Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts Older Adult Town Hall

January 15, 2025

Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, Community Affairs, Police Department: The mayor is here. We're ready to take on all the questions and answers, and our job is to support you. God bless.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Stewart, who, he was a detective, then he went to the DA's office, and now he's doing an amazing job, and you probably have a few questions- Where are you going?

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Good to see you. So we- this is number what for us in town halls?

Deputy Commissioner Ryan Murray, Department of the Aging: 18.

Mayor Adams: Number 18, senior town halls. 36, 37, 38, regular town halls, a group of youth town halls, so much. And so you ask, why do we do so many town halls? Because if you were to pick up the paper and read, you would feel as though you're in a city that's falling apart. You will feel as though that crime is rampant on our subway system. You will feel as though there are illegal dirt bikes and scooters all over the place, that our economy is devastating, that violence is everywhere. That's what you will feel. And it's important for me to come on the ground and speak to you directly and give you the facts.

I inherited a city January 1st, 2022, where we were seeing a substantial decrease in crime. Unemployment was through the roof. NYCHA residents didn't have access to high-speed broadband. Our subway system, no one wanted to be on the subway system. And you remember the five-letter word, COVID? It was everywhere. 220,000 migrants and asylum seekers came to the city without any federal support or help. I couldn't stop the buses coming in. It was against federal law. I couldn't stop, allow people to work. The federal government said I couldn't do that. I couldn't even allow people to volunteer. They said that was against the law for me to do that. Our children were not learning at the capacity that they deserve. Unemployment was through the roof, particularly in communities of color. We saw ghost cars all over the city. Those are cars that don't have lights in place that are committing crimes in our city. Our police officers, our civil servants were not getting and receiving the pay that they deserve. And so where are we three years later?

Three years later, do you know we have 4.6 million people that use our subway system a day? 4.6 million people. So here's a question. How many think, just by raise of hand, how many of you think we have 1,000 crimes or felonies on our subways a day? How about 500? How about 100? How about 50? You know how many we have on our subway system every day? Six felonies a day on average on our subway system out of 4.6 million riders. We have more jobs in New York in the history of the city. We took off the streets of this city 80,000 illegal vehicles, ghost cars, dirt bikes, three-wheel schoolers. NYCHA residents now have free high-speed broadband so their children can get access to remote learning and their mothers can get access to telemedicine. And we're getting ready to expand it even further.

Our children are outpacing the state in reading and math. These cops you see around here, we took 20,000 illegal guns off our streets. We decreased unemployment in communities of color by 20 percent, and in all demographics, unemployment has decreased. We have gone even further when you look at it. Not only are we producing to Axe the Tax for Working-Class Families, we are going to Albany now to say let's remove the income tax for those who are at 150 percent of the poverty line or below. That's a mother who's making $31,000 a year, and she has a child. We're saying let's get rid of the income tax for her totally.

We're investing in foster care children. Six to 700 were aging out every year, and they were going into homelessness. They were going into mental health issues. They were going into victims of crime or participating in crime. You know where we are now? We're now paying the college tuition for every foster care child, giving them a life coach until they're 26, and now they're enrolling in college, and they're on their road on the way to real opportunities.

Then we identified that 30 to 40 percent of the inmates at Rikers Island have learning disabilities like me with a learning disability. We're now screening them for learning disabilities like dyslexia in the early ages so they can get the support that they deserve. Improving bilingual education. You look across the board of what we have done. Shootings in Brooklyn, they have been the lowest in history. Crimes in our subway system, you have to go back to 2009, if you remove the COVID numbers, to see how well we're doing and having public safety in our system.

Thousands of homeless people we removed off our subway system, close to 2,800, moved off our subway system and placed them into permanent housing. No more tents all over our city. You see some in other cities where you see homelessness everywhere and people living in tents all over the place? When I first became mayor, I went and visited people living on the streets, and I saw inside those tents and encampments, I saw drug paraphernalia, schizophrenic, bipolar, human waste, stale food. And we went on an initiative and said this can't happen in our city. There's nothing dignified about people living in the street in those conditions, waiting until they commit a crime, and then we want to send them to Rikers Island. We've invested more in homelessness in the history of the city. And now we're doing housing.

Many of you, when we do these older adult centers and talk, they tell me over and over again, mayor, we need housing, we need housing, we need housing. With the help of the City Council, we passed the most comprehensive housing reform in the history of the city. So we're building everywhere, all the time. Every community needs to build more housing, particularly senior housing, because you have a right to stay in the city that you built and made what it was in the first place. And it has to be affordable in the process.

