Niani Taylor, who lives in Brooklyn’s Van Dyke Houses, is among the small but growing number of NYCHA residents who report income from self-employment. Advocates say the Housing Authority could foster more entrepreneurs by expanding initiatives like its Business Pathways program, which helped Taylor grow her catering company. “I put my all into it.”
Adams will announce a proposal during her State of the City speech Wednesday to support and expand NYCHA tenant-owned businesses, the number of which has jumped significantly in recent years as residents turn to home-based ventures such as catering, child care services and carpentry.
Every time you buy a beer or a lottery ticket at a bodega run by Mohamed Mohamed or one of his countrymen, you tap into a story of ethnic succession and a struggle to reconcile one culture with another.
By some estimates, two thirds of businesses on the peninsula are still closed after Hurricane Sandy. Some of those that are operating are suffering because their customer base has been displaced.
Statistics show immigrant workers frequently suffer wage theft. One solution pioneered by a Brooklyn center is to launch cooperatives where the workers are also owners.
Delegates in Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito’s district had to get savvy about how to get the maximum out of their million. So they expanded the scope of potential projects and limited the number they’d consider.
A study of low-income New Yorkers under the age of 24 indicates they have trouble getting welfare benefits to which they are entitled. City officials say the report—and others that raised similar questions—suffers from poor methodology.
Tanya Fields is a college graduate starting her own business. She’s also a welfare recipient trying to keep benefits in place until she can support herself. Can she do it all?
The number of low-income New Yorkers is a matter of statistics. Answering deeper questions about poverty demands drilling down deep into the lives of individual people, a few of whose stories are presented in this month’s issue of City Limits.
Like many Brooklyn neighborhoods, it is seeing a surge in new businesses and young residents. Do the doubts about gentrification run deeper there?
City Limits uses investigative journalism through the prism of New York City to identify urban problems, examine their causes, explore solutions, and equip communities to take action.
Founded in 1976 in the midst of New York’s fiscal crisis, City Limits exists to inform democracy and equip citizens to create a more just city. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit funded by foundation support, ad sponsorship and donations from readers.
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