WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES OCTOBER 18, 2018 13
GET RID
OF RIKERS
This is in response to The Courier’s
Oct. 4 article about community opposition
to the proposal to move some
inmates from the horribly obsolete,
and dangerous Rikers Island jail
complex. Unlike NIMBY opponents,
I have had personal experience in
teaching math to former inmates at
the Fortune Society; all the young
men I worked with were sincerely
motivated to better themselves upon
their return to society. We need to
recognize their humanity and treat
them appropriately.
As the great writer Fyodor Dostoevsky
said, “The degree of civilization
in a society is revealed by
entering its prisons.”
The crumbling, obsolete jail on
Rikers Island is a factory of human
rights abuses that cannot be reformed,
a system that enables physical
and sexual assault of detainees,
and signifi cant danger to correction
offi cers. Eighty-fi ve percent of those
incarcerated at Rikers have not been
convicted of any crime.
The Rikers jail is a potent example
of a racist criminal justice system
that punishes the poor; 90 percent of
the inmates are black or Latino, and
79 percent are there because they
couldn’t aff ord bail. Rikers is also an
absurd waste of public spending; it
costs $270,000 to detain a person on
Rikers for one year, and over $1.3 billion
is spent annually to keep it open.
Rather than policies that criminalize
and incarcerate, we need to continue
the precipitous drop in number
of incarcerated people, by providing
community-based social services,
mental health care, rehabilitation,
bail reform, speedy trial and due
process protection. The new smaller
modern facilities will be safer for
both inmates and correction offi cers.
Shutting down Rikers, and moving
a portion of inmates to my neighborhood
in Queens — where there was a
jail for many years — will save money,
while assuring better treatment of
inmates, who are being abused in
our name, and ultimately continue
the steep decline in crime. Inmates
will have better and more frequent
contact with attorneys and family
members, ultimately posing less
danger when they are released.
Long-term, the island may even be
converted to sorely needed housing,
a win-win for all New Yorkers.
Robert Keilbach, Flushing
WHERE ARE THE
PROTESTS?
Americans never cease to
amaze me.
They didn’t vigorously object when
George W. Bush was handed the presidency
by the Supreme Court aft er it
rejected a recount in Florida; or when
we went to war in Iraq while almost all
of the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi
Arabia; or when big banks caused a
devastating economic crisis and were
bailed out; or when manufacturing
was outsourced to low-wage countries;
or when corporations became people
and spending on political campaigns
was deemed to be free speech thanks
to the Citizens United ruling.
Americans didn’t vehemently
protest when children were repeatedly
massacred because of lax gun
control; or when President Obama
was prevented from appointing a Supreme
Court justice; or when unions
that fi ght for workers rights were
hobbled; or when huge tax cuts were
given to corporations and the already
wealthy; or when programs for the
poor were reduced or eliminated;
or when regulations that protect us
were undone.
Incredibly, Americans accept the
exorbitant price of our health care
and drugs, even though Europeans
pay much less because their governments
limit prices.
What will it take for Americans to
stand up and fi ght for their rights and
their democracy?
Linda Imhauser, Whitestone
Editor’s note: To our recollection,
over the last several years, there have
been numerous protests across the
United States regarding a litany of the
concerns raised in this letter — including,
but not limited to, the Women’s
Marches of 2017 and 2018, and the
March for Our Lives following the
Parkland, Florida, school shooting
back in February.
Email your letters to editorial@
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to Letters to the Editor, 38-15 Bell
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are subject to editing. Names will be
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letters will not be considered
for publication. The views expressed
in all letters and comments are not
necessarily those of this newspaper
or its staff.
LETTERS AND COMMENTS
OP-ED
NYC deserves real aff ordable housing
BY CITY COUNCILMAN
FRANCISCO MOYA
Every Community Board and
city planning agency in New
York City has likely at one time
or another played host to property
developers touting the virtues of
their projects and highlighting all the
aff ordable apartments such proposals
would create.
As the chair of the Subcommittee on
Zoning and Franchises, I hear these
pitches all the time. Invariably — and
despite their sharp mock-ups and helpful
graphics — my fi rst question aft er
hearing these proposals is always the
same: For whom are these “aff ordable
units” actually aff ordable?
That’s when the developers point
to a metric called the Area Median
Income, or AMI, to show what income
levels their rent-regulated units would
serve. In practice, the developer might
block off a number of aff ordable units
for households earning 50 or 60
percent of the AMI, which equates to
$46,950 or $56,340, respectively, for a
family of three. And therein lies the
problem. Those fi gures are wrong.
The AMI is set by the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development,
which makes its calculation
based on data provided by the U.S.
Offi ce of Management and Budget.
In New York, developers cite AMI
because it’s the metric the city uses
to assess which would-be renters are
eligible for subsidized housing. That
median income level, however, doesn’t
actually refl ect the fi ve boroughs. The
“New York City-area” also accounts for
Westchester, Rockland and Putnam
counties — regions with signifi cantly
higher median incomes.
The result is a higher AMI for New
York City.
Activists have long contended that
the higher AMI oft en results in socalled
“aff ordable housing” being built
for New Yorkers earning 100 percent
of the AMI or higher. In other words,
aff ordable housing units aren’t always
going to the lower-earning New Yorkers
who need it the most.
New York City residents deserve
an AMI that refl ects the truth on the
ground here.
In a 2011 report, the Association for
Neighborhood and Housing Development
found that the New York City-area
AMI for a four-person household in
2010 was 20 percent higher than the
true median income for that household
within the city limits.
Defenders of maintaining an infl
ated AMI argue that lowering the fi gure
too much will prevent developers
from collecting enough rent money to
cover operating costs, thereby disincentivizing
them from building more
aff ordable housing.
Ultimately, if we are going to have
clear-eyed discourse on aff ordable housing
— a perennial topic of discussion in
this city — we need to defi ne our terms.
One of the most basic points to start
this urgent conversation has to be what
residents in this city are actually earning
and what they’re spending on rent.
Fixing the AMI comes down to the
issue of transparency. We must treat
this housing crisis for what it is. We
can’t keep juicing the numbers and
escape this emergency.
Moya represents the 21st City Council
District, which includes Corona, Elmhurst
and Jackson Heights.