Category: Dollars & Sense

By Yasmeen Persaud | Feb. 9, 2021

Photojournalist Corky Lee, who died of COVID-19 last month, was widely mourned by fellow photographers and the communities he documented. Tributes acclaimed his groundbreaking work chronicling the Asian American experience.

Lee’s death also touched members of the Baruch College community, professors and former editors of this publication, Dollars & Sense, who remembered his guidance when they came to know him at a Manhattan company that printed issues of the student magazine in the 1980s. 

“What Corky did for us was he first treated us as professionals. We were students, we were just learning. He let us come to the plant and let us be involved in the process,” said JoMarie Fecci, a Baruch alumna and photojournalist. As a former D&S photo and art director, Fecci worked with Lee during that time.

Lee came to mentor Baruch students after Professor Emeritus Roslyn Bernstein of Baruch’s Journalism Department, who founded D&S in 1979, serendipitously discovered the printing press, Expedi, where Lee worked. 

“We used to get a lot of flyers in our neighborhood and there were a lot of Asians where I lived near Chinatown,” Professor Bernstein said. “Sometimes I’d have six or seven or eight flyers and I’d look at them and they’d be in Chinese with some English, and always in a tiny corner it would say, ‘Printed by Expedi Printers’.”  

After arranging for Expedi to print its issues, D&S staff would often visit its offices, exploring the printing process and gaining pointers under Lee’s guidance (D&S moved to its current online-only format in 2009).

“We came there really because we looked upon Corky, because Corky cared. If something was wrong, Corky was the first person to fix it,” Professor Bernstein added. 

Lee, a Queens native and CUNY graduate, passed away on Jan. 27 at 73. He dedicated his life to telling stories and was a founding member of the Asian American Journalists Association.

“He did what he loved, and we loved him for it,” a statement released by his family said. 

His photojournalism career grew out of his deep concerns over inaccuracies in a popular historical photo. It seemed as if the photograph was famous for all the wrong reasons, and Lee needed to make things right. 

“Corky said he was inspired to become a photographer after he couldn’t find a single Chinese face in the crowd of a famous 1869 photograph celebrating the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, despite the many Chinese workers involved,” the AAJA said in a statement honoring Lee’s legacy. “In 2002, he recreated the photo — this time, with descendants of the Chinese workers who had been left out and again on the 150th anniversary of the completion of the railroad.”

Lee’s legacy also ran deep for the students who looked up to him. “He really took the time to explain to us how to do things,” Fecci said. “I really appreciated that, that sharing with us.”

Terry Berkowitz, professor emeritus of art in Baruch’s Department of Fine and Performing Arts, remembers conversations with Lee in his Expedi office when he talked about his passion for photography and where she witnessed his impact on Baruch students.

“I think Corky really helped move the Chinese and Chinatown communities into a much better situation, much better visibility,” Professor Berkowitz said. “Corky was a primary influence on the students he touched.” 

Professor Bernstein’s vision of giving Baruch’s diverse students a platform to write passionate, in-depth stories aligned with Lee’s. 

“He was truly passionate about the things that mattered to him. I think he looked at our staff, Black, White, Asian, immigrant, non-immigrant, Baruch! A big mix, and he loved working with us and working with young people,” Professor Bernstein said.  

Lee’s importance to the wider community was evident at a virtual gathering on Feb. 5, organized by La Mama and the Asian American Community Arts Alliance, and attended by more than 400 family members, friends and admirers. His legacy was honored in tributes and performances. 

“You helped me to understand the power and strength in naming oneself and working in solidarity within and across numerous communities,” said close friend Angel Velasco Shaw. 

“Corky never made anyone feel any lesser than who they are,” said Siraj Huda, who worked with Lee at Expedi Printing from 1989 to 1993. Huda noted that Lee honored his Indian American heritage and brought their “plight and Asians to the forefront.”

Notable attendees included U.S. Rep. Grace Meng and state Sen. John Liu, who said: “If not for Corky Lee, much of our history would have been unnoticed, unchronicled, and forgotten.” 

A Further Conversation: Delving into D&S History

Photojournalist JoMarie Fecci recalls her work as the art and photo director for D&S and shares her thoughts on Lee’s legacy. Her interview with D&S co-editor-in-chief Yasmeen Persaud was edited for length. 

