FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, November 17, 2023
Contact: Yonah Zeitz, yonah@katalcenter.org • 347-201-2769
Follow on Twitter @KatalCenter • #ShutRikers #CutShutInvestNY
In the Midst of a Corruption Investigation, Mayor Eric Adams Proposes 5% Budget Cuts Across All City Agencies
Instead of Cutting Essential Services, Scapegoating Asylum Seekers, and Sending More New Yorkers to the Deadly Rikers Island, The Mayor Should Invest in True Public Safety: Housing, Health Care, Education, and Jobs
Statement by Katal Center
New York, NY: This week, news broke that Mayor Adams is proposing 5% budget reductions across every city agency, including universal pre-K, trash pickup, library services, migrant services, critical city jobs initiatives, eliminating CUNY support programs, and more.
Melanie Dominguez, Lead Community Organizer at the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice, said: “Mayor Adams’s 5% budget cut proposal is a blatant attack on Black, brown, and low-income families. The Mayor continues to scapegoat asylum seekers to justify these budget cuts, which is downright shameful and untrue. These are individuals who are seeking safety and deserve a right to shelter. It is even more shameful when we know that the city spends more than $500,000 per year to detain one person at Rikers, which is a hellhole and only getting worse under this Mayor. Since he took office, the jail population in the city has skyrocketed by nearly a thousand, costing the city hundreds of millions. New Yorkers detained at Rikers Island are dying, at least 28 deaths under this Mayor, due to inhumane conditions and mismanagement by the DOC. To make matters worse, Mayor Adams has outright abandoned the city’s plan to shut down the insidious Rikers Island jail complex. Instead of addressing the crisis at Rikers and working to close it, the Mayor is proposing, for the fifth time in two years, to cut budgets to City agencies tasked with supporting the City’s most marginalized. We reject the Mayor’s proposal to cut funding for essential services like CUNY support programs, housing assistance, and employment initiatives. The Mayor should immediately cut the number of people incarcerated in NYC jails, shut down Rikers, and invest in real community safety for all New Yorkers: housing, healthcare, education, and jobs.”
Today, at 11 am, the Peoples Budget Campaign and grassroots allies will hold a rally and presser at City Hall to condemn the Mayor’s latest budget cuts that will disproportionately impact Black, brown, and working-class New Yorkers.
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