The Thorn

Local News

The Mayor and City Council have reached an agreement on legislation requiring developers receiving city subsidies to set aside 15 percent of new housing for homeless individuals and families in buildings of 40 or more units. The deal could add roughly 1,000 new apartments for the homeless per year.
Deviating from his initial plan to only increase outreach to address homelessness, the Mayor announced that the City will create 2,000 apartments and beds in informal shelters in a bid to end chronic street homelessness in five years.
The MTA board approved a plan to hire 500 new transit cops as part of its $17 billion 2020 budget. Congress Members Ocasio-Cortez, Nadler, Serrano, and others had written a letter opposing this plan.
A preliminary analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice revealed that, like felonies, misdemeanor crimes are down on the subway, further calling into question the need for more police in the system.
Thousands of people lined up to receive their drivers license on Monday, the first day day the state’s Green Light law allowing undocumented immigrants to get licenses went into effect.
Female inmates at Manhattan’s Federal Metropolitan Correctional Center have reported freezing conditions in recent days, less than a year after Brooklyn’s Federal Metropolitan Detention Center reported massive heat outages in the middle of winter.
A state supreme court judge struck down the City’s plans to rezone Inwood.

The Working Families Party endorsed a slate of progressive incumbents facing right wing challenges in 2020, including State Senators Mike Gianaris and Julia Salazar, and Assembly Members Ron Kim and Yuh-Line Niou.
Republican State Senator Richard Funke of Rochester is the latest GOP senator to announce that he will not seek re-election. This brings the total of retiring GOP senators to eight out of 23, with more retirements potentially on the horizon.
City & State profiled all six candidates endorsed by NYC-DSA in the June 2020 primary.