can’t view the deaths of George Floyd, of Ahmaud Arbery.

"I know what it shows — a system that values preserving and asserting power over Black lives. A pain that emanates from this incident and across the screens and the souls of Black people across America. We are not okay.

"I pray for Tyre Nichols' family, and for all who carry the burden of knowledge that this will happen again and again. That not only is public safety not entirely dependent on law enforcement, but is threatened by it. Injustice remains ingrained in culture, and can’t be sanded down or sanitized. 

"Accountability is critical, and it is urgent. Together with individual accountability for the officers who perpetrated this act, though, must come an examination of who these systems are willing to condemn. Nothing about this is simple. Nothing about this is isolated. Nothing about this is okay."