What was your past role at Dollars & Sense?

Fecci: I was a student at Baruch in the 1980s. At that time, Dollars & Sense was produced at Baruch and it was printed out of Expedi where Corky worked. In those days, we had to do actual mechanicals. Before they had desktop publishing and our modern way of doing things, you literally had to typeset your pages. I’d put it and paste them onto boards. It was a lot more physically technical, whereas now we just put it all together on a computer. We actually had to do these mechanical boards and bring them to the printer physically and they would print the book. The process was less forgiving than today, there’s so many other ways to change things and fix things. 

Describe Lee’s involvement in the D&S printing process.

Fecci: The print plant was located in the meatpacking district back then, and the meatpacking district was not a trendy place. It was a very industrial area and this print shop was down by the water. He wasn’t involved from the beginning to the end, because the process back then was almost a whole year to do one magazine. Preparing to print takes a lot less time, and that was where he was involved. 

What was your first encounter with Lee?

Fecci: Roslyn Bernstein was the founder of the magazine and she was our mentor for so many students who went through Dollars & Sense. She helped us and guided us and she would bring us to Corky and let him share his knowledge. The first time I met him was at Expedi’s print office before we were actually delivering the magazine, learning what we had to do.

D&S is now fully online. Tell us how the magazine worked in the 1980’s and how roles were determined?

Fecci: We kind of grew into our roles. We definitely had distinct roles and I want to say Roslyn kind of handpicked people, honestly, who were right for the role. We didn’t really vote on it, but people volunteered for what they wanted to do in the magazine, and we had our editor, who actually ended up becoming an editor and writer afterwards. We were super supported by Roslyn and who she brought in.

Most of our work was the same as yours, it’s just the technology changed and it used to be physically hands-on, we had glue on our hands! We had students who would get assigned photography and go shoot different things. And some writers would have photos that worked for their stories. Is it more content creators for you now? The writer does the imagery as well?

Yes, we allow the writer to have the opportunity to do photos. We’re trying this year to emphasize photos more, especially during the pandemic. It’s hard to take photos even though photojournalists are doing it, we want to make sure we’re safe. In terms of if we don’t get photos for our stories, we sometimes have our main reporters function as main photographers and go out and do it. 

Fecci: So, it’s more integrated. After Dollars & Sense, I went on to work as a photojournalist for many years and although I did do text and picture packages and mainly bundle, typically as a photographer you just took pictures, the writer did the story. 

How has Lee’s work over the years inspired you as a photojournalist?

Fecci: His work told the story of the people. You know you can tell stories based on the notables, based on the white male report here, or you tell the story based on the history of the people, the history of everyone. He went, and it wasn’t about political leaders or leaders in his community, it was about the people and what went on. As a photographer, I tried to get close to my subjects, to get the human side of the story. I specialized in military and areas of conflict, refugee issues. Conflict photography, and in a situation that’s crazy when everything is going on, what’s important to me was telling the story of the people. A very important angle. Soldiers across lines have more in common with each other than they do different. The humanity of it all, which Corky’s work was about. 

We hear about journalists writing the first draft of history, when I think about that statement, I think about Corky. I think about how he shifted coverage of Asian Americans, and I feel like Corky’s work speaks through his photos, any good photojournalist, that’s their power. 

Fecci: When you read through the text, you read it but when you see the photo, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” is really true. Everybody wants video but the thing that always sticks in people’s minds is one still image. Those images come to define history even for people who aren’t going to read through all the details of history, they are little bookmarks or think of a timeline. The images are there along the timeline and tell a story for people who don’t want to read deeply. It’s so important what Corky did. When he was first getting out there, you didn’t see a lot of Asian Americans or Chinese in images. He changed that, he really did. We’re here, we’re part of this community, we’re part of this country, we’re part of this culture, why are we invisible?

By Noel Stevens | Jan. 26, 2021

Like many New York restaurants, Awkward Scone in Bushwick was struggling during the pandemic. But instead of simply shutting its doors, owner Eric See moved to another neighborhood. See opened Ursula, a takeout-centric café and bakery, in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in September.