And something else we did that evening that's not on the radar. As mayor, I must be substantive. Keep you safe. Crime is down in the city. Build more housing. Educate your children. I must do all those things, but there's something else I must be. I must be symbolic. And that symbolism means that you need to be acknowledged in this city and recognized. Those are the flag raisers we do for different communities and cultures. We've had 5,000 people participate in our Breaking Bread Building Bonds. You know what that looks like? That's different ethnic groups coming into the room, sitting down and doing something revolutionary, talking to each other. Because although our city is diverse, we live in silos. And we're afraid of each other because we don't communicate. So we're having these dinners where different groups of people from different cultures come and sit down and talk to each other and learn from each other.

This city is moving in the right direction. And those who observe how well cities are run do an analysis to determine if they're going to raise your bond rating. They raised my bond rating because of how we have managed this crisis. We had 220,000 people, folks. 1.5 the size of Albany was placed in this city. Out of those 225,000 people, 179,000 went to the next step of their journey of the American dream, something that we all want. That's why we're here. This is the greatest country on the globe and the greatest city on the globe.

But no one comes to America to live in a shelter. No one comes to America to say, I want to be told I can't work. Imagine if any of us were told our lineage stated that you couldn't work. You couldn't provide for yourself. You couldn't provide for your family. What would we be? That's what I'm fighting for. I fight for you.

I fought for you when I put on a police uniform and stood on these street corners and protected you as a police officer. My youngest brother followed me to become a sergeant. And several of my cousins came after me to go into the law enforcement community. This is what we will always do. Doesn't matter if I wear a blue uniform or a blue suit. I love the heck out of this city. And most importantly, I love the people in this city. So no matter what headlines you read, no one will ever tell you in any headline that I don't love New York very much. So we will open the floor to questions from you.

Question: Good to see you, too. Thank you for coming down. I talk for all our seniors, I am one of the New York City retirees. I have worked for the city for over 45 years. My mom, over 20 years. And I want to talk about our health care. I'm sure there are members here that are retirees from the city. And I want to know why you keep on fighting us. We won 11 cases, 11 times. And you just keep on coming at us.

When are you going to stop? When? We are worried about our traditional Medicare. We want to keep it. We don't want to go into something else. It's not the same. You're comparing apples and oranges. Your insurance is not the same. And you could stop it. You're the top. The buck stops with you.

Mayor Adams: For those who don't understand the question that was just raised, I inherited a health care mess. A mess. I inherited a health care mess. It was dropped into my lap. There was agreements that were made under previous administrations and it was dropped into my lap and the corp counsel is in court representing the City of New York, not Eric Adams, let's be clear on that. They represent the City of New York in this health care battle.

We have an out-of-control health care crisis. With the cost of our health care going through the roof. Through the roof. And we're reaching a point where we're going to either have to make a decision or we're going to have increase the costs, the copays. We have a lot of conversations that we have to do to try to settle this health care crisis that we are.

I don't like the fact that we have to go back and forth to court. And you know what's been lost in the translation. You know what? Your health care is my health care. I'm going to retire- Let me finish. I'm not going to interrupt anyone that's speaking. And so I'll turn it back over.

Your health care will be my health care when I retire. I'm a civil servant. I'm going to retire and have the same health care plan. I'm not looking for anything unfair for our retirees. I'm concerned about my widows in office, from the police department. How's it going to impact them? So we have to come to a solution. And it's not, that's just that simple.

We're sitting down at the table constantly. How do we resolve this health care crisis that we have? That we have the cost of health care, what hospitals are charging, this whole national and local health care mess that I have to figure out a solution to that was kicked to me from previous administrations. This didn't start in this administration. Previous administrations created this and it was dropped into my lap to fix it.

Question: Mayor, you can't compare yourself with the New York City retirees. You make much more money. My mother who worked for 20 years for social service, her income is $15,600. That's what she gets. You can't compare that. Yes, you were a civil servant. But you can't compare to all of us. And, again, apples and oranges. Not the same.

Mayor Adams: Okay, I want to really push back on that that I can't compare to you. My salary today ends when I'm no longer mayor. I'm living off my pension. Let's not get it kidding. The salary I'm making right now, when I'm no longer mayor, that salary is gone. I'm living off my police captain pension. That's what I'm living off of.

So, when you sit down and worry about your future, I worry about my future. You know, I worry about how am I going to be able to pay the mortgage. I worry about what am I going to do if I'm seriously ill. And, mind you, this administration is retiring billions of dollars of medical debt for New Yorkers. So, we're in the same bed. I'm a civil servant. I don't want anybody to believe, okay, you're the mayor, Eric. So, all of a sudden, you walk into the store to buy a loaf of bread. And they say, no, you don't have to pay the cost of that bread. No, your struggle is my struggle. It's no different.

I'm a blue collar civil servant worker. And the 200 and something thousand that I make right now, when I'm no longer mayor, I'm going back to that police pension to survive off of the same health care crisis you have, I have. That's the difference between being a working class blue collar mayor. Your struggles are my struggles. They're the same struggles. And I got to find a solution to the healthcare crisis.

