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While the Department of Social Services says more people were accepted into supportive housing last year than the year prior, a new report shows persistent barriers and rejections, including some that violate the city’s own guidance.
A real estate trust bought single-family homes in gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhoods, renovated, and rented them out at a premium. With the trust now looking to offload the assets, tenants are left in an uncertain position, feeling like homeownership is further out of reach than ever.
Desde que Sanidad tomó las riendas de la aplicación de la ley sobre la venta ambulante esta primavera, el departamento ha confiscado material abandonado o que no cumple con las normas de venta ambulantes en 228 casos, y ha donado 32.220 libras de alimentos y convertido en compost otras 3.880 libras, dicen los funcionarios.
“People are bringing it up, people are talking about it and thinking about what can be done, but I don’t know that that has translated very well into action yet,” said Victoria Sanders, research analyst at the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. “We really want to see actions starting to play out.”
“If you get cash assistance, you are caught up in really significant delays, in a way that you would not be if you were only receiving SNAP,” said Katie Kelleher of the Legal Aid Society, a lead attorney on a federal lawsuit compelling the city to improve its processing times.
“It’s an issue that seems to be within DOC’s control, something they can anticipate, and yet they’re really not able to make sure that the conditions are humane for the people that are forced to be there,” one civil rights attorney said.
While the number of NYCHA campuses that saw elevator outages between January and April of this year was the same as the year before, the total number of incidents—9,904—declined by more than 12 percent, and NYCHA’s response time for repairs improved.
Last season, the city’s 25 beaches saw a total of 244 closures, either because water quality exceeded the city’s safety standards—determined by testing for the bacteria found in fecal matter—or because of excessive rainfall, which increases the likelihood of pollution entering local waterways. That’s up from 94 such closures during the 2021 season.
Brooklyn tenants are trying to dismantle barriers around a seldom-used 1960s-era law that can prohibit landlords from collecting rent when they fail to fix dangerous building conditions for months on end. The campaign just had its first breakthrough.
The deactivated nuclear power plant, now run by Holtec, wants to discharge 1 million gallons of radioactive waste into the river as early as August. The dumping will release into the air and waterways an element called tritium that can increase the risk of cancer and lead to miscarriages and birth defects.
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