Manhattan Board 5 ‘Zooms’ into digital era
BY BETH DEDMAN
Members of Manhattan
Community Board Five,
state senators and city
council members joined a Zoom
conference call April 9 to discuss
fi nances for the small businesses
of Manhattan and resources for
residents enduring the COVID-19
pandemic.
Vikki Barbero emceed the
meeting, which was joined by
Councilman Keith Powers,
Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney,
State Senator Liz Krueger,
Borough President Gale Brewer,
State Senator Brad Hoylman and
many others.
“We are in a fiscal crisis
brought on by the combination
of the pandemic and the worldwide
collapse of our economy,”
Krueger said. “Unless the federal
government sends us more money
to handle our cost of living. The
MTA is plummeting into a severe
crisis because no one is riding it.
That is hanging over our heads,
and we will have to deal with
that. We are doing well on our
environmental policies.”
Budget cuts that were made
earlier in the year have been a
serious detriment to the borough’s
response to business shutdowns,
Assemblymember Richard Gottfried
said.
Congresswoman Carolyn
Maloney is working to secure
funding from the $2.2 trillion
stimulus bill passed by congress
to benefi t New Yorkers fi ling for
unemployment, even those with
non-traditional employment.
Much of that stimulus bill will
also go to benefi t the healthcare
system. She is working on a bill
that will eliminate the student
debt of healthcare workers
The IRS has already begun
sending out checks to everyone,
Maloney said. Small businesses
can apply for loans, which can
be treated like grants if the
money is diverted to benefi t
employees.
Maloney urged people to fi ll
out the census so that funding
could be distributed in the most
effi cient way possible throughout
this crisis and in the future.
Borough President Gale Brewer
was pleased to announce that several
contracts with manufacturers
are in place to produce Personal
Protection Equipment for New
York hospitals.
Her concerns lie with the
future of small businesses. She
anticipates business improvement
districts and small businesses will
be very different after the crisis
is over. Her focus is on fi guring
out how to bring them back when
it is.
Council members Keith Powers
and Carlina Rivera announced
food security efforts being made
in the city. A partnership with
City Harvest has distributed 700
meals to the East Village, Lower
East Side and Chinatown and will
continue to distribute the food
throughout the crisis. Fresh Direct
has helped deliver hundreds
of free meals to food-insecure
people around the city and will
help anyone who reaches out to
Rivera’s offi ce for food.
SCREENSHOT VIA YOUTUBE
State Senator Brad Hoylman
announced that he is working on
a bill that will put a moratorium
on rent in place for six months
after the crisis has ended, meaning
that landlords cannot seek
unpaid rent until that six months
is over.
Hoylman’s offi ce is also seeking
ways to bring resources to people
facing unemployment.
More information on Manhattan
Community Board Five is
available at https://www.cb5.org/
cb5m/?. The full April 9 meeting
is available on Youtube.
West Village church offers free grocery delivery for seniors
BY GRANT LANCASTER
An Episcopal church in the West Village
is trying to help New York’s
seniors reduce their risk of exposure
to COVID-19 by delivering groceries
free of charge, even if the seniors do not
have internet access.
St. John’s in the Village is partnering
with Invisible Hands, a nonprofi t that delivers
groceries to the elderly and immunocompromised
during the pandemic, to
make a way for seniors without internet
access to get groceries without leaving
their house.
The service began in April as a way to
serve the most at-risk, who may not have
access to the variety of grocery-delivery
services popping up online as a result of
the stay-at-home order, said Father Graeme
Napier, rector at St. John’s.
To use the service, all people have to
PHOTO VIA GOOGLE MAPS
do is call 929-292-9235 from 3-5 p.m.
on any weekday – no internet connection
required.
Volunteers will take the callers’ grocery
orders and arrange for them to be delivered
by the grocery store’s in-house delivery
service or picked up and delivered
by Invisible Hand volunteers, Napier said.
The church will cover the cost of the
orders and the deliveries, and reimbursement
is entirely optional, Napier said. One
of the reasons for this is to keep these
seniors, many of whom use mostly cash,
from having to go to a bank or ATM to
get money, which increases their risk of
infection.
Napier encouraged New Yorkers to
share the phone number for the service
with any seniors or immuno-compromised
friends or family who do not have internet
access to order groceries, he said.
4 April 16,2020 Schneps Media
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