I agree with you 100 percent. But it's just not so simple. Hey, stop the pursuit. I don't want to hurt my retirees because I'm a retiree. And we will find a solution to the issue. And I don't want to kick the can down the road like it was kicked down the road and dropped into my lap.

Question: Good afternoon, mayor. I am representing table number two. We have two questions on it. The table number two, first of all, they're very excited to see you the first time. And thank you for coming to the community. That's what they said. And then they would like you to- Happy New Year first. And also, there were really major concerns about the subway system around this neighborhood, like Grand Station, Delancey, and also East Broadway.

And they still feel like it's unsafe because it's not much, you know, they travel at that time to the subway. They still feel like, you know, unsafe. So they would like more police officers to be in the subway station, if you can. That'd be great.

And also, a second concern is on Grand Street, Roosevelt Park. They have a lot of activity. The stealing part, the selling a lot of illegal things at Roosevelt Park right there. That hopefully police will pay attention to it.

Mayor Adams: So what we're doing, there's a new commissioner, Commissioner Tisch, Jessica Tisch. And we're giving her 200 additional police officers to be in the subway system. But in addition to that, the governor and the Police Department were working out a method to have police officers on every train during the evening hours so people can feel safe.

When I ride the subway, which I ride the subway often, and speak to passengers, they want the visible uniform present. They want to see that police uniform. We are going to attempt to accommodate as much as possible. We want officers to move throughout the system so they can be seen. So I can't just tell you how safe and successful we have been in bringing down crime. Because those transit officers did an amazing job. I want you to feel safe also. And you will feel safe by seeing a uniformed officer there. And that's our goal. That's the goal to have that officer there walking through the system. You can see them. You can interact with them.

Now, Inspector, tell me about Grand Street. What is the Grand Street issue they raised?

Deputy Inspector Christopher M. Treubig, Commanding Officer, 7th Precinct, Police Department: You're talking about Sarah D. Roosevelt Park? So that's in the confines of the 5th Precinct. We are aware of it in the 7th Precinct. My counterpart in the 5th Precinct, Captain Nilsen, he just recently got there. We do know or are aware of the drug activity. There's also activity as far as 400 Grand Street, the Target. That's our number one shoplifting location. So we also know that when individuals do steal from that location, they go to the park and they try to sell some stolen items.

So a lot of times if we do get a larceny in progress, we will put the description over the air into the 5th Precinct or units from the 7th Precinct will deploy into the 7th Precinct to try to apprehend these individuals. But I will obviously confer with my counterpart, Captain Nilsen. But we are aware of the conditions. Our special operations lieutenant who runs the special operations within the confines of the 7th Precinct was formerly a sergeant in the 5th Precinct. So he's also aware of the conditions over there.

Mayor Adams: So what are they doing? What are they doing? Are they selling items? What's happening over there?

Deputy Inspector Treubig: Yeah, so certain individuals are prime petty larceny, shoplifting locations are 400 Grand, which is the Target, 196 Orchard Street, which is the CVS, 197 Houston Street, which is the Marshalls. So when individuals do remove these items, a lot of times they will go to the park and they'll try to resell the items into the park. There's also some narcotics activity over there related. I know Manhattan South Narcotics is also aware of that condition over there.

Mayor Adams: So now what is our plan? Because they're raising it, so it's obvious as a problem. What's the plan?

Deputy Inspector Treubig: Well, I know the 5th Precinct does have uniform presence over in the park. They have a deployment plan in the park. As I stated, when we do have a larceny in progress, we are on the same radio frequency as the 5th Precinct, so we do have uniform personnel going over there. Also, as I stated, Captain Nilsen is aware of that and he has his deployment plan over in the 5th Precinct. It's one of his main priorities as far as deployment.

Mayor Adams: Okay. Councilman Marte- first of all, you've got two great electors, Councilwoman Rivera, mom, new baby, and Councilman Marte. You wanted to ask something, councilman?

City Councilmember Christopher Marte: Yeah, Assemblymember Grace Lee and myself spoke to District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and we're in the preliminary discussion of probably making that one of the neighborhood hub locations for future years, and he's been in touch with folks on your team on the agency side.

Mayor Adams: I didn't see you, Assemblymember Lee. Good to see you join us as well.

City Councilmember Carlina Rivera: There's also a bathhouse, a very old building there that has been underutilized for a long time, and there's a push by the community to do something with the bathhouse just to activate that area to just bring more activity because there's just been sort of dark spots, underutilized spots, in that park since I was a teenager and used to hang out there.

Mayor Adams: Is it a lighting issue?

City Councilmember Rivera: There's some lighting issues, and there's just also areas where there's no activation. There's a park group that's led by a community board member named K Webster that have really tried to bring activity there for a long time. This is over many, many years. So your team has stepped up to try to fix this. This has been, like, over a decade that we've had some issues.