Named after See’s grandmother, Ursula features a smaller footprint than his prior space and no indoor dining. He conceptualized and opened the café within a matter of weeks. “My gas didn’t get turned on until like two days before we opened,” See recalled. The place embraces his New Mexican roots, offering breakfast burritos, blue corn scones, and vegan chiles rellenos.

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According to a report issued by the New York State Comptroller, about one-third to one-half of New York City restaurants are expected to close permanently because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report also mentioned that job loss could be offset by the opening of new restaurants, like See’s Ursula.

See was motivated to open a new place for several reasons, but mostly because he wanted to continue being his own boss. “I don’t know what else I would do,” he said. “I didn’t really care to work for somebody else in the middle of a pandemic.”

Despite being understaffed at the beginning, Ursula has attracted some press coverage and a significant number of customers. “There’s just this understanding of how to get your food to-go,” said Grant Rossi, a barista at Ursula.

The format also seems inherently friendly to COVID regulations. Rossi recalled dealing with only one customer who did not follow mask guidelines. He attributes this single incident to both the restaurant’s concept and the type of crowd See attracts.

Having a new restaurant in the neighborhood is a welcome sign for some residents. “It feels more exciting to go into places like this because I don’t think of what the place used to be like,” Aster Ryan, a customer at Ursula, said.

Since the coronavirus outbreak, only two new restaurants have opened in Crown Heights: Ursula and a Burmese eatery named Rangoon. In other neighborhoods, coffee places and restaurants are adjusting in different ways. 

Stephanie Peschiera, an advisor at Baruch College’s Small Business Development Center, believes a restaurant’s model makes all the difference right now, but also points to the importance of location. She has observed that the increase in employees working from home has been a boon to restaurants in more residential areas.  

“It’s really looking like neighborhoods that are primarily commuter destinations like Midtown and Flatiron are going to continue to struggle, whereas in Brooklyn there’s a lot of residents,” Peschiera said.

Ciao Bella Coffee in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood, owned by spouses Marco Mento and Jessica Michel, was initially forced to close because of the pandemic, only two weeks after its grand opening. The 32-year-old former professional musician from Switzerland was inspired by his Italian family and his experience as a barista to open the coffee shop. Michel,  a 29-year-old Brooklyn native, kept her day job in human resources and helps him when she can. 

“When we opened, we did a party here the first day, a lot of people were here,” said Mento.

The direness of the city’s coronavirus outbreak became much more apparent. The shop is located a few blocks from Kings County Hospital, with many of the shop’s customers working there.

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A post shared by Ciao Bella Coffee (@ciaobellacoffee)

Following the executive order that halted New York’s indoor dining in mid-March, Ciao Bella remained closed for a little under two months. It has since reopened as Mento and Michel continues to navigate coronavirus restrictions. The couple has been keeping customers updated on their evolving policies through Instagram while slowly increasing capacity and adding back live music performances outside.

The couple was able to stay in business, but Michel is not planning on quitting her other full-time job any time soon. Both owners acknowledged how volatile their business can be, especially during a pandemic.

The outlook for eateries may be bleak across the city, but many are finding ways to survive or even thrive in the age of the coronavirus. Peschiera, from Baruch College, says she has faith faith in the resiliency of restaurant owners.

“They deal with putting out multiple fires at a time under normal circumstances; if anybody is equipped to deal with the challenges of COVID, it’s restaurant owners,” she said.

By Lylia Saurel | Feb. 8, 2021

When Joe Biden was announced winner of the presidential race in November and thousands of New Yorkers filled the streets to celebrate, 19-year-old Josiah Ramesar didn’t—even though he voted for Biden.

“I wasn’t excited. I wasn’t mad. I just felt like, ‘Okay, now let’s see what he does,’” he said.

Turnout among young voters ages 18 through 29 was ten percent higher than it was for the last presidential election, going from 42 percent in 2016 to 52 percent in 2020. And while Biden won the youth vote by a 25 percent margin, for many young voters fed up with the Trump administration, the battle is just beginning. And in progressive places like New York, Biden has a lot of work to do to convince a generation that has mobilized around social justice issues and ground-up politics that he can be the transformational president they want.

“If he doesn’t do anything in his first four years, we’ll get him out right away,” said Ramesar.

