Tag: Donovan Richards

JHISN Newsletter 11/04/2023

Posted on November 4, 2023 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

As the relentless bombing of homes, schools, refugee camps, mosques, churches, markets, hospitals, and humans in Gaza continues, we can only ask our readers to not turn away. For those who support an immediate ceasefire, see DRUM (Desis Rising Up & Moving) for local actions to pressure electeds. For broader NYC actions, please follow Jewish Voice for Peace NYC.

This week’s newsletter offers an update on a tentative agreement that would allow immigrant vendors to return to Corona Plaza. We then take a deeper look at the digital divide, in terms of both access and content, that excludes far too many asylum seekers and other migrants from full participation in online worlds.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Deal for Corona Plaza street vendors? 
  2. Digital access for immigrants to US

1. Return of Corona Plaza Vendors Linked to Soccer Stadium Approval

“I was calling a foul on the displacement of men and women who are hard workers, largely immigrants, in Corona Plaza who really deserve an opportunity to work”–Queens Borough President Donovan Richards on NY1 

It’s been almost three months since street vendors at Corona Plaza–mostly immigrant women from Central and South America–were forced out by the Sanitation Department police. Ever since, vendors and their political allies have been urgently trying to make a deal with the Adams administration to reopen the Plaza and restore vendor livelihoods. Their proposals include limited, dedicated spaces for vendors to prevent overcrowding, while still retaining the “cultural spark” that the Plaza was known for. Although the administration has seemed willing to consider this in principle, they have dragged their feet.

Meanwhile, during this same period, the city has been working on securing final approvals for a new 25,000-seat soccer stadium at nearby Willets Point, expected to be ready for the New York City Football Club’s 2027 Major League Soccer season.

One of the needed approvals was that of vendor ally Borough President Donovan Richards, who had to okay changes to street maps. But early in October, Richards announced that he would not sign off until he secured an agreement allowing vendors to return to Corona Plaza, and also provide some of the vendors with space in the stadium’s concession operations.

“My position was and will continue to be, how are the local residents benefiting from this stadium? How’s the city treating the very community that this stadium is going to be placed? At the end of the day, this wasn’t about me, this wasn’t about politics, this was about largely immigrant women and children who were just trying to feed their families, who were just trying to pay their rent.” – Queens Borough President Donovan Richards 

On October 16, Richards announced in an interview on NY1 that he had reached a tentative agreement to benefit the vendors and guarantee that the new jobs created will go to community members:

“We have reached a tentative agreement with the city now to get those vendors back on the site at Corona Plaza, and the goal is to ensure that…we create jobs. The stadium is a great project, but at the end of the day we have to make sure the benefits reach local communities.”

The return of vendors to the Plaza would affirm the importance of this lively food hub—for both workers and their customers.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

  • Support Corona Plaza street vendors.

2. Unaddressed—the Digital Divide in NYC

Internet access is a key problem facing immigrants. Reduced access to adequate and appropriate digital services affects every step of migration, from border transit to legal proceedings to locating necessary services. Immigrant justice advocates, like the journalists of Documented NY, identified this serious obstacle by listening to the 5,700 members of their WhatsApp community, a third of whom are recently arrived asylum seekers.

Research from Cornell University has indicated that, while better digital tools could help immigrants, the content itself is often out of date and users worry their digital fingerprints may be tracked. This led an interdisciplinary team to create the Immigrant Rights for Health website, sharing “accurate and accessible information on health and legal benefits available to immigrants.”

The existence of a digital divide hurts the people who are often most in need of internet access. This was a forefront issue during the pandemic years of lockdown from schools, work, and government/social services. In Jackson Heights, the city’s census review of 2020 found 26% of households lacked broadband connectivity. Mayor de Blasio’s Chief Technology Officer even created an Internet Master Plan to address the issue. The report acknowledged that around 1.5 million New Yorkers lacked an internet connection because a “private market solution to broadband service continues to leave out too many New Yorkers.” Two and a half years later, under Mayor Adams, the city quietly killed the Master Plan. 

NYC Mesh identified this same internet access issue back in 2014. The volunteer-run, open-source, community broadband network aimed to create an affordable network controlled and operated by and for local residents as an alternative to the private market. NYC Mesh requires social trust to expand their open-source system which leverages the rooftops and households of its members, so its growth has always been hyper-local and limited.