Mayor Adams: Okay, so when I leave here, I'm going to take a ride over there to see exactly what's taking place. You know, the structural issues that the councilwoman talked about, those structural issues we need to roll out with parks, make sure it's done. But stopping the vending, stopping the drug use, we don't need to wait a long time to do that.

So let us get in there, and let's find out what the problems are. If someone is selling illegal items that they just stole, if we're not stopping that, we're feeding the problem. They're going to continue to do it. So let us go in. If they're vending illegally, we can go in and take actions to stop that illegal vending and discourage people from selling those illegal items. So I'm going to take a ride over and see what's happening, and I'll speak with the borough commander, okay? Okay, you're welcome.

Question: Good afternoon. I am doing well. To begin, this is Ms. [Inaudible]. She was so excited to see you.

Mayor Adams: Tell her I'm excited to see her also.

Question: First of all, my respects to all men and women in blue, before we pose this question. So the sentiment from some of the people at this table is that police officers look the other way when crime is happening. So what is your office doing to ensure police officers have the tools and resources to adequately perform their job of keeping all New Yorkers safe, especially the elderly?

Mayor Adams: And help me understand, look the other way when she feels that way, that they look the other way.

Question: When crime is happening, basically something may happen in their faces as they are present, and it's either they're walking away or they pretend nothing is happening. They do understand that lots of times when people are arrested, criminals are arrested, the next step will be going to court and they are normally let loose. So they do know there are lots of laws involved that police officers don't always have the power to release people. They arrest, they go to court, the judge makes a decision, and of course the judge has the laws that they have to follow. So they do understand that, but they would like to know from your end what is your office doing to make sure that this doesn't happen?

Mayor Adams: So let's break this down into levels. First, we have one of the highest levels of arrests and felonies in violent crimes in the city. These officers have done an amazing job. Shootings are down double digits, murders are down double digits, and many of the major crimes are down in the city. We continue to be trending in the right direction. I think December of the end of the year, the numbers were extremely impressive.

And as I stated, they have removed over 80,000 ghost cars, cars without plates, cars that are used in crime. This has been one of the most proactive law enforcement agencies, entities, in this period of time. If anyone witnessed an officer walking away from a crime or not taking proper police actions, they should get their information and they should properly be reported to the precinct. That is not acceptable. I am not seeing that from the police officers. I'm seeing just the opposite. These officers have been extremely proactive in dealing with quality of life issues.

Now, one of our problems we're having, somebody was mentioning shoplifting in the stores. You have 500, I think 545 people that were arrested 7,500 times. You have 36 people who have assaulted people on the subway system, have been arrested over 1,100 times. You are having the same people repeatedly commit crimes and they're coming back out on our streets. And that is why we're saying let's stop the recidivism.

Police can only do the arrest. The courts and the other apparatus of the criminal justice system, they must carry out the next action. These cops are working and they're working hard. Many of them have gone through the trauma of COVID, the trauma of being criticized all the time, the trauma of having people constantly attacking them, but they still get up every day and do the job. This is one of the best Police Departments on the globe, but if anyone is not living up to the nobility of policing, they should be reported and they should be held accountable. Thank you for your question.

Question: Good afternoon, Mayor. How are you?

Mayor Adams: Quite well.

Question: Today I'm representing the Visión Urbana, Natural Occurring Retirement Community, the NORC program. We are members here of the NORC program and they have community facilities issues. We have the director right there and the staff. Have a fan club in here. Community facilities, they're concerned about East Broadway subway station, which needs an elevator and escalator, and they also need increased safety of the subway station on 23rd and 8th Avenue.

Mayor Adams: 23rd and 8th Avenue? That's the E line, the F line? Yeah, E and C? That's interesting. That station, what is it? You never see-

Question: I see more homeless.

Mayor Adams: Oh, okay. At that station?

Question: I know there's a facility on 25th between 6th and 7th, so I don't know if that's-

Mayor Adams: Okay, but let's look at that. You know, I'm familiar with that station. 23rd Street. Can we make a note of that, commissioner? And the elevator, okay.

You know, the hardest thing about being mayor, whenever something does not operate well, everyone knows the mayor. The mayor does not control the MTA. It's controlled by Albany and the governor's office. Now, I advocate for the things we need, so we're going to push to get the elevator and the escalator that you're talking about, particularly the elevator. There's a real push to get as many elevators as possible, but that falls under the leadership of Albany and the governor's office, but we are going to advocate for East Broadway Station, right? So we'll advocate for that to get them there, but there's a major push to get elevators for handicapped accessibility in all of these stations.

You want to ask something, ma'am? Yes.