What many young Democrats expect from the new president is unity, but they also want him to take action on issues like climate change, racial justice, and supporting working-class families. The increase in young voter turnout has also been driven in part by their growing engagement with  local politics.

Roland Sosa, a 20-year-old Manhattan resident and  New York University student, feels that his voice is not being heard on the federal level and that the electoral system fails to represent voters like him.

“In terms of who will become president, my vote doesn’t make a difference,” said Sosa. “But there are still people like the city council, state senate, assembly and congress members for which I want to cast my vote, to make sure that the representatives actually reflect what I want.”

Marcus Johnson, 30, an assistant professor at Baruch College in the political science department, says he saw an increase in local engagement around racial justice among his students.

“This semester students wanted to talk about what was going on in the US. It felt like every week there was something we could tie to the news cycle,” he said.

Motivated by the national response to the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, CUNY students mobilized to bring issues to the attention of the city council and lobbied to provide more funds to Black mental health research at Baruch.

“There seemed to be a recognition that as much as we pay attention to presidential politics,  political engagement also has to happen at a local level,” said Johnson.

And while some plan to show engagement with grassroots organizing, others prefer to use online platforms. Social media played a decisive role among young adults prior to the elections in disseminating information and connecting demonstrators and advocates.

For Professor Johnson, social media is a way for young people to keep participating in political life through smaller actions such as signing petitions and sharing content. “These are forms of political engagement that matter in the long run,” he said.

Various youth-led political organizations have also helped foster the engagement of young voters such as the climate-focused Sunrise Movement, which supports a Green New Deal.

Access to politics is important, said John Paul Mejia, a Sunrise Movement spokesperson. “We are ramping up leadership programs for them to step in the realm of politics,” he said.

One of its programs, the Sunrise School, was created prior to the 2020 presidential elections and taught volunteers how to organize and remain politically active.

Mejia is determined to keep the momentum going during the lull between election cycles when it’s easy for people to become complacent. “We’ve got new hubs starting around the country as a result of Sunrise School,” said Mejia. “We definitely feel a promising forecast.”

Noam Gal, president of the Baruch College Democrats, feels that CUNY students should aim to demand more from the new administration. He believes this generation of young college students will be highly affected by political and social transformation.

“We have seen chaos in the streets of our capitol. We watched thousands of our fellow New Yorkers die in overflowing hospitals. CUNY students like myself are disproportionately suffering from financial insecurities in a New York where people are struggling,” he said.

Gal believes that Biden is at an advantage with Democratic majorities in Congress, but must step up to the demands of the young people, who have been wanting more for years.

“The Democratic party has had the unique opportunity to shape America into a place where students don’t need to choose between rent payments and school supplies,” he said.

“Young Americans are looking towards the White House with hope, but Biden must fulfill our hopes with real change, else that hope might turn to anger.”

By Ann LeMonnier | Jan. 25, 2021

Scott Pease, 22, is rummaging through his kitchen, near frantic, listing various beverage offerings. His boyfriend, Dexter Cypress, 21, sits a couple feet away, smirking, as he pets their cat, a white American shorthair. Their New York City apartment is filled with photographs of the couple and paints a picture of two people who’ve been together for ages. In reality, Pease and Cypress have only known each other for a year.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many colleges have had to close their campuses, including dorms, and switch to remote learning. This has forced student couples not only to adapt to their new surroundings, but to navigate an often new relationship in a time of crisis.

Cypress, a student and full-time babysitter, met Pease, a student and bartender, on the dating site Hinge in December of 2019.

Three months into their relationship, Pease’s dorm building was forcing their residents to move out because of the COVID-19 lockdown and he ended up moving in with Dexter.  In the following four months, the couple adopted a cat, met each other’s parents and road-tripped cross country to Washington state, all while still getting to know each other.

“The pandemic obviously brought us closer together,” said Pease. He had plans to go to Thailand, or law school. “Now I’m somehow settled down with two cats and a shared lease on a one bedroom,” he said.

Though he admits he was hesitant at first, Cypress agrees that moving in together during lockdown helped their relationship. “I’m a private person. It was hard for me to let Scott in, but I can’t imagine my life without him,” he said.

