New YORK: New York City Mayor Eric Adams today outlined a future-focused vision for working-class New Yorkers in his third State of the City address, delivered at Hostos Community College’s Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture in the Bronx.
After driving crime down and pushing job growth to historic highs — all while managing a once-in-a-generation asylum seeker humanitarian crisis — Mayor Adams outlined ambitious plans to continue to deliver for New York City across his priority areas that have been a part of his vision for New York City since day one: making the country’s safest big city even safer, building a forward-looking economy that works for working-class New Yorkers, and making the city more livable for all New Yorkers.
“When we came into office two years ago, we had a clear vision: protect public safety, rebuild our economy, and make this city more livable,” said Mayor Adams. “Two years later, thanks to the hard work of this administration and millions of dedicated New Yorkers, the state of our city is strong — far stronger than it was when we came into office.
New York City is becoming a place where everyone has the opportunity to make it, and the future-focused vision we laid out today will build on all that we have delivered for New Yorkers by investing in public safety, public spaces, and the working people who make New York City the greatest city in the world.
“While our city is still full of questions, history shows we can answer them and progress together when we work as one. The last two years have been a time of renewal and resetting — now, let’s make the future together.”
New York City is the safest big city in the country. Mayor Adams entered City Hall with a mission to reduce crime and keep New Yorkers safe, and he has delivered on that commitment. Under Mayor Adams and New York City Police Department (NYPD) Commissioner Edward A. Caban’s leadership, overall crime is down in New York City. In 2023, the city saw a drop in five of the seven major crime categories, including a 12 percent decline in homicides and a 25 percent decrease in shooting incidents compared to the year prior. Additionally, the NYPD has taken more than 14,000 illegal guns off of New York City streets since the start of the Adams administration.
Crime has fallen as a result of strong support for law enforcement as well as proactive strategies deployed by the administration, including plans to crack down on auto thefts, combat retail thefts, and launch a $500 million blueprint to keep communities safe from gun violence.
In 2024, the Adams administration will continue to build on those wins and address public safety challenges that are top of mind for everyday New Yorkers, including traffic safety. In response to the rise of e-bikes, mopeds, cargo bikes, and other nontraditional transportation modes on New York City streets and sidewalks, the administration is in discussions with the New York City Council to create the “New York City Department of Sustainable Delivery.” The department will prioritize safety while harnessing the potential of these new forms of transportation. This first-in-the-nation regulatory entity will establish clear goals and guidelines for the future of delivery in New York City and consolidate work that is now spread out over multiple agencies. While 2023 was the second-safest year for pedestrians on record, New York City Department of Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez and the city’s Vision Zero Task Force will continue to recognize that traffic safety is public safety and keep New York City’s streets and sidewalks safe.
As Mayor Adams has consistently said, public safety and justice go hand in hand. But right now, some NYPD internal discipline cases take more than a year to resolve. This year, the NYPD will overhaul their internal discipline process to halve the time it takes to resolve internal cases by eliminating redundancies, setting strict timelines, and allowing cases to proceed contemporaneously with criminal proceedings.
Additionally, Mayor Adams continued to advocate for legislation in Albany to give New York City the authority to shut down illegal smoke shops and stop their proliferation across the city.
Finally, recognizing the danger that social media poses to young people and mental health, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan today issued a Health Commissioner’s Advisory identifying unfettered access to and use of social media as a public health hazard, just as past U.S. surgeons general have done with tobacco and firearms.
Building a Forward-Looking Economy That Works for Working-Class New Yorkers
Mayor Adams has steered New York City through a new chapter of its economic recovery, officially regaining all of the private-sector jobs the city lost during the COVID-19 pandemic more than a year ahead of schedule. More than 270,000 private sector jobs and 44,000 businesses — the majority of which are small businesses — have been created since Mayor Adams took office.
Through strategic investments and advocacy, the Adams administration reduced the out-of-pocket cost of subsidized child care, or per-child copayment, for a family earning $55,000 a year from $55 per week in 2022 to $4.80 per week today. Led by New York City Office of Labor Relations Commissioner Renee Campion, the Adams administration has also delivered better wages and benefits to hundreds of thousands of municipal workers, including 93 percent of the unionized workforce and 100 percent of the uniformed workforce, while setting a first-of-its-kind minimum pay rate for app-based restaurant delivery workers.
Further, Mayor Adams committed to accelerating the city’s job growth to reach 5 million total jobs by 2025 — more than a year ahead of projections.