Question: Thank you for being here today. My name is [Maria Gonzalez.] I belong to Visión Urbana, NORC, and I just want to tell you I have-You have my request already. But I just want to tell you it's an honor for me and for us to have you here today.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you. That's really kind of you. Really kind of you. Thank you. It's good to be here. But we're going to advocate for both those stations, but we're going to go to 23rd Street and look at... I think that's 23rd Street and 6th Avenue, if I'm not mistaken. 8th Avenue. On the A line. Okay, okay, okay.

So let us look at that, especially if there's homeless there. We have a program called SCOUT and... I forgot to name another one. We partner police officers with clinicians and go out and speak proactively to try to get people inside. It is so hard to get people who are dealing with severe mental health illness off the streets. You have to constantly go back over and over and over again, but we'll look at those stations. Thank you. Thank both of you.

[Crosstalk.]

Questions: So the beautiful people at this table would like to know what's being done to better the shelter system so that people will feel safe and will want to go there instead of being on the street.

Mayor Adams: You know, there's a real balance because we don't want people... We don't want families raised in shelters. We don't want people raised in shelters. Shelters cannot take the place of permanent housing. And we have created what's called safe haven beds as well as transitioned people out of homelessness into permanent housing.

We have moved more people from homelessness into permanent housing, in year one and year two in administration in the history in individual years. We need to build more. That's why I want to thank the council people who are here for helping us pass City of Yes to get people into permanent housing. More people have been able to use our FHEPs voucher program in year one and year two in the history of the program.

We've built more housing in year one and year two in single years in the history of the program. So the goal is to improve the shelter system. Now, remember, when we started our administration, we had roughly 50-something thousand people in our homeless system. Then we got 22,000 more that came in. It overwhelmed our shelter system. We were able to cycle people out of the shelter system from migrants and asylum seekers, but we still had a substantial number. And what I just learned two weeks ago, which is concerning, as fast as we're moving people out, we're having a larger number of people who are coming in.

That's the real issue that we want to resolve by building more housing, building more senior housing. People are going through hard times right now for many reasons. And if we don't build more housing to accommodate them, then we're not going to be able to resolve the issue. So we need to make sure the shelters are clean, the shelters are safe. We need to give people individual shelter needs. Some people can't stay in a congregate setting. They need to have around-the-clock supportive services, and so we need a combination of those shelters.

But with our partners in the City Council, we're going to continue to build more. Homelessness is a national crisis that we're facing, and we're doing the best we can here in the city, and we want to continue to do so. But you're right. I visit shelters often, and, you know, we need to constantly be in a position of improving our shelter system. Thank you for your question.

And we need to encourage, you know, one more thing. We need to encourage people to be open to allow shelters to be built in their community. We get a lot of fight, a lot of pushback where people don't want to build shelters in their community. That's a real issue. Yes, ma'am. How are you?

Question: [Inaudible.] They're very happy that you're taking the time to come to visit them, and they're a little bit sad that you didn't play your favorite song.

Mayor Adams: Blame them.

Question: The question that they have is, the rent is too high, and applying for affordable housing takes a long time. They want to know, are there additional help for low-income older New Yorkers besides SCRIE?

Mayor Adams: Yes, SCRIE and DRIE is important. SCRIE for seniors, DRIE for disabilities, and there are other programs that we have. But the real problem is, think about this for a moment. We have an inventory problem. So we will build an affordable unit, and let's say it has 1,000 apartments. We would get 30,000, 40,000 people who would fill out an application. We don't have enough apartments. That is why the City Council and the mayor's office, that's why we've been fighting, because we have to build more.

And we're building, but we need to, we have to become more creative to build in better spaces. Like, we're going to be building on top of libraries. We're going to be building on governmental buildings. So we need to find more space to build. But a lot of our housing, like the Elizabeth Street Garden, is 100 percent senior housing. That is what we have to do. We need to be aggressive on low-income senior housing, veteran housing, and people living with disabilities to make sure we have the low-income housing that we need. But we have to build more, and that's our goal to do so. Where am I going? Yes?

Question: This is Denise, who's going to ask the next question.

Mayor Adams: Yes, how are you?

Question: Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you doing?

Question: I'm good. This is my first time at one of these events.

Mayor Adams: Okay.

Question: I always watch it live on TV. But my question to you is, what would be your most notable accomplishment helping the senior citizen community? I'll be 67 on Saturday.

Mayor Adams: Oh, wow. Happy birthday.

Question: Thank you. I've been trying to advocate for a lot of seniors that don't have a voice, so I want to know what are you doing and what can I do to add to the progress?

Mayor Adams: Well, first of all, you know what's impressive about her question that we rarely hear? She said, what are we doing? And she said, what can I do? That's what's missing in solving these very complex problems.

People often feel as though they are not empowered, and we're all empowered. Advocating for others like this group here that talked about shelters. We all can do this together. Advocacy is something you don't have to be elected to do it. So can we talk about what are we doing with our seniors and then give her some tips on what she can do as well? I'm sorry, what's your name again, ma'am?

Question: Denise.

Deputy Commissioner Murray: Hey, Ms. Robinson, how are you? Good afternoon again, everybody. So look, we at the Department for the Aging, with the mayor's leadership, deputy mayor's team, have been doing a number of things. One of the big things, obviously, we're about three big things, three Cs, right? Community programs, community care, making sure that all older adults have programs at home and in community.

You are in what we heard earlier, and you know this, the naturally occurring retirement community where we make sure that the funding is available for programs where you live, where folks are aging in place. We will continue that work, right? We have our older adult centers as well, many of them around this neighborhood.

I looked at numbers earlier. We invest about $25 million in this community alone across a number of centers and transportation programs, case management programs. But that's not where we stop. We're also about community building, right? As I said earlier when we said hello, you helped build this city, and you're not done yet. So I love the question, which is, what else can we continue to do?

Some big things in this administration, we are pushing up against ageism, and what folks view as you're already done phase into retirement, right? Anybody in this room, whether you are, quote-unquote, retired from working or not, right, you are continuing to push, whether it's us, whether it's the electeds in the room, anyone who should be investing in older adults, your voice is at the table. These town halls, this is 18, and we're not stopping, right, Mr. Mayor?

This is the 18th town hall, 1,500 of you have already come out and told us what we need to do better. So community building, community care, and then we've got a crisis in caregiving. How many of you are taking care of another loved one or looking out for a loved person? Someone in your life where you're giving help, right?

You may not even identify with that term caregiving. I didn't for a long time. But you're showing up for somebody else, and the care system in America, it's not just a local problem, is stretched thin. So caregiving support and investing there is one of the other things that we're doing. We've got a good program, but it's only serving 5,000 people, and we've got to do even more to support the 1.3 million older people who are helping older New Yorkers.

So those three things, the mayor has launched a number of programs, whether it's Intergenerational Groove down in Foley Square, not too far from here by our office, which is highlighting that, you know, the talents and the energy of older New Yorkers in exercise and fitness, highlighting our food programs.

We serve 10 million meals, right, a year, whether it's in our programs here or it's home-delivered meals, making sure that those are nutritious, healthy, delicious, and enjoyable are things that we're really proud of. And then how many of you are part of Talent is Timeless? How many of you showed up and sang and competed? All right, we've got a competitor back here. A thousand older New Yorkers showed up. We had, at the United Theater uptown, our finals, five boroughs, and we had competitors two years in a row, making sure that folks know the talent is in this room, the talent is in community, and with intergenerational programs, when we talk about support for families, that includes older New Yorkers. So those are the things, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: And I think one thing that we did that I'm really proud of, Deputy Commissioner Stewart, talk about your senior older adults precinct, which is crucial, Deputy Commissioner Stewart, put in place.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: They already heard that, but I'll say it again. Listen, just a back note, 23rd Street and 8th Avenue, the subway station, we have cops going there now. They're going to do a survey, 4 to 12s, 8 to 4s, and midnights for the rest of the week. Remember that I said earlier, right? We don't have to wait for the mayor to come here. That took two minutes. It's going to be done.

But again, I'll stress again, that a lot of people are intimidated coming to the precincts. We don't want you to be. These blue shirts, I oversee all of them. They don't work for me, I work for them, work for you too. If you have a problem with the older adults, or you have a DA case, you want to go to the hospital, need accessories, go to the precinct and ask for them.

Myself and Commissioner Vasquez, we started this program, never happened in the Police Department. They never had this. We got it done in four months. So now, any older adults that come to the precinct, ask for them. They will assist you and help you. It's not a problem. I know sometimes you walk into the precinct, you see a lot of cops that are walking around. These in blue shirts, go directly to them. Okay?

Mayor Adams: So important. Police is the focal point and is the safety point. And that's what the commissioner has done. Everything from teaching young people how to fly planes, to giving them their real estate license, to teaching them how to learn English. We want to have a Police Department that is serving more than just fighting crime. How do you prevent crime? And how do you build better symbiotic relationships? Where are we going?

Question: Hi, next is table eight. Pam is going to ask a question. He's going to translate.

Mayor Adams: Yes, how are you, Pam? Do we have translators at each table also? Okay, great.

Question: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. [Ms. Leung] just said the affordable housing, they are not actually affordable in New York City because they are currently paying $1,200, $1,300 for the rent. So basically they are a fixed income family. They don't have enough money. And then she wants to know what the city will do to ensure there are enough affordable housing opportunities. And she wants the city to build more housing, more house, more public housing.

Mayor Adams: Yes, you want to translate for her, right? No, we agree we need more housing and we need low income, middle income as well because teachers and accountants, construction workers, union workers, they also need housing, those on fixed income. So our goal is to build more housing and we're hoping our City of Yes initiative is going to allow us to do just that.