The closure of college campuses and dorm buildings have also affected New Yorkers Rachel LeMonnier and Bryan Gomez, both 18. The couple, who had been dating for three years prior to the pandemic, graduated high school in spring of this year. They did not want to start college remotely and decided to both take a gap year. This led to the pair signing their first ever lease together.

“I think it’s because we’re so young that people doubt us, but I’m the happiest I’ve ever been,” said LeMonnier.

The couple has lived together for four months now. When they attend college next year, they will continue living together, instead of moving into dorms. “A year ago, I was stressing about how me and Rachel were gonna do long distance and now I get to see her every day,” said Gomez.

However, not all couples are experiencing the same closeness. When conducting a study on relationships during quarantine, Christopher Stults, a professor of psychology at Baruch College, found that 9.4 percent of the 1,090 participants interviewed reported some form of abuse or imbalance in their relationship.

“This includes physical, sexual, verbal, psychological, emotional, or financial abuse,” said Stults. In addition, 21 percent of the 103 participants who reported abuse claimed that it started or began occurring more frequently once the pandemic began.

Richard Slatcher is a professor of behavioral and brain sciences at the University of Georgia and is the founder of The Love in the Time of COVID Project, a research study that distributes a bi-weekly survey to over 2,000 participants across the U.S. Slatcher found through his study that 50 percent of people feel less socially connected and that the pandemic has made them want to isolate further from their partner.

This is the case for Ben Aronson, 21, who after being forced to leave his dorm at Alfred University in upstate New York, decided to quarantine with his girlfriend of two years in her mother’s apartment in New Jersey.

“I realized we never actually spent more than 24 hours together. I mean we slept at each other’s dorms before but that was different because I could go back to my room the next day. Here, I couldn’t escape her,” Aronson said.

After a month of living together, Aronson decided to break things off. “I honestly don’t know if I would’ve realized this if it weren’t for the pandemic. We were doing fine before. I don’t know if I should be relieved or not that I found out I couldn’t live with her,” he added.

Conversely, Slatcher also found in his study that 25 percent of people surveyed reported that they actually felt more socially connected.

“[This] could be a result of people having more time to slow down and connect, more use of video platforms like Zoom, and the collective sense that we’re all in this together,” Slatcher said.

When Ella Breunig was forced to move back in with her parents in Massachusetts, after her dorm at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute closed, she began talking with her friend James Straub on the phone for hours every day. Straub, a student at Pace University, had also moved back in with his parents.

Two months into quarantine, the pair admitted they had romantic feelings for each other. From there, they began sending love letters and care packages to each other’s homes.

Breunig said, “there was something so intimate and romantic about it all. I want to say we’d be dating regardless, but the pandemic weirdly made our relationship special.”

Article and photos by Anthony Tellez | Dec. 23, 2020

During an early and overcast December Saturday, volunteers at La Jornada food pantry set up tables for distributing bags to the public as trucks with shipments of goods arrived at its headquarters at Bland Houses, a public housing complex in Flushing, Queens. Outside, the line of people waiting for food continued to grow.

“It’s necessary with everything that is going on today,” said one woman in line who asked to be identified only by her first name, Carina. A mother of three children, she said her hours at a cleaning job had been reduced during the coronavirus pandemic. After hearing about the food pantry from a friend, she had come from her home in Jackson Heights to pick up a box of food as a way to reduce her living expenses.

Carina is one of thousands of New Yorkers who have found themselves in need of food aid during the pandemic. Unemployment has skyrocketed across the city, with the borough of Queens being particularly hard hit. According to November data from the Labor Department, the unemployment rate in Queens was 11.6 percent, compared to 3 percent in February 2020 before the city went into lockdown with the arrival of COVID-19. 

As a result, food insecurity also has risen. In a June 2020 report, the Food Bank for New York City said a survey of pantries revealed that nearly three-quarters of pantries across the city reported an increase of visitors and by mid-April, a third of soup kitchens and food pantries were forced to close due to high demand and economic constraints. 

When the pandemic started to creep into the city last March, Pedro Rodriguez, the executive director of La Jornada, was unsure of how to handle the rising demand for food. Initially, he considered closing the pantry for a short while, but he quickly realized that with people losing their jobs, the need for food would be more important than ever. “It doesn’t matter if we are in a pandemic, we have to help out despite the fear,” Rodriguez said. 