The administration will accomplish this goal by building future-focused industries, such as those in the green economy, from the ground up to create accessible career pathways. In the coming weeks, Mayor Adams, New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) President and CEO Andrew Kimball, and others will unveil the administration’s “Green Economy Action Plan” to detail how the city will harness the economic potential of reducing emissions and building a more sustainable city to help support 400,000 green economy jobs alone in New York City by 2040.
As a foundation for this work, NYCEDC will invest $100 million to create the “Climate Innovation Hub” at the Brooklyn Army Terminal. This new hub will serve as a home for clean tech innovation and manufacturing, encourage climate innovation startups, and operate as a new convergence in the city’s broader “Harbor of the Future” initiative, which includes emerging innovation centers at the Hunts Point Produce Market, Governors Island, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the Science Park and Research Campus (SPARC) in Kips Bay, and the North Shore of Staten Island. The Harbor of the Future will create approximately 53,000 temporary and permanent jobs and $95 billion in economic impact.
Additionally, building on the work the administration has done to create an economy that leaves no New Yorkers behind, the city will release “Women Forward NYC,” an approximately $40 million action plan to make New York City a better place for women to live, work, and thrive. The plan will include funding to build pipelines toward higher wages in in-demand career pathways, improve financial literacy and access to financial resources, and dismantle barriers to work and education.
Women Forward NYC will also address sexual, chronic, and reproductive health; reduce Black and Brown maternal mortality rates; improve access to comprehensive medical treatment; and enhance mental health education and outreach. Lastly, the plan will increase initiatives that reduce violence toward women, particularly LGBTQ+ women, nonbinary New Yorkers, and women of color; expand interventions to prevent domestic violence and support survivors; and provide a continuum of services for low-income families to keep them in their homes or accelerate their exit from shelter and back into their communities.
Finally, building on Mayor Adams’ announcement earlier this week that the city will invest $18 million to purchase and forgive more than $2 billion in medical debt held by approximately 500,000 working-class New Yorkers, the city will embed additional financial counselors in New York City hospitals — helping New Yorkers in need understand the options available to them to avoid medical debt in the first place and stop the vicious cycle of excessive medical debt before it begins.
In 2023, under the leadership of New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) Commissioner Adolfo Carrión Jr. and New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC) President Eric Enderlin, the city’s housing agencies financed more than 27,000 affordable homes — fueled by the creation of more new affordable homes (a record), more housing for those who formerly experienced homelessness (a record), and more supportive housing than any year in the city’s history (a record). Through partnerships across HPD, HDC, the New York City Department of Social Services led by Commissioner Molly Wasow Park, and the New York City Department of City Planning led by Director Dan Garodnick, the Adams administration also connected a record number of families and formerly homeless individuals to affordable housing in 2023, advanced historic projects like the transformation of Willets Point — the city’s largest 100-percent affordable housing project in 40 years — and proposed the most pro-housing changes in the history of the city’s zoning code through Mayor Adams’ “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity” plan.
While the Adams administration continues to advocate for state lawmakers to create a new tax incentive for affordable housing, a pathway to make basement and cellar apartments safe and legal, a tax incentive to convert underused offices into affordable homes, and the lifting of a cap on density for new construction, it will also double down on its efforts to combat the housing crisis at the local level. Today, Mayor Adams launched “24 in 24,” a plan to advance 24 affordable housing projects on public sites in 2024 that will ultimately create or preserve over 12,000 units of housing through partnerships across HPD, NYCEDC, and the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), among other agencies.
Additionally, to help New Yorkers stay in their homes, the Adams administration will create a Tenant Protection Cabinet, bringing together more than a dozen agencies and mayoral offices focused on supporting tenants. Similar to the administration’s Cabinet for Older New Yorkers, the Tenant Protection Cabinet will allow city agencies to seek coordination and efficiency across departments, leverage resources, and shape current and future services to better protect tenants and keep New Yorkers in their homes. To support New Yorkers at risk of being displaced from their homes in all five boroughs, the administration will also expand the Homeowner Help Desk, which will reach an estimated 160,000 New Yorkers through outreach and events, one-on-one assistance, and stabilization. Finally, for the first time in 15 years, the administration will reopen the NYCHA Section 8 voucher waitlist later this year, aiming to issue 1,000 vouchers per month.
Last year, Mayor Adams and New York City Department of Education (DOE) Chancellor David Banks launched “New York City Reads” — a major citywide campaign to declare literacy and reading instruction as the core focus and overriding priority of New York City’s public schools. As a result, the administration increased test scores while decreasing racial disparities in results, while simultaneously increasing enrollment for the first time in eight years. Additionally, Mayor Adams continued his administration’s investment in accessible career pipelines by releasing a $600 million roadmap to build inclusive pathways for up to 250,000 of the city’s young people to discover their passion, receive hands-on career experience, and ultimately enter the workforce.
