Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The status quo is clearly broken, and we must strive for bigger, bolder solutions that will provide New Yorkers with the support they need to remain in their homes.
We have these events, 'Talk to Tish.' They're basically kitchen-roundtable discussions about issues in the City of New York, because you can learn more by listening.
As we express our gratitude to veterans for protecting our freedom, it is imperative that we provide them the necessary services and benefits they rightfully deserve.
In reality, handing over public space to private developers does not guarantee that new library spaces will be comparable in size or otherwise remain fully-functional.
Around the nation, lawmakers have drawn up their districts with such perverse precision and aversion to competition, that legislators rarely face competitive challenges.
While New York City cannot prevent other jurisdictions from selling firearms, it has taken a powerful stance against guns by divesting pension funds from gun manufacturers.
We must ensure that we are hiring and retaining qualified, diverse candidates not only to teach in our classrooms, but to work at the DOE overseeing our students' education.
I come from a long line of very strong, tough women. We stick to our principles and stand up for what we believe in, which is fundamental fairness, which is my raison d'etre.
Home Stability Support is our best shot at creating an all-encompassing and effective system to ensure that our at-risk children and families can remain in the homes they deserve.
Most of those whom we honor on Memorial Day died young. They never had the chance to raise a family, build a career, attend the weddings of their children, or be honored in old age.
No NYCHA resident should have to worry about the walk home at night through their neighborhood after they finish work. Yet for some NYCHA residents, worrying is a part of daily life.
The vast majority of our teachers, our principals and our PTAs are well informed and well meaning, but even those with the best intentions can benefit from cultural competency training.
District attorneys are often some of the finest public servants. However, the system in which they operate to investigate cases of police misconduct leaves a huge window for unintended bias.
It is imperative that we set the national example and make it clear that companies seeking to do business in New York City cannot be allowed to treat their workers like second-class citizens.
Any district attorney knows that an endorsement from law enforcement unions is vital to earning voters' trust. As a result, police unions play an outsized role in district attorney elections.
Each day, millions of police officers do the selfless work of putting their lives on the line to protect civilians, frequently responding to or preventing crises completely with no recognition.
New Yorkers want to be compassionate, and they want to live in a city where homeless people aren't stuffed into shelters, spilling out onto the streets. They also want a support system that works.
Wage discrimination lasts forever. The disparity haunts women beyond their years in the labor force, impacting how much they save for retirement and ultimately receive in Social Security benefits.
In light of the documented benefits of urban trees, we must also ensure that we increase green spaces in underserved communities throughout the city that lack adequate parks and other green spaces.
I am proud of the advances we have made in New York where we have continued a legacy of substantive HIV/AIDS policy, but we must continue the fight to end the epidemic and ensure an AIDS-free generation.
Without a doubt, the most fiscally responsible way to increase the number of officers on our streets is to mobilize uniformed officers in administrative jobs and to use civilian employees to fill those jobs.
We cannot justly seek to expand access to HASA and enroll more New Yorkers in the program, if we do not act to improve the program to ensure that tenants receive the benefits and services they are entitled to.
Some contractors force workers to provide paybacks to keep their jobs. Others intentionally misclassify workers in order to underpay them - by, for example, paying a skilled construction worker as a general laborer.
To my dismay, inadequate signage, non-ADA compliant ramps, narrow doorways, and poorly-placed voting machines are preventing hundreds of thousands of people from exercising one of our most basic rights as Americans.
Dysfunction in Washington has stalled any meaningful federal action on gun control. So it's increasingly up to big cities like New York to take bold steps to get weapons off our streets and change the national discourse.
Within New York City and state, families in need face a confusing hodgepodge of supplemental rental assistance programs, many of which are ineffective individually and all of which are clearly ineffective in the aggregate.
The Office of Attorney General should be independent and the Office of Attorney General should have the power to investigate without the approval of the governor of the state of New York. It's absolutely critically important.
All of my life and particularly throughout of my public career, I have been talking about the feminization of poverty. And one of the manifestations of the feminization of poverty is the issue of pay inequality in our society.
Our justice system allows district attorneys to be charged with the great responsibility of prosecuting the very same police officers they work side-by-side with every day and whose union support they seek when running for reelection.
The ADA prohibits discrimination and guarantees that people with disabilities receive the same opportunities as everyone else to participate in the mainstreams of American life, which includes participating in government programs and services.
If accessing the Internet becomes more difficult for low-income communities, academic and employment competition may be undermined, and could damage the prospects of upward mobility for low-income New Yorkers and further exacerbate income inequality.
Our system of government works best when there are checks and balances led by independent entities that are empowered to conduct fair and rigorous oversight. These are the same principles enshrined in the founding document of our country - our Constitution.
As Public Advocate for the City of New York, I will be working with the Administration for Children's Services and others to bring about necessary reforms - and ensure that our city meets its most solemn responsibility - protecting the welfare of our children.
Retirement shouldn't be making the choice between buying much-needed medication or putting food on the table; making the choice between heating an apartment in the cold winter months or paying rent; making the choice between paying a phone bill or seeing a doctor.
The workers who get hurt by corner-cutting often do not realize they are being wronged. Even when they do, they do not have the support and resources to fight back. Without a union to stand behind them, these workers are forced to stay in bad jobs, or face no job at all.
New York City must divest the hundreds of millions of dollars we have invested in Walmart for far too long, dollars that are only fueling violence and undermining the greater public interest. Once our nation's largest city does so, I know other states and municipalities will follow suit.
Before any family is placed in any type of shelter, there must be a thorough, top-to-bottom, building-wide inspection. These inspections must be ongoing and publicly accessible. There is no excuse for any person to be blindly put into an apartment without a guarantee that the space is safe.
Though few hiring managers would deliberately choose to offer women less money than their male counterparts, when using salary history to determine compensation, they unintentionally preserve the status quo. Too often, women will have a lower salary history, and, therefore get a lower offer.
Human induced climate change is real, and the evidence is right in front of us. It threatens our shores. It promises to bring intense heat waves and powerful storms. It has the power to disrupt our economy, endanger our food supply, and imperil global stability. We must take action to stop it.
For all the manufactured 'Republican versus Democrat' drama that dominates today's cable news and political rhetoric, the most striking feature of our present-day democracy is not partisan divide - it's a corrupt system that protects incumbents from the consequences that real democracy brings.
On the local, state and federal level, government is working alongside veteran's organizations and other stakeholders to provide services such as medical assistance, employment resources, and housing support to veterans and their dependents and survivors. But there are still gaps in services that must be rectified.
Like with all other crime, we must, of course, treat the perpetrators of these actions as the criminals they are. But unlike with the vast majority of other crime, justice is not delivered simply by punishing the perpetrator. This is because the harm associated with domestic violence extends far beyond the point of contact.
The reflex of police officers, when making the decision whether to use force and on what scale, must not be a result of instinctive bias, but on objective and discernible factors. As the enforcers of law and order, they have to adhere to the letter of the law and minimize the taints of biases and life long social conditioning.