The New York City Council made an initial effort during the pandemic to introduce local laws to improve network access. Its Committee on Technology introduced four local law proposals: 1) provide public school students with mobile hotspot devices; 2) create written materials on affordable internet programs; 3) provide public access to wireless networks; and 4) establish a website for cable franchise agreements. Although there were many positive conversations in Hearing Committees, where they even discussed options like providing network devices in shelters, all four initiatives since 2022 have been laid over in Committee—the bills were sent to the full Council for more debate and still await a final vote.

One program that has expanded is the city’s LinkNYC Public-Private Partnership which converted pay phones to internet access nodes. During 2023 Immigrant Heritage Week, the city and LinkNYC launched the “We Love Immigrant New York” campaign with the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Affairs; it included a “We Speak NYC” program to help immigrants learn English. It also created the first Gigabit Center, at La Colmena in Staten Island, which was identified by Mayor Adams as a resource navigation center providing high-speed internet access for newly-arrived immigrants. A second Gigabit Center opened at Silicon Harlem in the Bronx in August 2023. There are also plans to bring network access to 200 NYCHA locations through the “Big Apple Connect,” though there is uncertainty as to how effective this will be.

In December 2022, a few months after southern states began busing immigrants to sanctuary cities, the American Immigration Council noted that 24% of immigrants were likely to lack broadband access. Comparatively, 20% of people born in the USA are without broadband. Housing those migrants in temporary shelters in NYC has highlighted this public issue; the New York City Bar reported in 2020 that the city needed to provide internet access to help people in temporary housing find permanent homes. In 2021, and again in 2023, they supported a state bill to do so. This has not yet become law but it has finally passed from the Senate to the Assembly.

For those making asylum claims, the need for network access is crucial. Most of our Newsletter readers will have heard about the CBP One phone app which has significantly, and by design, reduced applications for asylum because it creates a technology bottleneck. Even people who can get access to devices are not guaranteed access to service. Once in the US, continued access will be needed not just for information, but to attend online court proceedings where many cases are now heard.

In closing, it is noteworthy that most of the research and discussion, even for global digital access initiatives like the UN Secretary-General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, has not been updated much since 2022. Clayton Banks, who co-founded Silicon Harlem, summed up the stalled efforts to change the digital divide: “The city put over $160 million in the [2020] budget to make this happen, but not a nickel of it was spent.“

WHAT CAN WE DO?

In solidarity and with collective care,
Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

 

JHISN Newsletter 08/26/2023

Posted on August 26, 2023 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

Sometimes the news hits very close to home, and this week we report on the city’s shutdown of the lively street vendor scene at Corona Plaza. Many of us can remember our most recent visit to this informal outdoor marketplace that grew like a welcome garden during the pandemic. We urge all of our readers to sign the petition supporting the struggle of local vendors who are threatened with losing their income and their community. We also encourage you to circulate this newsletter to neighbors, co-workers, and political and religious organizations who might offer social solidarity. 

 Note: JHISN newsletter is also available in Spanish on our website. Share the link!

 Newsletter highlights:
  1. Sanitation Department Police shut down street vendors in Corona

1. Adams Betrays Corona Plaza Vendors

“We are central to the economy of Corona, Queens, and must be heard and respected!” —Corona Plaza Street Vendors Association

 The war on street vendors has come to Corona Plaza. Following the same script he used recently in Flushing, Mayor Eric Adams toured the Plaza and claimed to be appalled by “illegal vending and just dangerous food service.” Soon afterward, on July 27-28, Sanitation Department Police swept through the Plaza, handing out tickets for up to $1,000, seizing supplies and confiscating vending carts, and shutting down more than 80 vendors. Today, instead of the familiar vibrant market featuring inexpensive Ecuadorian and Mexican food and crafts, workers and community members coming home to Corona find mostly blank, ugly concrete. A few lonely food trucks lucky enough to own scarce city cart licenses are all that remain. As in Flushing, demonstrations for and against the crackdown have attracted politicians on both sides and dueling petitions, as the vendors—mostly immigrant women—scramble for a way to pay their bills.