Starting this school year, the city will bring New York City Reads’ phonics-based methods and the science of reading to every early childhood and elementary school student in the city’s public schools, building on the initial rollout completed last year to half of the city’s school districts. In her State of the State Address earlier this month, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that the state will follow in New York City’s footsteps and will bring a similar approach to literacy across New York State.
Finally, Mayor Adams will continue to advocate for four years of mayoral accountability over New York City public schools, which Governor Hochul announced her support for in both her State of the State and Executive Budget addresses.
Understanding that public spaces are where communities are built, culture is fostered, and opportunities are created, Mayor Adams committed $375 million to creating new, vibrant public spaces in his 2023 State of the City address. To further that effort, he appointed Ya-Ting Liu as the city’s first-ever chief public realm officer and launched visionary projects to create new public spaces. Mayor Adams also signed the country’s largest permanent outdoor dining program into law to create better, cleaner, and more accessible sidewalk and roadway cafes and significantly expanded open street programs during the holiday and summer seasons.
To keep the city’s public spaces clean and transform what it feels like to be outside in New York City, Mayor Adams and New York City Department of Sanitation (DSNY) Commissioner Jessica Tisch launched efforts to containerize 100 percent of businesses’ trash and all residential trash from buildings with nine or fewer units. Additionally, Mayor Adams anointed Kathleen Corradi as the city’s first-ever citywide director of rodent mitigation to work in coordination with city agencies to reduce the rat population in New York City. After decades of inaction, the administration implemented a new rule in April to drastically reduce the time trash bags could sit on city streets. All these efforts, including the city’s move towards containerization and the administration’s whole-of-government approach, have helped drive down rat sightings — after DSNY’s new curbside trash set-out times went into effect in April, rat sighting complaints are down 7 percent citywide since May and down 20 percent in 2023 in rat mitigation zones. Building on the progress made over the course of the past two years, the city will expand its Harlem on-street containerization pilot and set the city on a path to getting every single black trash bag off of New York City streets.
Mayor Adams also announced today that the city will partner with Tony Hawk, The Skatepark Project, Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, and members of the New York City Council to build and refurbish four major skateparks in Brooklyn and the Bronx: Bronx Park and Soundview Park in the Bronx and Mt. Prospect Park and Brower Park in Brooklyn.
Finally, in partnership with New York State, the administration will invest a total of $55 million to transform Kimlau Plaza in Chinatown, redesigning a chaotic intersection and finally giving one of New York City’s most historic districts the entrance it deserves.
Mayor Adams continues to lead the nation in fighting climate change, as New York City cuts emissions and protects its residents against heat, flooding, and storms. Outlining the administration’s vision for this work, Mayor Adams released a long-term strategic climate plan to protect New Yorkers from climate threats and build the city’s green economy. The administration advanced this work with significant efforts, such as expanding the bluebelt program, including the recently-completed New Creek Bluebelt on Staten Island, to create large ponds that absorb water during torrential storms — reducing household flooding and saving lives. The administration also continued to make significant infrastructure investments to protect New Yorkers from extreme weather, including in neighborhoods on the Brooklyn/Queens border, and invested $390 million in green infrastructure to support the fight against extreme rainfall and coastal flooding by expanding the city’s “Cloudburst Program.” To continue to cement New York City’s position as a leader in sustainability solutions, Mayor Adams unveiled plans for the first-in-the-nation climate research, education, and jobs hub on Governors Island.
This year, Mayor Adams will break ground on the Battery Coastal Resiliency initiative, a critical, $200 million component of the Lower Manhattan Coastal Resiliency project. Battery Coastal Resiliency will rebuild and elevate the wharf promenade in The Battery, staying true to the character and uses of the park while protecting against projected sea level rise. The project will focus on sustainability and use strategies to reduce carbon footprint, including reusing existing materials in final construction and using low-embodied carbon materials.
Additionally, Mayor Adams announced that the city will invest $450 million in federal resiliency grants, including $310 million received in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida to start a range of projects that will make New York City more resilient in the face of climate change. Those projects will include financial counseling and flood insurance assistance for small homeowners and renters, restoring public housing developments, subsidizing resiliency measures in one- to four-unit and multifamily housing, expanding the city’s green infrastructure network, protecting critical infrastructure from flooding, and strengthening communities through emergency preparedness training.
Finally, the administration will implement a five-borough bluebelt strategy, ensuring that New Yorkers across the city are protected by these ecologically rich and cost-effective large-scale drainage systems that naturally handle the runoff precipitation that falls on streets and sidewalks.
