Fighting Poverty, Strengthening New York - A podcast from the Community Service Society

Our latest episode of the Fighting Poverty, Strengthening New York podcast looks into the eviction epidemic in NYC, introducing Daisy Young, who, after losing her job and watching her savings deplete, found an eviction notice on her apartment door. We look at how CSS, along with other members of the emergency rent coalition, work to prevent homelessness through providing funds to halt evictions before the marshal shows up. And we hear from CSS housing analyst Oksana Mironova on how policy change is needed to keep low-income New Yorkers in the places they call home.

What happens when you can’t afford health care, but make too much to qualify for help? In our latest podcast you’ll meet Diane, who found herself in exactly this situation. After struggling financially while caring for her ailing father, Diane got a new job and was just beginning to make ends meet—only to find her own health coverage suddenly out of reach. The problem? She now earned too much to remain eligible for Medicaid, but nowhere near enough to pay for private insurance, even with subsidies. Said Diane: “Was I going to give up a job to keep my health benefits?” That’s when she contacted CSS, and discovered New York’s Essential Plan

One out of four low-income New Yorkers say they regularly cannot afford to take the subway or bus. In a city as mass transit dependent as New York, this makes life even more difficult for those with the very least. Episode 4 explores this issue and our current campaign to address it by providing half-price fares for those living in poverty.

Could the worker cooperative business model help low-income New Yorkers find well-paying, stable employment? In this episode, we speak with Professor Richard Wolff about the concept of worker coops, how they work and how he believes this method is better for both the employees and the economy as a whole. Then we meet a former CSS employee who started a successful worker coop of home health care aides in the Bronx in 1985 that is still going strong. We take a trip up to see this organization, the Cooperative Home Care Associates, and meet Juana Fuentes, current home care aide, worker-owner, and CHCA board member. Finally, we return to CSS to learn about a new application of the worker coop model that CSS is recommending as a way to bring meaningful employment to areas of New York where there is little opportunity.

For our second episode, we explore an innovative program that is working to improve the health outcomes of public housing residents in East Harlem, NYC. The Harlem Health Advocacy Partners (HHAP) is a program run by the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's Center for Health Equity and is focused on better health outcomes for the residents of five public housing developments in East Harlem, a neighborhood with unusually high occurrences of chronic illnesses. In this podcast, we follow CSS health advocates Katie Earle and Aline da Fonseca as they work with program participants to get them on a path to better health. We meet Umu Kebbie, who didn't know where to turn after a stroke left her unable to take care of her family but thanks to Katie and others at the HHAP program is getting a handle on life. We meet Linda, whose medical debt left her stressed and worried, and we hear from Ramone who is feeling better than ever at 67 thanks to HHAP. We end the program walking around Central Park's Harlem Meer with nearly 200 East Harlem residents.

For our inaugural episode, we tackle the idea of universal summer jobs for all New York City youth. In February of 2016 Lazar Treschan, Director of Youth Policy at CSS, produced a report proposing the idea that all students who want one should have access to summer employment. Not only should they get a job, but that job should be connected integrated with their schooling. In this podcast, we hear from David R. Jones, the President and CEO of CSS, about our proposal and why summer jobs are so important for young people. Then we head up to the Bronx to see first-hand one school that is working hard to provide meaningful summer employment to their students; and we end up at a boat building workshop on the Bronx River.