 JHISN Newsletter readers are already aware of the ongoing struggle by city street vendors to maintain their livelihood in the face of attacks and double-dealing by the Adams administration. Last July, we reported that Adams had adopted the recommendations of a new Street Vendor Advisory Board. The SVAB, the City Council, and Adams agreed to reduce punitive enforcement and issue more cart licenses. In November, we wrote about Adams breaking these promises. Cart licenses were delayed while ticketing of vendors continued to intensify. In April, we published an article about the city’s removal of street vendors in Flushing. Since then, the city has evicted vendors in Sunset Park and Elmhurst Chinatown. Police continue to harass the churro vendors at the Roosevelt Ave/74th St. station.

 Street vending in Corona Plaza epitomizes a citywide trend. When thousands of jobs held by migrant workers disappeared early in the pandemic, street vending tripled. Recently, there’s been another wave of vendors—including new asylum seekers unable to get working papers. (One manifestation of this trend is an increase in migrant women and children selling candy in the subway.) Corona Plaza, a previously underutilized space next to a busy 7 train station, offered a ray of hope for migrant vendors. It grew into a sort of working-class street fair, widely known for the variety and authenticity of its food. It attracted not only locals but visitors from all over New York and beyond. The NYT’s food critic named it one of the best food spots in the city for 2023. According to the Street Vendor Project, roughly 100 families came to depend on vending in the Plaza for income. They paid substantial taxes, created new jobs, and built up a dedicated customer base.

 Over time, parts of the Plaza became crowded, and there were real problems with trash. But the vendors worked diligently with city agencies to address these issues. Operating through a volunteer Corona Plaza Task Force, they organized a 501c nonprofit and set rules for vending, added trash containers, coordinated cleanups, and hosted cultural events. They thought they had an informal arrangement with the city as they looked for a permanent solution. So the Adams administration’s decision to suddenly uproot vendors from the Plaza took them by surprise.

 A number of Corona businesses, politicians, and residents were glad to see the vendors evicted. For instance, some local restaurant owners view the food vendors as non-rent paying competitors. Luis Tacuri, who runs a nearby Ecuadorian restaurant, welcomed the city’s sweep of food vendors. Still, he admitted, “the crackdown has done little to redirect customers his way, as he hasn’t seen much change in his own business.” The Plaza, in fact, is now mostly empty.

A more concerted anti-vendor campaign centered around the office of District 21 city council member Francisco Moya, who has worked closely with Adams in the past. “We deserve clean streets. We deserve safe streets,” Moya insisted on TV, claiming that he received 20 complaints a week about the Plaza. But the complaints made to Moya (and the media) often tried to link food vending to unrelated issues like massage parlors on Roosevelt Avenue or illegal drug sales that happened outside the food area. Moral panic was calibrated to appeal to the Adams administration’s “law and order” reflexes. A local church volunteer, Douglas Weidner, told the LIC Post that, at night, the Plaza had become “the devil’s playground.” 

Shockingly, it has recently been revealed that an NYPD “Neighborhood Coordination Officer” from the 110th Precinct, who is supposed to act as a neutral liaison, helped organize opposition to the vendors. The Street Vendors Project has filed a complaint with the Civilian Complaint Review Board.

 A number of progressive activists link Moya’s “clean streets, safe streets” mantra to his promotion of rezoning and real estate development, including his decisive support for the Flushing Waterfront District and the Willets Point Redevelopment Project—both just down the street from Corona Plaza. They accuse Moya of encouraging real estate speculation and gentrification in one of the poorest districts in the city. Ads paid for by a real estate super PAC endorsed Moya’s recent reelection, praising him for “leading the charge to redevelop Willets Point,” a process that has resulted in the loss of thousands of immigrants’ jobs.

Corona Plaza street vendors are struggling to find a way to restore their livelihoods. In the long run, they hope for a “concession agreement” sponsored by the Department of Transportation, which owns the Plaza. A nonprofit company would be responsible for enforcing city regulations. Cart licenses—almost impossible to get—would not be required under such an agreement. This is a concept pioneered at Fordham Plaza, where the Bronx Night Market was founded in 2018. But the DOT says they are months away from even releasing a request for proposals for a company to manage Corona Plaza. In the meantime, how will the vendors survive?

In a recent editorial, State Senator Jessica Ramos and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards argue: 

There is a false choice hanging over Corona Plaza. An escalating discourse around street vending has created the impression that we have to choose between the right people have to earn an honest living and the right to clean, safe public space. But both should – and can – be true.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

 

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN.