Epstein helps distribute holiday meals
to young Lower East Side students
BY DEAN MOSES
For the fi rst time in nearly a year, PS/
MS 188 on the Lower East Side was
brimming with life on Dec. 23, but
unfortunately, this was not due to fi lled
classrooms.
In place of young schoolers playing, a line
wrapped around the outer walls of PS/MS
188 as families waited with carriages at their
feet and children in their arms to receive an
abundance of free food and even a few toys.
Bread lines have become a common sight
in recent months throughout Manhattan
and the outer boroughs, but their frequency
does not make them any easier to digest.
The hardships wrought by the COVID-19
pandemic are as diffi cult as ever with the
advent of the holiday season. In an effort to
alleviate a modicum of the current climate’s
economic pressure, Assemblymember Epstein
joined NYC District 1 and Chobani to
distribute meal bags for the holiday season.
Since Monday, Chobani has worked with
20 schools in District 1 to prepare about
1,000 holiday meals to locations where a
number of the students reside in temporary
housing. The food and housing insecurity
has become so dire during this global crisis
In addition to holiday meal bags, families also received toys to give to their
children for the holiday season.
that in some cases more than 100 students
within a single school live in shelters/
temporary housing. During this time of
giving, Chobani and Assemblymember
Harvey Epstein hope to bring a little joy to
these children and their families.
A host of tables were erected, each one
providing a different food item, from bread
PHOTO BY DEAN MOSES
and Oreos to boxes of Chobani yogurt. This
wasn’t all though. Small boxes of toys were
also distributed to students to ensure they
had at least one gift this holiday.
Esther Zito, School secretary for PS/
MS 188, says that working within a school
is more than focusing on a child’s education–
it’s about their well-being mentally,
physically, and their education. Holiday
treats such as a Christmas tree are not
at the forefront of some of these parents’
minds due to food insecurity.
“We have at least 70% students in
temporary housing, which means shelter
families that not may necessarily be in a
shelter but they could be doubled up or they
don’t have their own home basically,” she
said, adding “We coordinated this event
so that we can give a happy holiday to our
families because a lot of these families can’t
even go out and get a meal for Christmas
well it let alone a meal just for dinner.”
Zito says that schools have been a safe
haven for children in need long before the
pandemic, providing them breakfast and
lunch during the school year and summer.
With the revolving door of school closures
and openings, families have not had this
continuous stability. Currently, PS/MS 188
is offering fi ve days of in-school learning,
however, the impact of COVID has exacerbated
their students’ living situations more
than ever.
“Some of the kids are not going to get
anything under their tree. They may not
even have a Christmas tree, so it’s diffi cult,”
Zito said.
BY MARK HALLUM
The state legislature and Governor
Andrew Cuomo approved Monday
new legislation that extends the
eviction moratorium through May.
Making the announcement Monday
morning at a press conference, Cuomo
believes further closures of the economy
will not be necessary at this time hoping
to use testing as an apparatus to reopening
businesses and keeping them open going
into 2021.
“We’ve been working with lawmakers
on a piece of legislation that will also extend
the eviction moratorium. We want to make
sure that homeowners are protected, that
it doesn’t affect their credit rating. There’s
no mortgage foreclosure,” Cuomo said.
“We want to get to May 1, we’ll see what
happens by May, but we want to protect tenants,
we want to make it simple. We don’t
want people evicted, we don’t want them
to have to go to court to fi ght the eviction.”
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced
Sunday that he would be calling
lawmakers back to the chamber on Monday
for a vote on theCOVID-19 Emergency
Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act
of 2020.
“Far too many of our friends and neighbors
struggled to fi nd safe, affordable
Cuomo, state legislature to re-up on
eviction moratorium until May 2021
housing before COVID-19 hit our state.
Now, more and more families are struggling
fi nancially through no fault of their
own, and are worried about losing their
roof over their head in the winter during
a pandemic,” Heastie said. “Smaller landlords
who use a second unit or apartment
to pay their bills have been put between a
rock and a hard place with the loss of rental
income due to COVID-19. Federal aid for
rental assistance in the latest stimulus bill
must be used to ease the rental burden on
tenants who are in arrears and small mom
and pop landlords who rent apartments to
put food on their tables.”
In the senate chamber, Majority Leader
Andrea Stewart-Cousins claimed the
new supermajority also passed what she
describes as the strongest moratorium on
evictions in the country which will give tenants
60 days to plead hardship 60 days to
halt any proceeding fi led in the last 30 days
after submitting a declaration of hardship.
Senator Brian Kavanagh, representing
Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, was credited
with moving the legislation forward
in the senate. Under the law, tenants can
submit a Standardized Hardship Declaration
Form to their landlord to either halt or
delay the eviction.
“From the beginning of the COVID-19
pandemic we have understood that housing
security must be an essential part of our
effort to protect the health and wellbeing of
all New Yorkers. By enacting this comprehensive
residential eviction and foreclosure
moratorium, we are delivering real protection
for countless renters and homeowners
who would otherwise be at risk of losing
their homes, adding to the unprecedented
hardship that so many are facing.”
PHOTO BY MIKE GROLL/OFFICE OF GOVERNOR ANDREW M. CUOMO
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