Community Magazine October 2014

94 Community magazine Life in the Big City Expanded Citywide Initiative to Reduce Gun Violence Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito announced on August 13, 2014 the expansion of the city’s efforts to reduce gun violence, through the creation of the “Gun Violence Crisis Management System,” a citywide initiative to reduce gun violence. The new initiative will be implemented in numerous precincts which combine to account for 51 percent of shootings across the city. The program expands on a previous system that is centered around the “cure violence” model, and now includes “wrap around” services, programs that respond to meet the needs of every spectrum in the community that is impacted by gun violence. This new strategy employs evidence-based community interventions, anti-violence messaging, and support services in areas with high rates of gun violence. The cure violence model, an evidence-based public health approach, identifies and engages individuals most likely to be involved in gun violence and deploys interventions aimed at curbing that behavior before it occurs, including retaliatory shootings. The project employs “violence interrupters,” typically former gang members who have turned their lives around, to quell street disputes – intervening before escalation to gun violence – and links potential shooters to case management and supportive services. “While New York remains the safest big city in the nation and crime has continued to drop citywide, gun violence remains a challenge,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “With this initiative, we are creating a focused effort incorporating mental health services, legal services, and after-school programs - using models of proven success and targeting the communities where nearly half of the city’s shootings occur – into our effort to reduce gun violence and create a safer New York.” This $12.7 million initiative was funded jointly by the de Blasio administration and the City Council. Universal Pre-K Expansion After months of political dealing to obtain the hundreds of millions of dollars needed for expanded universal prekindergarten, 50,000 children entered pre-K throughout the city on Sept. 4 the Associated Press reported. The immense undertaking entails a dramatic rise in the number of pre-K students, from 20,000 last year to more than 50,000 this year. The number will soar again to 70,000 next fall. To fill those classrooms, the city unveiled a multimillion-dollar marketing blitz, hired a task force of phone operators to set up enrollments, and even used birth records to go door-to-door in neighborhoods to urge parents to sign up their children. The city hired and trained 1,000 new teachers this year, and plans to bring aboard another 1,000 for 2015, when the program reaches full capacity. More than a dozen city agencies are involved in the effort, including the Health Department and the Fire Department, to ensure the classrooms are well equipped and safe for small children. The city is using 600 Department of Education sites for classrooms, but since public school buildings do not have the space to accommodate the new students, over 1,100 community-based organizations – like day cares and religious schools – will also host the programs. A team of Education Department staffers has fanned out across the city over the last few weeks and will have inspected every classroom before the first day of school, said Deputy Mayor Richard Buery, the administration’s pre-K point person. The plan comes with a significant financial investment. De Blasio originally planned to pay for it with a tax increase on the richest NewYorkers, a proposal that died in the chambers of the State Capitol. But with persistent pressure, the mayor persuaded Gov. Andrew Cuomo to step in and devote $300 million in state funding, which the city will supplement by redirecting an additional $200 million or so in early education funds. The speedy rollout – New York is trying to do in months what smaller cities like Boston did in years – has worried some education advocates. Fears include community-based organizations having unsafe classroom spaces, rookie teachers being ill-prepared, and scores of religious institutions hosting secular classrooms. New York City Municipal Schedule Occasion Day Date Alt Side Garbage Collection Parking Banks & Post Offices Yom Kippur Saturday October 4 Suspended Normal Holiday Open Observance Saturday – Monday October 4-6 Suspended Normal Normal Open Succoth: First/Second Day Thursday-Friday October 9-10 Suspended Normal Normal Open Columbus Day Monday October 13 Suspended Suspended Normal Closed Shemini Aseret/Simha Torah Thursday-Friday October 16-17 Suspended Normal Normal Open Observance Thursday October 23 Suspended Normal Normal Open Observance Saturday November 1 Suspended Normal Normal Open Election Day Tuesday November 4 Suspended Suspended Normal Open Mayor Bill de Blasio