The entrance to the Bland Houses on Prince Street was bustling with truck after truck of groceries and food boxes being dropped off and unloaded by volunteers. To the side of the trucks, people — many of whom had brought empty grocery carts — formed a line and waited patiently for La Jornada to begin distributing the groceries. Even before opening, the line stretched from the entrance of the Bland Houses to Flushing’s Main Street. 

Inside La Jornada, volunteers packed an assortment of fresh produce into bags to distribute. At the height of the pandemic, La Jornada lost a majority of its volunteers, who had been older. With reports that older adults were more susceptible to COVID-19, many of the volunteers made the decision to keep themselves and their families safe from the virus. 

Rodriguez noted that while older volunteers could no longer participate due to concerns over the virus, younger adults stepped in and picked up where the older volunteers left off. “It gives me faith to see young people giving back and the amount of generosity they have,” he said. 

A majority of those volunteering at the La Jornada heard about the pantry through New York Cares, a centralized volunteer network. “As soon as the pandemic hit, the need tripled,” said Rachel Terry, team leader for the volunteers at La Joranda, who has been volunteering for New York Cares for 13 years. “There was a surge in volunteers when the pandemic hit, everyone is struggling right now.” 

Part of the Solution, a soup kitchen based in the Bronx, has also seen demand skyrocket. Last year, it provided one million meals for people. This year it provided two million, said Daniel Rostan, the organization’s director of development.

He noted that the organization had lost a sense of community as guests were no longer allowed to dine in. “We miss being able to talk with and relate to and see on a regular basis the people that we serve,” Rostan said.

La Jornada also saw a sudden increase of people relying on its services. In 2019, Rodriguez was providing food for 1,000 families a week. Since the start of the pandemic, he said the group provides meals for 10,000 families a week. One of his main challenges is securing enough food to meet the demand. “That’s the battle every day, getting the food” said Rodriguez.

One of the sources of food that the pantries have relied on is the Farmers to Families Food Box Program led by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The program spent $4.5 billion on purchasing produce from American farmers both large and small and sent the produce to food banks and other non-profits focused on food insecurity.  Since May 15, the program has sent out 130.4 million food boxes for distribution across the country, but the program is set to end on Dec. 31, leaving many food pantries scrambling to find other sources of food. 

As vaccines begin to roll out across the country and a second round of stimulus checks has passed Congress, the question remains as to how much longer can food pantries hold out until the demand decreases across the city. With the federal aid program ending in December, Rodriguez keeps on planning to provide food for those in need and hopes that the government will step up and help secure more food for pantries like his. 

“Children are going to bed without food, seniors deciding between paying rent or buying groceries while the stock market had one of the best years ever, it just doesn’t make sense,” he said. 

By M’Niyah Lynn | Dec. 16, 2020

Raven Randall is used to seeing the homeless around her neighborhood in Harlem. Still, the cashier was shocked when she learned her own uncle had become one of them after being evicted in February. 

“I walk around New York and I just see a vast quantity of homeless and drug addicts out here,” she said, adding that she has seen a definite increase from five years ago. Randall sees them “more on the streets in areas that [she’s] not used to seeing them in.” 

Randall’s uncle, Jerry Randall, was able to leave the shelter system and is now living with Raven’s aunt in Brooklyn. But with so many people out of work and shelters at reduced capacity due to the pandemic, a growing number are struggling in shelters or on the streets. 

In September of this year, there were 534,138 single adult New Yorkers living in shelters, an increase of 42,753 from September of 2019, the Department of Homeless Services reported. And with the coldest months of the year ahead as the infection rate surges, advocates and mayoral candidates are calling on the city to take urgent action.

“You address homelessness by giving homeless people addresses,” Democrat Jocelyn Taylor said in a Dec. 5 Zoom forum for mayoral hopefuls. 

A lack of space for the homeless amid the pandemic has intensified the existing need for supportive housing and has increased virus transmission. Sheltered individuals in the city have died at a rate that is 78 percent higher than people who are in stable housing, Cal Hedigan, CEO of Community Access said to the Coalition for the Homeless, in response to advocates calling for more supportive housing units. 

The city contracted with the Hotel Association of New York City (HANYC) back in April to relieve some of the pressure on shelters by placing homeless individuals in 63 hotels around the city, covering the average nightly cost of $120 per room. 

