Back to school basics
New York City must do more about
homeless policy amid COVID-19
COURIER L 36 IFE, AUGUST 20-26, 2021
EDITORIAL
OP-ED
The Key to NYC may be
forcing residents and
visitors to show proof
of vaccination for a night out
on the town — but the key to
the future is giving city kids
the best education possible.
Which should be reason
enough for Mayor Bill de
Blasio to mandate all teachers
be vaccinated when
schools open Sept. 13 —
ironically the same date the
city will be doling out hefty
$1,000 for fi rst offense and
$2,000 for second offenses to
indoor businesses that fail
to ensure their venues are
off limits for those who remain
unvaccinated.
But the powerful United
Federation of Teachers
(UFT) union — a major fi -
nancial backer of de Blasio
as mayor and quite possibly
in his bid for governor
next year — is pushing back
against any mandate that
their rank-and-fi le be vaccinated
when schools open.
Instead, teachers are
encouraged to get vaccinated
and if they don’t they
must show proof of a recent
COVID test showing they
tested negative. This comes
as outgoing Governor Andrew
Cuomo, on Aug. 16,
mandated that all healthcare
workers in the state be
vaccinated.
The non-mandate for
all public school teachers
comes after the most vulnerable
of the city’s roughly
million K-12 students already
missed nearly a full
year of schooling last year
due to the COVID-19 pandemic
and a botched rollout
of both remote learning, and
the on-again/off-again reopening
of public schools.
Currently, de Blasio’s
plans for reopening the
city’s 1,800 public schools
also includes full-time, inperson
instruction fi ve
days a week with no remote
learning, except for immunocompromised
children
under an existing city program.
Additionally, the plan
calls for all students, teachers
and staff to wear masks
during the school day, regardless
of vaccination status,
and a social distancing
requirement of three feet.
While this plan is all well
and good, more thought and
contingency plans need to
be put in place before the
school year starts.
That starts with working
out the kinks of remote
learning if the Delta variant
gets further out of hand,
expanding the three-foot
social distancing requirement,
and most importantly,
mandating all teachers
be vaccinated.
If privately-owned bars
or restaurants must police
the public to be vaccinated
or risk getting fi ned, public
sector teachers should
be mandated to be vaccinated
at the risk of not being
paid.
Failing our most vulnerable
kids for another year is
not an option.
BY ASSEMBLYMEMBER
LINDA B. ROSENTHAL
It has been more than a year since
the City of New York hastily moved
thousands of people living in the DHS
congregate shelter system into temporary
hotels to protect them against
COVID-19. While the move likely saved
countless lives, few would argue that
the plan was not executed in total disarray.
To be sure, the City was in the
midst of what we would soon learn was
an unprecedented, years-long pandemic
that would claim the lives of more than
53,000 New Yorkers (to date).
Just because the move out of congregate
shelters was chaotic does not
mean that a move back in should be as
well. The City, which has long maintained
that it has been guided by the
science, continues to rush to move
thousands of people who have been
kept safe from COVID-19 in hotels
back into congregate settings at the
same time that the Delta variant has
us bracing for round two, or perhaps
it’s three.
The City itself admits that it has
no idea how many people currently
living in temporary hotels have been
vaccinated and that it has no plans to
require or track vaccinations among
this vulnerable population, being rendered
more so by the City’s own policies.
Virus mitigation in congregate
shelters is non-existent, as unsheltered,
and potentially unvaccinated,
New Yorkers are crammed 20-plus to
a room, separated by little more than
hope and a prayer.
In a short time, we have learned a
lot from COVID-19. We have learned
the importance of being near friends,
family and loved ones. We have learned
who the real heroes are. We have
learned just how small a two-bedroom
NYC apartment can feel when you are
working and schooling from home.
But it seems the City has not learned
a thing when it comes to homeless policy
in the time of COVID-19.
The City was sued by the Legal Aid
Society because it was not following
its own law with respect to moving
unsheltered people with disabilities.
The City then agreed to temporarily
pause future moves, but Legal Aid
was forced back into court when the
City began moving people once again,
haphazardly and without a plan. This
time, a federal judge sided with the advocates
and ordered the City to cease
all moves and gave it until August 19th
to devise a plan.
The City has been criticized by
housing and homelessness advocates
because they claim the City has not
communicated transfer plans to those
who will be moved. And the City has
been called out by the very people who
are in their care: unsheltered New
Yorkers, who are scared and confused
about futures over which they have
no say or control. Hundreds of public
health professionals and organizations
are demanding that the City stop
the transfers for the good of all New
Yorkers.
It should not take multiple court
orders and this much pressure for the
City to do the right thing.
Nevertheless, the City persists. It
persists in implementing a wrongheaded
move that will endanger the
lives of New Yorkers who have done
nothing wrong, if you don’t consider
homelessness a crime, of course.
I will reiterate now what I said at
the beginning of COVID: unsheltered
New Yorkers are not chattel, and they
cannot be shuffl ed around in a political
game, especially not during the potential
third wave of a deadly pandemic.
Their very lives are on the line.
According to one homeless services
provider, ‘Today, more New Yorkers
are experiencing homelessness than
ever before. In a city of more than 8.3
million people, nearly one in every
106 New Yorkers is homeless — that’s
nearly 80,000 men, women and children.
Every night, nearly 4,000 people
sleep on the street, in the subway system
or in other public spaces.’
The chaos that reigned supreme
at the beginning of the pandemic was
forgivable, excused by a deadly learning
curve. The chaos now, after more
than a year of experience, is simply inexcusable,
and is needlessly endangering
the lives of thousands of innocent
and unsheltered New Yorkers.
Linda B. Rosenthal represents parts
of Manhattan’s Upper West Side and the
Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen neighborhoods.
in the New York State Assembly.
It should not take multiple court orders and this much
pressure for the City to do the right thing.