Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
Nelson King, Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 10 ife, SEPTEMBER 3-9, 2021
By Rhonda Jackson
New York City is just days
away from a new law, Int. 146,
going into effect to raise the
value of NYC FHEPS rental
assistance vouchers to help
address the city’s housing crisis,
which is especially important
for New York’s families
and children facing eviction.
Yet, a fatal flaw exists in the
bill after the income ceiling
for eligible New Yorkers was
lowered in the final hours of
FY22 budget negotiations.
As a result, thousands of
New Yorkers like me who
need the subsidy to avoid
eviction will be left with the
impossible choice of giving
up our income or our home.
For many of the children who
experience homelessness,
they will never fully recover
from the life-altering trauma
incurred from losing their
home.
My family has endured
the trauma of homelessness
firsthand, and now, the threat
of losing my home has become
real once again because I am
ineligible for the new City-
FHEPS voucher under the
new legislation. A stipend I
receive for my advocacy work
for the Family Homelessness
Coalition — where I stand up
for families like my own in
the fight to end family homelessness
in New York City —
along with my disability benefits
amount to an income
that is too high to qualify for
the new CityFHEPS voucher,
even though I’m just barely
able to get by as is. I was told
I will be forced to resign from
the fellowship or return to
the shelter system because of
the stipend. The thought of
packing up my apartment and
going back to a shelter after
finally finding a stable place to
call home is unbearable.
New York City needs to help
people like me achieve longterm
stability by removing
the income eligibility cutoff
in Int. 146 that prevents the
voucher’s renewal if income
rises above 250 percent of
the federal poverty level, or
a mere $32,200 a year. City-
FHEPS is supposed to help
people stay in their homes,
not force people to return to
the shelter and reapply for a
subsidy. How is a parent supposed
to explain to their child
that they have to pack up
their room because their caregiver
doesn’t make enough
money to pay their rent, but
too much money to receive
the support they need to stay
in their home?
Even prior to the pandemic,
New York City already had
a family homelessness crisis,
with over 43,000 people living
in family homeless shelters,
including close to 25,000
children and teens. Now, due
to job loss and economic devastation
— predominantly
in communities of color hit
hardest by the pandemic —
thousands more vulnerable
women and children are at
risk of entering a shelter. We’re
calling on the City to work
with us to tackle the benefits
cliff families face when their
income rises too high for benefits
but not high enough to
cover housing costs.
Eliminating the income
threshold for CityFHEPS
renewals is a smart investment
for taxpayers, too. A
two-bedroom voucher at the
increased rate costs the City
up to $21,200 a year. Meanwhile,
housing that family in a
shelter during that same time
period costs about $74,000 a
year.
Speaking as someone who
is a born and raised New Yorker,
I do not want to return to
the shelter and contribute to
the rising tide of homelessness.
I want to remain stably
housed, as every single person
or family desires after escaping
shelter. I should not be
collateral damage. As a formerly
homeless person, the
idea of going back into that
system of dehumanizing conditions
is atrocious. We must
ensure New York City’s rental
assistance programs fulfill
their intended purpose and
help families stay on the road
to recovery and long-term
well-being.
By Scott B. MacDonald
India is one of the world’s
major oil consumers and Guyana
is an up-and-coming petro-power.
In March 2021, HPCL-Mittal
Energy Ltd., a joint venture
between state-run Hindustan
Petroleum Corporation and Mittal
Energy Investment, bought
India’s first shipment of Guyanese
oil. This was followed in
July 2021 with India’s top refiner,
state-owned Indian Oil Corporation
(IOC), buying a second shipment
of Guyanese crude. While
these purchases are a drop in
the bucket of global oil sales,
they represent a potential new
element in the changing face
of geopolitics in the Southern
Caribbean and could represent
an opportunity for Guyana to
broaden its trade and foreign policy
partners.
India has since bought more
Guyanese oil. However, India’s
effort to strike a long-term government
to-government deal
was turned down by Guyana in
August. The Caribbean country
is in the process of selecting a
company (through bidding) that
will represent it in selling its oil
on international markets. This
does not rule out ongoing oneoff
sales and it appears that the
two countries could be natural
partners.
Why India? The South Asian
country is a voracious consumer
of imported energy, fueled by
several decades of strong economic
expansion and relatively
meager domestic resources (with
the exception of coal). Domestic
production meets around 15
percent of total oil consumption.
This high level of reliance on
imported oil has made the country’s
economy highly sensitive to
international price swings. This
problem has been compounded
by India’s traditional sources
of oil being in the Middle East,
where political risk is an ongoing
problem. While Iraq and Saudi
Arabia remain India’s largest oil
suppliers, U.S. sanctions have
greatly reduced the role Iran as
a major supplier.
India’s push to diversify
brought it to Venezuela. This
development began in the
early 2000s and has continued
through 2021. According to one
source, India’s imports of Venezuelan
oil in 2019 accounted for
40 percent of the South American
country’s crude oil exports,
equal to $5.5 billion. Considering
the dire state of the Venezuelan
economy, the revenues generated
by Indian exports have been
critical to regime survival.
There are a number of reasons
for closer Indian-Guyanese oil
trade. First, in 2020 India was
the largest buyer of the Maduro
regime’s oil. Over the past few
years much of this was done
through third parties and efforts
were made to remain compliant
with U.S. sanctions, but be in.
Second, Venezuela is increasingly
a less reliable source of oil.
The long years of the Chávez-Maduro
regime have resulted in the
degradation of PDVSA, the stateowned
oil company. According
to BP, Venezuela’s oil production
in thousands of barrels per day
was 3,038 in 2009; in 2019 it
had fallen to 918. Venezuela’s
oil production is back to 1940s
levels. In contrast, Guyana’s oil
OP-EDS
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Continued on Page 12
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Fatal flaw in NYC FHEPS legislation
leaves NYers choosing between
losing their job or their home
Guyana, India and Oil in
the Southern Caribbean
Neighbors Together
/schnepsmedia.com