Taylor said this isn’t enough, arguing during the forum that people have done their job of staying home like the government asked, so the government has an obligation to make sure people have homes to remain in. She said an immediate step she would take if she was mayor today would be to do quick conversions of vacant office spaces and apartments, and added that the city needs to invest in long-term, stable housing.

Another 2021 mayoral candidate, Kathryn Garcia, the former commissioner of the city’s Department of Sanitation, said she would also utilize vacant spaces. 

“I would immediately give them the money to go and rent an apartment and to get them on their feet,” she said.

The city’s emergency hotel housing plan has been met with opposition in some higher-income neighborhoods, like the Upper West Side, where residents successfully pushed back against the presence of homeless people living in the Lucerne Hotel. 

But even in neighborhoods where residents are more accustomed to having homeless shelters in their midst, the increase in people roaming the streets, begging for money and sleeping on the sidewalks has been cause for concern about what this means for their safety and quality of life.

Albina Sanchez and Jose Mendez are a married couple from Sunnyside, Queens who pass through Harlem to get to their respective jobs. Both have noticed that since the pandemic began, more homeless people have been making their presence known. 

“They sometimes follow you,” Sanchez said. “They try to force the money from you.” 

Sanchez, 46, said that around the Upper East Side building where she works as a housekeeper and home health aide, she believes the increased homeless population has contributed to recent building break-ins and violence. “The doorman has started carrying a weapon to potentially defend himself,” she said. 

Mendez, a manager at Don Filippo Restaurant, said that the homeless have frequently visited the restaurant to beg for food, but it drives away the customers. They give the homeless food to “make them go away,” he said.

In addition to the poor quality of the homeless shelters, pandemic-driven financial hardships and lack of support from the government, another main factor driving the increase in the homeless population is that Mayor Bill de Blasio has released prisoners with minor offenses, according to Linda Lopez, an administrator of The Salvation Army on 125th Street and 3rd Avenue. She thinks that former prisoners were “dropped” into the community without consideration for the fact that some of them don’t have a place to go or a plan for what to do.

The number of single adults in shelters has increased by “an average of 10 percent per year” since de Blasio took office, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.

Lopez, who has been with the Salvation Army for 26 years, said the organization serves between 260 to 300 grab-and-go lunches from Monday to Friday.

“For many of them, it’s the only meal they’ll get for the day,” she said.

The organization provides a food pantry, emotional and spiritual support and hygiene products. It also accepts donations intended to help people get much-needed food and clothing. 

“As long as we breathe there should be hope and we are here to help,” she said. 

The Salvation Army is a Christian organization and has come under fire from critics who say it has discriminated against the LGBTQ community and domestic violence survivors. Other community organizations providing resources to homeless people include Safe Horizon, Housing Works Inc. and Harlem United.

In early October, de Blasio extended the contract with HANYC, with over $100 million now spent to date on hotel rooms for the homeless, so that program will continue through June 30 of next year. As of Dec. 9, the Coalition said that only 6,000 of the 20,000 supportive housing units promised by Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been funded so far. 

As winter approaches and NYC faces another possible lockdown because of a rise in cases, people who are homeless or have housing insecurity could be in trouble. DHS has tweeted nine “Code Blue” warnings from Dec. 1 to Dec. 14. 

These warnings alert people that temperatures will be below freezing at night, so people are encouraged to call 311 for the homeless to connect with outreach teams. This could lead to more people being put in shelters when it gets cold, which increases the chance for coronavirus to spread.

“Injury and death from exposure to the elements are real risks for people struggling to survive on the streets, and this requires that the City act quickly,” Giselle Routhier, policy director for Coalition for the Homeless, said yesterday in a post on the organization’s Instagram as New Yorkers prepared for a Nor’easter that could be one of the biggest snowstorms in years.

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Routhier said the city’s only open warming center is a space in Manhattan with 15 chairs. “With the season’s first snow storm approaching, the City is woefully unprepared to meet the basic needs of unsheltered homeless New Yorkers who require warm indoor accommodations,” she said.

The snow is predicted to start falling early this evening in New York City and continue into tomorrow. De Blasio tweeted that the city could expect to get “between 8 to 12 inches.”