[Crosstalk.]

Question: This lady is saying that she hoped that the city could reconsider the congestion fee because they think the congestion fee is actually killing the business in Chinatown.

Mayor Adams: So I just want to, just by a show of hands, okay, translate that also for her. Just by a show of hands, how many people believe the mayor is in charge of congestion pricing? Just by a show of hands. Okay, I'm happy to see that because we are not. The congestion pricing is controlled by the state and the MTA, not by the mayor.

The mayor does not control congestion pricing. It's controlled by the state and the MTA. So any input or concerns you have, it's the state and the MTA. The mayor has enough problems that he has to fix. We don't want new ones. So we are not in charge of congestion pricing. We don't set the price. We don't set anything on it. So I just want everyone to know that because if people stop me on the street and they're angry at me, we are not in charge of that.

Question: Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. I represent table number 10. And we're also concerned about this neighborhood quality of life. They say a lot too much garbage. I know you hate rats, too many rats. And even though you had a container issue, we're still not seeing any kind of improvement in this neighborhood.

Mayor Adams: Do we have anyone from DSNY here?

[Crosstalk.]

Ricky Wong, Assistant Commissioner, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: So again, my name is Ricky Wong. I'm Assistant Commissioner at the Health Department. As the mayor said, he loves this city, but he hates rats as much as you do, okay? And so he did something innovative. He hired and actually created a position, Rat Czar, Kathy Corradi, who unfortunately cannot be here today. She's actually out in the field working with folks to actually address, and that is her sole job, to address all the rat issues within the city.

The Lower East Side here, you're in a rat mitigation zone, that's something that the administration and her office created, which means that there's added resources that are looking into the rat sightings and inspections here in this neighborhood. So you have the Health Department, you have Sanitation Department, you have the Parks Department, and you have also the schools looking at it as well, too. The schools actually contribute a lot of garbage.

And yes, containerization is a pathway to eliminating food sources for rats as well, too. But there's also responsibilities from property owners to make sure that they address any conditions that would attract rats. So we work with them. We have something called the Rat Academy. We train residents and also property owners to make sure that they address it. And anybody who doesn't, you can always contact 311. We'll have inspectors go out. We can work with our colleagues and different agencies come out and inspect.

I'm happy to report, because this neighborhood is in a rat mitigation zone, inspections still remain high because we continually come in, but the compliance rates are actually going up. We're seeing less failures in properties of having rat sightings and presence. That doesn't mean it's been eliminated. We know that it continues, so we're going to continue to concentrate our efforts in this neighborhood.

Mayor Adams: And the person who did the question, if they see a corridor where there's a problem, let us know, and we'll get the Department of Sanitation and we'll get the rat czar to go out and see what we can do to improve that area.

Question: I'm representing the senior center facilitating this question for them. So they want me to ask, we know that federal relief funds from COVID-19 are running out, and NYC aging will face millions of dollars in budget cuts due to funding shortfall. This could result in dozens of older adult centers closing. These centers foster good health and close relationships which are proven to extend lives. What would you do to address this and make sure our seniors don't lose services they rely on?

Deputy Commissioner Murray: So absolutely. We knew that the federal timeline was sunsetting, so there's a commitment overall for the administration, all the health and human services agencies, the budget director is very focused on this. There are no cuts that are planned in this period for our centers. We hope to keep our centers strong, and we're not stopping there.

What we are doing is with the dollars that we have already, we're looking at how we ensure that we improve centers like this and reinvest them. So if there's underspending in one area, we need to shift those dollars over to another to make sure the center stays strong. That's the other thing we're doing. But there aren't planned cuts by us right now.

Question: One of the questions that was addressed at our table is that it's connected to cleanliness about sidewalks. And residents of this community feel that the sidewalks are dirty and that they have pet feces. Is there any way our city is handling this? And if so, can you talk about it? Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Yes. So what I have found as I move around the city, particularly around cleanliness, is that there are corridors where are more problematic than others. And if you help us by identifying those corridors, even where people are not picking up after their pets, we could do some form of enforcement and reminders. But particularly cleaning the streets, if there are particular corridors, let us know, and we could do a real enforcement effort in that area.

Question: I'm representing table number 13, and one of the questions we came up with was people in the community are not following noise code, which is a quality of life issue. How can we address this?

Mayor Adams: And oftentimes when we have an irritating problem, it engulfs us, and we feel that it's the whole community. So what we must do is pinpoint. If it's nightlife, we have a directive nightlife. If it's people doing unnecessary noise on the street level, we could use police enforcement.

So we should pinpoint where is the noise coming from and what's the issue so we can have the proper response. So if there is a particular place where the noise is coming from, let us know so we can respond accordingly. Your community affairs officer is the best to be proactive in doing so, or even 311, and we can follow up if you have a 311 call number.

Question: Okay, so we are from table 14, and we were worried about the subways also because there is so much substance abuse and mental problems. And we are seniors, so I haven't been in the subways in a long time because I hear in the news all the problems that are happening there. And I would really like to be able to use it, but the way it is now, what can you do about that?

Mayor Adams: Yes, and you're so right. And I use the subways a lot also. Not only the subways must be safe, you must feel safe. And that is why we are infusing 200 more additional police officers. You're going to see our police officers walk through the system. You're going to see them being visible. You're going to see them interacting with the rioters because we want you to feel safe while you're in the system.

But, you know, I always like to be clear to share that, you know, with over 4.6 million rioters, only six felonies a day, those are amazing numbers. We want to get rid of those six felonies, but I want you to go there and feel safe. So we want to get off the system. Those who are dealing with severe mental health issues, we have an initiative in place to do so, but you're going to see the presence of more police officers walking through the trains at the same time.

The commissioner is very much tuned in onto this. I want you back on the subways. We're going to take a ride together so I can show you how safe it is. Okay. We got DJ, so get our information. Next time you go on one of your tours or something, you and I going to ride together. They're going to think we on a date.

[Crosstalk.]

Question: I would like to know when, when will the sidewalk pavements get repaired? The sidewalk pavements are not level on Catherine street and East Broadway. Seniors and community members are getting injured due to tripping and falling onto the sidewalks.

When will the sidewalk pavements get repaired? Catherine here, for instance, and many seniors possibly have walkers. And walking, the pavements are not level where I, myself, one time flew over my shopping cart because of a unlevel pavement. Can you tell me when can they start some work on the pavement?

Mayor Adams: DOT. We have DOT in the house?

Kim Wiley-Schwartz, Assistant Commissioner Education and Outreach, Department of Transportation: This is a strange city where for the most part, the city does not own or maintain the sidewalks. If it's outside a NYCHA unit or a public school, this is different, but we have a full inspection unit that goes out and determines who is responsible for fixing sidewalks and then issues violations. Okay. So this is the kind of thing where we can find out what you're talking about.

We can send our HIQA team out right away to double check. It may be that they've, we've already issued these violations and there's a sort of small due process. We can also figure out who are the owners and how they can make that difference because it's very important that you have, you know, easy access to the sidewalk.

Mayor Adams: Can you share the program? I don't know if it was done in the Department of Aging or is it DOT where we're doing the walk? Can you share that?

[Crosstalk.]

Wiley-Schwartz: Yeah, sure. So my, I have a team of educators. We're safety educators. Do you want me to come out? All right. I can show off my cute outfit. And so we, we have, we have a program. We do a safety education, right? We want you to be safe when you're walking. But in order to do that, the city needs to give you the sidewalks and the streets that you deserve. So we go out with your with your older adult center. And we look specifically at different places along your route, coming from your home, going to your grocery store, getting to your bus stops so that we can aggregate those ideas, bring them back to our safety experts and fix the streets around your neighborhood.

Mayor Adams: So we want you to walk with us and show, point out some of the hazards that we are experiencing. So we can hear directly from you. It's a great program that we put in place. One quick thing before we leave, I don't know. Did we get, did we hand these out? So this is so important. When mom was with me before she passed away, we used to, we created this concept of placing this magnet on your refrigerator or anywhere else. You believe you could place it. It's just in case of an emergency.

If the police or EMS or EMT, if they have to come out and give you medical care, you have the basic information, the name of your emergency contact number, the primary care doctor, chronic condition, you may have allergies medication. So this way the information is readily available. You can fill one out for you or your spouse or someone that you are taking care of.

So feel free to take one with you, take one for a loved one or family member that you want. It's about making sure that we are informed and we can rapidly respond to the care that you need. I know she came in late, but I wanted to make sure we give her an opportunity to speak. We have assemblywoman Lee here, you know, so please give her a hand before we wrap up. Assemblywoman.

State Assemblymember Grace Lee: Thank you, Mr. Mayor for coming and speaking with our seniors. Hi everyone. I'm assemblymember Grace Lee. I am also taking notes on all the things that you've been saying so that our office can help to work with you as well.

Feel free to reach out to our offices anytime. And the director of Grand Street Settlement knows how to reach out to us. But we are more than happy to help. And DOT, Department of Sanitation. So many of these city agencies have been a great partner to our office to help address many of the issues that you spoke of today. So we'll be continuing to work with it. I want to thank my colleagues in city government council members, Carlina Rivera and Christopher Marte. We are all here to help serve you. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you so much. Thanks to all our electeds. I got. Yeah. I've got to run off. I got to go do an MRI and I'm claustrophobic, so, you know, they got to put me to sleep but thank you so much for coming out. Happy New Year's. And we love you all.

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